No Such Thing as Perfect by Sarah Daltry Book Blitz and Giveaway

 

 Book & Author Details:

 

No Such Thing as Perfect by Sarah Daltry
Publication date: December 11th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

  

Synopsis:

College was supposed to be perfect. She was supposed to be perfect.

For Lily Drummond, life is about following the rules. To be specific, her mother’s rules. College fit into the plan – maintain perfect grades, date the perfect guy, and live the perfect life. On her own, though, Lily realizes that she doesn’t actually have a plan. Without being told what to think and do, she keeps making mistakes.

Away from home, the perfect facade is beginning to shatter. When Lily herself starts to break, it’s the support of an unlikely friend that teaches her how much of a lie perfect really is – and how to be whole on her own terms.

No Such Thing as Perfect was inspired by Sarah's Flowering series, but it stands completely alone as its own title. The same characters appear and some situations are similar, but this was written with a different goal in mind. There is NO on-camera sex in this novel and it is not a "romance" novel by most standards, but a story of growing up and being okay with who you are. 

 

For more info, visit Sarah's website http://sarahdaltry.com/2014/12/09/inspiration-for-no-such-thing-as-perfect/

 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23666678-no-such-thing-as-perfect

 

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AUTHOR BIO

Sarah Daltry is a varied author, known best for the contemporary New Adult series, 'Flowering', a six-title series that explores the complexities of relationships, including how we survive the damage from our pasts with the support of those who love us. Although the books are no longer in print, they are being rewritten and redeveloped for future publication. Please visit Sarah's website for more details.

 

As a former English teacher and YA library coordinator, Sarah has always loved Young Adult literature and 'Dust', an epic fantasy novel where romance blends with the blood and grit of war, is her second official foray into YA, following the gamer geek romantic comedy, 'Backward Compatible'. Most of Sarah's work is about teens and college students, as it's what she knows well.

Sarah's passion in life is writing - weaving tales of magic and beauty. The modern and vast social networking world is an alternative universe that she makes infrequent trips to, but when she does, readers will find her attentive, friendly and happy to discuss the magic of stories and reading. Please stop by and say hello anywhere Sarah is online! You can find these places at http://sarahdaltry.com

Sarah has moved back and forth between independent and traditional publishing. Her first novel, 'Bitter Fruits', is with Escape, an imprint of Harlequin Australia, and she signed with Little Bird Publishing in the spring of 2014.

Sarah has also written 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,' a reimagining of one of her favorite poems in a contemporary setting.
She is an obsessive Anglophile who spends more time watching BBC TV than any human being should, as well as a hardcore gamer and sarcastic nerd.

Author links:

http://sarahdaltry.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sarahdaltrybooks

https://twitter.com/SarahDaltry

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7012679.Sarah_Daltry

Excerpt:

The glow-in-the-dark stars look pathetic in the darkness. There are only about twelve and they don’t look like the night sky; instead they look like they got lost in the black and can’t find their way back to light.

Derek’s snoring, having fallen asleep quickly, but I can’t stop thinking. My mind is doing that thing it does when I overanalyze and make problems where there aren’t any and I want to turn it off. I want to be happy with my boyfriend’s arm draped over my body. I want the closeness to feel like it should.

Maybe I read too many books. I guess I always thought being in love would feel comfortable. It’s not that Derek doesn’t try, but sometimes I’m so afraid. If he pauses too long when I ask him if something looks okay or if his upper lip twitches like it does sometimes when I do something wrong, I can’t escape the doubt. Worry is like an endless ocean and my arms are just too tired to keep swimming.

I slip out from under his arm and head to the bathroom. I don’t really have to go, but lying in the dark room isn’t putting my mind at ease and so I pace the hall. The lights flicker, poor illumination because they’re an afterthought; dorm halls aren’t somewhere people spend their time. I consider going to find Kristen, or texting Abby even though I know she’s in some foreign city and it will cost too much and she’s probably doing amazing things. I even consider calling my parents to admit something is broken in me. But I can already hear the arguments. I’m fine. Everything is fine.

