Saturday, November 26, 2011

Chapter One

Chapter One

I stood there as still as a statue. My tangled blonde hair whipped across my face—slapping my pale skin. The town was just awakening as I stared past the morning fog, burning a hole into the pavement on the other side of the road. As I waited for the school bus to turn the corner onto Tree Comb Street, I couldn't help but think of how wrong this felt ... how wrong everything felt. It was my first day of school and my mother had already managed to "kindly offer" me a back-to-school outfit and then guilt-trip me into wearing it. She was my mother, after all. The ruffled white skirt was uncooperative in the wind and the unfamiliar "latest style" flats pinched my toes. Converse were more my type. My mother always complained that I was not a normal teenager, I was different. She always wanted me to look more like the other girls, more like I tried to make an effort, but apparently, her idea of "making an effort" was slightly different than mine. I knew she was worried about me; teachers complained, and I could hear her, every night, whispering to my Uncle Jerry about my supposed social outcast status. Though she didn't realize it, she was quite wrong. I had good grades, perfect attendance, and people took quite a liking to me. Sadly, the feeling wasn't mutual. I knew my mother thought I couldn't make friends because of my past, but that wasn't fully true, either. I could be friendly if I wanted, I just chose not to. Simply because I devoted my spare time to books (to put the phrase lightly), did not mean there was something wrong with me. Naturally, I preferred to bury my head into Shakespeare or science fiction rather than romances and Elle magazines.
My mother would always complain about how I wasn't a normal sixteen year old.
"When I talk to you, I feel like I'm talking to another adult," she would moan.
As the ruddy old bus approached me, huffing and puffing like a cigarette smoker, the feeling which overwhelmed me was how alone I felt, not that I wasn't used to the sense of loneliness.
The school bus came to a sudden halt, inches away from my face. I picked up my bag and stumbled up the worn-down stairway with my awkward, skinny legs. They were my mother's, those legs; apparently the only bad trait I had inherited from her, she claimed. I could remember her lecturing me about them as if it were yesterday.
"Melinda, you are such a klutz. What will we ever do with you?" she nagged.
Other than the times when I didn't live up to her standard as a daughter, though, she would tell me how beautiful I was.
"Curiously beautiful," she would coo.
I received that comment frequently, even from strangers. I refuse to call it a compliment, though. To be curiously beautiful, even exotic for that matter, wasn't at the top of my list of aspirations. It didn't even come close. In fact, my unique quality, as everyone called it, was merely a distraction to others, who, in turn, were a distraction to me. Boys fawning over me in class while I tried to focus on my studies was not the delightful experience it is made out to be. Most important, though, was the fact that, when staring at my reflection in the mirror, I saw nothing the least bit appealing staring back. Not that I thought I was in any way unattractive, I was just a plain girl; pixie-faced with an ivory skin tone, emerald green eyes, and loose, wavy hair, the color of straw. I never thought anything of the whole ordeal concerning my appearance. After all, to me, beauty was only skin deep. This, of course, is a well known cliché, but I believe it has the right to be popular. It bares truth. Allowing my mind to wander as I walked down the aisle of the bus, I hadn't the slightest hint of what was yet to come; what event would slowly, but surely, turn my world on its axis.

Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

connection By Monica G. Krek iUniverse, Inc. Copyright © 2011 Monica G. Krek All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4502-7522-4 Chapter One I stood there as still as a statue. My tangled blonde hair whipped across my face—slapping my pale skin. The town was just awakening as I stared past the morning fog, burning a hole into the pavement on the other side of the road. As I waited for the school bus to turn the corner onto Tree Comb Street, I couldn't help but think of how wrong this felt ... how wrong everything felt. It was my first day of school and my mother had already managed to "kindly offer" me a back-to-school outfit and then guilt-trip me into wearing it. She was my mother, after all. The ruffled white skirt was uncooperative in the wind and the unfamiliar "latest style" flats pinched my toes. Converse were more my type. My mother always complained that I was not a normal teenager, I was different. She always wanted me to look more...

booksamillion link

http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Connection/Monica-G-Krek/9781450275224?id=5117133327636#overview

Free Preview

I looked over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t going to miss any pranks he wanted to pull on me while I wasn’t watching. The sight that I encountered surprised me. He was beaming! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The kid that I had yelled at and tried to ignore a minute ago was just sitting there, beaming at me! To my astonishment, he stuck out his hand in front of him and smiled, “By the way, I’m Josh.”
MONICA KREK lived in Boston, Seattle and Naples, Florida and is currently attending the University of Miami as a freshman Music Business Major. Music and writing are the two most important things in her life. Her love of writing has kept her dedicated to her longtime hobby as she sits in her dorm room in the wee hours of the morning, fleshing out her characters. She has been playing the violin for over fourteen years and is a member of the University of Miami’s Orchestra. Monica is currently working on her second book and hopes to write many more in the future.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Press Release!


Connection
Young Adult Fiction Book
Monica Krek is a young Naples author/ resident who writes as a hobby and has just published her first book. Below is a little sample she has written to explain the motivation behind the book. The book itself,
 Connection, is about a teenage girl who likes to live inside her own head. Upon meeting a strange boy, she becomes more aware of her surroundings and the connections she makes with other people in her community. The book is considered Young Adult fiction and most appealing to girls ages 10-17. You can find  the book on Amazon (link in the other posts :) )
 
Monica’s motivation behind the book:
Parents always think their kids can do anything. Mine are no exception. My childhood was filled with music lessons, play auditions, academic events, sports, you name it. Anything and everything I showed even a remote interest in, my parents made sure I had a chance to excel. Thank goodness for that. So, when they noticed that I could form pretty decent sentences which could form amusing anecdotes, which could potentially become lengthy enough to create a full blown novel, they encouraged me to explore all of the facets that the world of writing comes with.  My sister and I would stage writing competitions in which we had to write a story about a random word awarded to us by our mom. We would sit in my room and conjure up plot ideas, poems, and lyrics, anything that involved a flow of words. And so my creative juices began to flow and scene ideas began to emerge from the dimly lit library in my brain. This is where Melinda was born-- as were Josh and Jerry and the entirety of the Connection family. At first I was just scribbling out scenes and forming connections between characters. School became grueling and sports became rigorous and so my alternate reality was put on hold until further notice. But then, about a year later, my parents got a hold of the draft and there was no going back. They were convinced I had gone too far with this project to let it just sit in my closet. After a few phone calls, the deal was done. My very first published book would soon make a debut. Only during this process did I realize how much I missed writing.  My style had matured, as had my voice, and I was ready for ‘round two’. As a story ends, another one begins. Let’s hope it won’t take another few years, gathering dust in my closet, to finish it up.

Book Overview

Melinda is every book's best friend.
Josh wants to be Melinda's best friend.
Melinda has a dark past.
Josh has a darker past.

When Josh moves into Melinda's small town, she wants absolutely nothing to do with him. Richie, the high school jock, already gives her enough trouble. But Josh is determined to convince this blue-eyed beauty to take her nose out of her book and give him a chance. Even with much persuasion, Melinda is hesitant to do so. She wants to know more about this handsome stranger that has walked into her life. But what happens when she pries too deep into his past? What happens when his past comes back to haunt him and decides to take Melinda along for the ride?

Join these two teenagers in a thrilling story of youthful romance, small town adventure, and painful heartbreak as they embark on a journey of discovering themselves and each other.