Hi! Today marks the one year anniversary of Pieces of Us by my pub sis Hannah Downing! And she's celebrating it with a really fun blog hop where you can WIN some awesome prizes. I've grabbed some info from Hannah's blog to further explain how the hop works, the prizes, and below is a guest post you need to make sure to read! Thanks! And Happy Anniversary to Pieces of Us, Hannah!
"For those of you who haven't been on a blog hop before, let me explain how it works. At the bottom of this page is a 'Linky Tool' which has a list of all the websites participating in the Blog Hop. You have to go to each of these websites, read the post they have about Pieces of Us and collect a letter that will be included in the post. The letter should be easy to find, it is in a purple box. Once you have read all the great posts about my novel (which I will give you more details on in a minute) you MUST leave a comment on each website and collect the letter. When you have all the letters, you can scramble them to make your winning word/s. When you know what the winning word is, email it to me at -
hannahdowning81@gmail.com with your name and I will enter you into the draw to win the prizes. I will be checking that each entrant has left a comment on every blog so please be kind and show the author hosts some love!!
Now, what are these prizes that you could win? I know you are all dying to find out!! You could win -
- A signed paperback copy of Pieces of Us
- One of 5 signed promo cards for Pieces of Us
- One of 3 ebooks of Pieces of Us
- A $20 Amazon gift card"
Hannah: Hi everyone and thanks so much to Trisha for hosting me on her website today! I hope you are all enjoying the blog hop so far. This post is going to give you a bit of the history of Pieces of Us. Those of you who have read the book will remember in chapter eleven there is a scene where Cameron and Owen have a physical fight and Charlotte has a flashback memory to another fight that Cameron had when they were first starting to date. The following scene was the original flashback. Give it a read and then I will tell you at the end the reasons that it was changed to the scene that is currently in the book.
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“What did you think?” Cameron asked as we walked out of the cinema. He slung his arm over my shoulder casually and I felt my heart start to beat faster at his touch.
“I liked it.” I gave him a coy smile.
“Me too,” Cameron said eagerly as his fingertips grazed my upper arm. I felt a jolt of electricity pass through me and I snuggled in closer to his side.
We had been dating for about a month and despite my better judgement, I was falling head over heels for Cameron Harper. The movie was our sixth official date and we had sat through the whole thing with our knees touching and our hands clasped together.
“Hey!” a loud voice called from behind us.
Cameron and I kept walking, thinking that the guy must be calling after someone else but then I heard loud footsteps behind us and Cameron looked back over his shoulder curiously.
“Wait up,” the guy said, breathing heavily from chasing us.
Cameron stopped walking and I waited with him.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked the guy when he came level with us.
“One sec,” the man said between breaths. “Ahhh, there is a guy back there who was calling after you and I said I’d chase you down for him.”
“What guy?” Cameron asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know him. I was just standing in line for the movie and he was yelling for you to wait but he didn’t have anyone to save his place in the line so I left my wife to hold our spot and I came after you. It was a big guy… tall… you know?” he explained vaguely.
Cameron nodded his head and thanked the man before pulling me back towards the cinema. “It must be Ryan,” he said.
“Do you mind if I wait here?” I asked.
“Why?” he queried, his eyebrows shooting up.
I didn’t want to tell him that my feet were killing me and that if I walked back down the block I may collapse in agony. I knew that I shouldn’t have let Lucy convince me to wear her stilettos to a movie, so I came up with a less embarrassing excuse.
“I’m not feeling that well, I’ll just wait here for you to come back.” He looked at me and shook his head to let me know that he wasn’t going to leave me standing there alone.
“I’ll be fine really, just tell Ryan that we’re going home,” I assured him.
“I’ll just be two minutes,” he said, before turning and jogging back to the theatre. I dug around in my purse and pulled out my cell phone and leaned against the nearest wall. I searched through the phone’s menu until I got to the games and then started a new game of ‘Snake’. Lucy and I had challenged each other to see who could get to the highest level and I knew I could use this few minutes to practice, because she was beating me.
“That your boyfriend?” the guy who had chased us asked.
I looked up confused; I had assumed that he would return to the theatre with Cameron.
“Uhhh, yeah?” I said with little conviction. Cameron and I hadn’t defined our relationship yet and even though he wasn’t listening right now it didn’t feel right to claim him as my boyfriend without his consent.
“New boyfriend,” the guy said with a smile, picking up on my uncertainty in defining us. “So, it’s not serious then. I’m Craig.” He held out his hand but I ignored it.
“Hi,” I said before looking back at my phone and directing the small snake around the screen.
Craig’s hand rested on my shoulder and his index finger brushed my neck.
“That was rude,” he drawled.
“Excuse me?” I asked, stepping away from him.
“I introduced myself and you didn’t tell me your name… it was rude. Now, let’s try that again. I’m Craig,” he said firmly.
“Ch… Charlotte,” I said, taking another step backwards as he stepped towards me. “Charlotte,” he said with a smile. “There, now was that so hard?”
I shook my head and looked back over my shoulder to see if there was anyone else around, surely some of the people in the movie we had just seen would be hanging around. The street was empty and I felt panic start to bubble in my chest.
“Where are you running to?” Craig asked, as I started to back away and when I looked back towards him, he was standing right in front of me and his hands grasped my shoulders firmly. I struggled against him but he wouldn’t let go.
Up close, he smelled of beer and cigarettes and I silently prayed that Cameron would bring Ryan back with him so that Craig would just walk away without any trouble.
Craig was stepping forward and forcing me to stumble backwards until I was pressed against the wall and I opened my mouth to scream.
“Uh uh, none of that,” he said as he clamped his hand over my mouth. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered against my ear before his moist lips pressed against my neck and he pushed his body hard against mine.
I felt tears starting to run down my cheeks when suddenly Craig was gone. I opened my eyes and saw Craig and Cameron circling each other, both with furious looks on their faces.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cameron yelled.
“Just lookin’ after your girl,” Craig taunted with a large grin.
Cameron scowled and launched himself at Craig. I stared on, horrified as Cameron’s fist made contact with Craig’s jaw and I heard a loud crack before Craig screamed in pain and blood sprayed on my left shoe.
“Cameron, don’t!” I yelled and he turned to me, a startled look on his face as if he had forgotten that I was there. His expression instantly changed to concerned and he ran over to me.
“Are you ok?” he asked, pulling me into a hug and stroking his fingers through my hair.
“I’m fine… can we just go?” I pleaded.
“Yeah,” Cameron said, looking back over his shoulder at Craig who was now jogging back towards the cinema.
As soon as Craig’s retreating form turned the corner I relaxed and ran my fingers gently over Cameron’s knuckles as we walked to his car. I could see the bruise forming under his skin and I looked up into his eyes. I had never seen Cameron angry before; it was a completely different side of him and it scared me a little.
~~~~~~~~
So, what did you all think? This scene had Cameron leaving Charlotte alone with a strange man on a street at night which after some consideration, it was decided between my editor and myself that it was totally out of character. So, I rewrote the scene so that Cam was running late and Charlotte was approached by the man before Cam arrived.
I hope you’ll leave a comment about what you think of this alternate scene and give Trisha some love for hosting me. She has some great books of her own that I think you should all check out!!
Don’t forget to grab the LETTER and move along Blog Hop to the next spot.
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