“Scottie dogs? What a fashion statement.”

Jack’s coming out of the elevator, carrying a guitar case. I almost start to cry knowing someone is seeing me like this.

“Sorry. I was just…” I look around. I wasn’t just anything. I’m standing in the dim hallway by the elevator in the middle of the night wearing my pajamas.

“Yeah, I was just…, too,” he says. “Want some coffee? I hear the lounge is lovely at this hour. There’s all the Styrofoam a lady could desire.”

“I-” I’m about to tell him I have a boyfriend, that I can’t just drink coffee with him, but that’s dumb. What’s wrong with coffee? Derek’s asleep, I’m restless, and it’s just coffee. It certainly beats standing around by the elevator trying not to cry. “Sure. Coffee sounds good.”

“Awesome. Let me just drop this off and grab some, okay?” He gestures to his guitar case and I follow him. He’s just down the hall – in the guys’ wing – and I make mental note of his room number. I don’t know why I do, but it’s etched on my brain before I realize what I’m doing. 401. Jack in 401.

“Did your roommate go home for the weekend?” I ask. He opens the door, tosses his case into a dark room, rummages loudly and knocks something over, and closes it again, coffee in hand.

“I don’t have a roommate.”

“Oh. I didn’t know there were singles here.”

He stops and looks at his door, then down at his shoes. “It’s… a long story. Anyway, coffee?” When he looks up, there’s a distinct change in his expression. It’s pain wrapped in fear of acknowledging it; I know the look well.

In the lounge, he makes coffee, but the machine is old and the water is from the fountain in the hall, so the coffee just tastes like heat. There is no flavor or pleasure in drinking it, except it’s warm and it’s quiet in the lounge. Jack is picking the Styrofoam cup apart as he drains it. I don’t know why it feels like normal. I thought I knew normal, but suddenly this feels like what it should have been all along.

“So you’re not a freshman?” I ask.

“Junior.”

“Your major?”

“Game Design. And you’re English.”

“How’d you know?”

He’s finished turning the cup into pieces and he swaps the pile between his palms, looking at me the entire time. His eyes have danced through every human emotion in the few short interactions we’ve had. I didn’t know anyone had the kind of depth I see in them.

“Lucky guess. Plus you’ve read Sense and Sensibility several times, which seems like an English major thing to do,” he says.

“Yet you know the character names,” I point out.

“Yeah, but I’m not…” He shakes his head. I don’t know what the sentence was supposed to end with, but he’s not continuing. “Besides, you came out of Joliet Hall, which is Humanities. I suppose you could just be taking a lit class, but it seemed a decent guess.”

“Well, you’re right. I’m predictable,” I say.

 

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Holiday Giveaway - Win 2 YA Paranormal Ebooks

It's the holidays so money is probably tight. Not much left over for your book budget? Love Young Adult fiction? How about Paranormal? Enter below for a chance to win 2 Young Adult Paranormal eBooks from yours truly (Me!) and the fabulous Jolyn Palliata.

Which books, you ask? Take a peek.

ENTERTAINING ANGELS by Monica Millard

As a senior in high school, Samantha Heman’s too busy trying to avoid getting stomped by a moose at the bus stop and keeping her grades up until graduation to put much thought into angels or demons.

That all changes on the day she is kidnapped by notorious serial killer, Christopher Hainsely. It’s a day she finds herself confronted by both evil and good, because her savior appears in the form of an avenging angel come to strike the monster down with a single stroke of his flaming sword.

Though she’s trying to get on with her life, she cannot get the angel out of her head. It isn’t the burning wings, fiery eyes or the flaming sword that keeps her searching the internet for proof one way or another of his existence, though.

The feeling of warmth she experienced when she witnessed that sad smile just before he vanished in a wash of golden light, haunts her nights almost as often as the nightmares.

If angels exist, then demons must too, and they’re about to wage a war for her soul.

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AMBER EYES by Jolyn Palliata

"Eyes are the window to the soul, in a time when souls are ancient."

After an accident, one she shouldn’t have walked away from, Lexi’s life finally begins. She meets Dez, a new student with the most beautiful eyes she’s ever seen. And since gazing into them, Lexi has had vivid waking dreams that pull her back through time, and into the warm embrace of a mysterious stranger—a stranger who becomes all too familiar. When offering an explanation for her detailed visions, Dez changes her world forever with two simple words: Soul mates.

For the first time in her life, Lexi feels safe and complete. But lingering in the shadows is the embodiment of evil, coveting the light within her. He’s a threat to Lexi’s very existence, and to a love that has transcended time.  









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Arcadia by Hope Christine

Ever since Sky Captain Lemise Holdif was a boy, he’s been faced with the End of Days. For decades an unknown enemy has been systematically wiping out life in the galaxy, starting with the most advanced societies. Now Arcadia, a world built from the trash of an entire galaxy, is the only planet left capable of distant space travel, and the next target. Lemise is desperate to save his home world, but his plans are interrupted when an alien visitor transports onto his ship.
Lead Specialist Paelae Madison is the last of her kind. The only survivor of the First Attack, and bent on revenge for the destruction of her people. In desperation, she teleports onto an Arcadian ship and offers aid in the coming war. Arcadia sees her as a hero, but Lemise is weary to trust a stranger who’s survived over five hundred previous battles.
Together the two fight to defeat an enemy far more advanced, and far more cunning than Arcadia has ever known. But extinction lurks around every corner, and The Enemy isn’t the only one threatening to destroy the world.

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Take a Peek at Arcadian Culture:

Arcadia is a junkyard planet but it collects more than just broken ships. Before it was a recognized planet, it had been a place of refuge for lost voyagers. Eventually it began to collect people like it collected trashed technology. Some were refugees, others were stranded after running out of money for their journey, and some were simply shunned from their own worlds.

With so many different people there’s a lot of borrowed pieces of culture that has been meshed together to form the Arcadian way of life. For example: they love to refurbish or repurpose technology but it is the highest crime of their court systems to help create or aide in the creation of cyborgs: part human, part technology. Don’t improve what man did not make.

The law developed from their belief that a soul cannot find the World Beyond unless the body is whole. It makes navigating the Field of Stars, a type of purgatory, difficult because a partial soul would have to wait for a whole soul to help guide them. This belief was stolen from the Monks on the planet Maldeen who had a very different lifestyle, rarely traveling into space.

Paelae is the outsider on Arcadia, she comes from a more crisp and clean way of traveling space. It’s like taking Captain Picard and putting him on the Serenity. She has a hard time adjusting to their way of life but as you read it from her perspective you begin to pick up on where all those bits and pieces of Arcadian society came from.

Lemise, who is born on Arcadia and has had little contact with other races (since most just fire at them for scavenging the graves of the dead) sees Paelae’s past life on the Imladian ships as very excessive and wasteful. In this way, as well as others, they tend to clash.

As the story progresses you can really see how Paelae’s and Lemise’s culture begin to shape who they become from a young age. 

Read an Excerpt:

Officers stumbled over each other in preparation for the day ahead. As soon as the first rays of purple sunshine peaked over the city, a line had started to form for the bathrooms, and Paelae was thrust back into the world of the living with a jolt. Sweat covered her face, and her breathing was too rapid.

Despite the cramped space, the other women gave her a reasonable berth, some eying her while checking their weapons.

Had she screamed in her sleep? The nights had grown increasingly rare when she didn’t have a nightmare.

“Hey.” Paelae sat up and tugged the clothes out of her trunk. She ran a hand over the purple and black jumpsuit provided for her; it felt wrong, wearing the colors of another people. It was the first time anyone offered her a uniform. She preferred the Imladian one; it was familiar.

“Hey.” This time she looked up, noticing that the one-word sentence had been directed to her.

A woman stood at the end of her bed, arms crossed and legs apart as if at ease. “Name’s Benni. I’m your guard.”

Of course, the woman from the ship. 

Benni was a head shorter than Paelae and bore the markings of a low rank.

“I’m Paelae,” she said and stood to greet Benni with a hard stare. “I’m your…” She searched for an appropriate word.

“Ally,” Benni finished for her. “Sky cap’s waiting outside for you.”

Paelae took the cue and began her attempt to navigate out of the barracks, jumping over beds and weaving around people until she reached the metal door. Outside, the world was tainted purple as the sun filtered through Arcadia’s atmospheric shielding, a product of too many chemical bombs. What had once been a rushed patch job to keep air on the planet had since evolved into a last line of defense worthy of acknowledgment. It was one of few things Arcadians boasted about among the planets—when the planets still existed.

Captain Lemise stood just outside the barrack doors, looking across the miles of asphalt designated for intergalactic travel. Bordering the west side of the airfield and encroaching fast upon the north, were piles of rejected technology and broken spaceships tossed out by hundreds of different races. 

That’s how Arcadia had started, as a junkyard, but then lost voyagers found a home on it, attracting others—from those shunned by their own people to travelers broken down with no funds to continue on their journey. Eventually, it became a home for those who had nowhere else to go, and scavenging became more than an act of survival; it became a trade.

Most of the north and east were surrounded by low-class, brick apartment buildings, meant for the soldiers and their families.

“You’re not in uniform.” Lemise deduced upon seeing her. “If you want on my Chasers, you wear my uniform.”

Paelae shrugged. “Bathroom line was too long to change.”

Lemise began to walk away. “Then wake up earlier.”

Paelae walked close behind with Benni in tow as the sky captain began to explain. “Miss Demitri is our chief innovation and engineering specialist; with a screwdriver and a handful of computer chips, she could change a toaster into an engine. You will work beside her under close supervision. I want a particle shield by the end of the week.”

She almost laughed. Particle shields were difficult with the right materials, but with makeshift metals and roundabout wiring, he would be lucky if it turned on in three weeks.

“In exchange, you will work beside me in the evenings,” he continued.

Lemise didn’t expand any further on her evening expectations, but Paelae suspected they would be dull at best until Lemise began to trust her better.

“Unless there are complications. Then I will jettison you out of an airlock in EWAN territory. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. Centuries of military training had drilled the habit into her.

He led them to a jeep, and another soldier drove them east to a warehouse that stood ten stories tall. Behind it, a mesh, wire gate separated civilian from soldiers. Paelae watched as a group of young boys tossed a ball back and forth to each other, running down a deserted street to throw it in a trash can.

They used to play a similar game on the cityship as trainees. It was one of the few bits and pieces they had smuggled from the Earthen culture, played in secret when the officers had left.

Once, General Amir had caught them midgame when he came to get Paelae for sparring lessons. Anything Earthen was not to be spoken of or remembered in any way, but she had been rebellious as all teenagers were those days. Everyone had frozen in place. The terror coursing through their bodies made them forget to even salute. Trying to run would have been devastating.

Amir had walked between them, assessing the trainees. He had been furious, but his anger hadn’t been displayed in shouting or beating; it had filled the silence that spread between moments in time.

“Madison,” he addressed with a calm, collected demeanor, turning to look at her. “Why do we not register Earth as a planet in our systems?”

She didn’t reply.

“Madison!” This time the words were forceful, bringing her back from the past. Lemise and Benni had already departed from the vehicle and waited for her.

With a sigh, she shook the memory away, letting it dissipate into the morning air and jumped out of the jeep.

Lemise led them through an open garage door. Inside, the warehouse resembled a miniature junkyard. As Paelae looked closer, she could tell that the piles had been organized to some degree. One had wire, another had chips, and a third was weaponry.

“Demitri!” Lemise called. A clatter of metal followed, and the sky captain took that as a cue. They wove in and out of large piles and then climbed over smaller ones until the ground could be seen again. A giant square of cleared floor sat under an open roof, and near the opposite end, a young woman drew up schematics on a metalwork table.

“Demitri,” Lemise called again as they walked up to her.

Demitri glanced up through layers of grease stains and smudges of dirt. Bright red hair fell in a tangled mess past her shoulders, held back by a set of goggles. Deep, blue crescents were visible beneath her eyes, as if the woman had been bruised. 

“Did you sleep here last night?” He didn’t address her as a soldier, nor did she wear a uniform. Instead, brown overalls adorned her skeletal frame, and a belt of odd tools kept it hanging up.

Demitri gave him a confused look. “No. I’ve only just arrived.”

“You were supposed to be in an hour ago,” Lemise said as the military eased back into his speech.

“I was delayed,” she said and threw her arms open. “It’s not like I don’t stay past midnight anyway. Every genius needs sleep. Is this the Imladian?”

Lemise pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “This is Madison.”

Demitri stepped around the table and snatched Paelae’s arm up, pushing back the black leather sleeve. After a moment, Demitri let out a whistle. “That’s a particle shield all right. I’ll need the big guns for those supplies.”

“One week,” Lemise said.

Demitri laughed before realizing he was serious. “Two weeks, sleep, free meals, and you throw in that glass plating I need to fix the Mirage.”

“One week, no sleep, free breakfast, and you fix the Mirage because it’s your job, not a bargaining chip.”

“Two weeks, no sleep, and lunches.”

“A week and a half, sleep, and no food.”

Demitri was about to throw in another bargain when a little girl ran out from behind a pile of piping. She held up a colored picture with evident pride, tugging on Demitri’s pants and grunting to get her attention.

“A week and a half, no sleep, and forget this happened,” Demitri said as she placed a hand on her daughter’s head. “The daycare was filled, and Pops is working cross-continent. I wouldn’t bring her unless it was my only option, I swear.”

Lemise knelt down to the girl’s level. “Hello, Demi.” He smiled.

Demi held up her picture of colorful stick figures, grunting as she pointed in stunted movements at each one.

“I see.” Lemise took her picture and gave it a further inspection. “It is a beautiful picture. Will you draw me one?”

Paelae watched in mild horror. Demi was broken. On the cityship, they considered it a mercy to chloroform such children at birth, if they made it that far without detection; and it shocked her that all those years she never thought twice about it. Never before had she encountered one on other planets, though she’d heard stories.

Lemise stood, turning back to Demitri. “Will she be okay around new faces?”

“Yeah, she’s better with it now.” Demitri cracked her knuckles in anticipation.

“A week and a half, no sleep, and lunches,” he offered.

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Lemise said and left, disappearing behind piles of trash.

Demitri pulled a chair up for her daughter to continue drawing, and then lounged back in one of her own.

“You named her after yourself,” Paelae stated when the silence had extended beyond comfort.

“Of course I did. She’s a Devonian.” Demitri fiddled with the lenses on her goggles.

Paelae nodded, though she didn’t know what that meant. “Should we get started, then?”

Demitri tossed her a pencil. “Copy your arm, please.”

She looked at the writing instrument with amusement. Once, this had been the only way to transcribe thoughts, but it had been centuries since she used one. “I don’t know how to use this.”

That caught Demitri’s attention. “You don’t know how to use a pencil?”

“Not anymore, no.”

Demitri laughed. “Aliens, sometimes you get too advanced for your own good. Come here. I’ll do it.” Another pencil was pulled from the depths of her ponytail. “Please tell me you can at least use a welder.”

About the Author:

Hope Christine was born in Arizona and raised in Colorado. Her youth was spent in Narnia and her teenage years in Middle-Earth. Like most, she grew up with reluctance and then attended college for multiple degrees before settling on Linguistics.

Today she studies Middle-Eastern languages and works in retail.

She’s opinionated, blunt, loves to bike, and bares an extreme hate of peaches.

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Then he still wins

 

Pre-order now! Entertaining Angels is available November 11th.

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