SBBS: Day 15 ~ Kate Avelynn

Spring Break Blog Spectacular ~ Kate Avelynn Guest Blog and Giveaway


Today's guest is Kate Avelynn whose debut YA novel, Flawed will be released July 10, 2012 by Entangled Teen. Today we have a guest post from Kate - or to be more precise, Flawed's main character Sarah - and then a swag giveaway.

First Flawed's synopsis:


FLAWED by Kate Avelynn 

Sarah O’Brien is only alive because of the pact she and her brother made twelve years ago—James will protect her from their violent father if she promises to never leave him. For years, she’s watched James destroy his life to save hers. If all he asks for in return is her affection, she’ll give it freely.
Until, with a tiny kiss and a broken mind, he asks for more than she can give.Sam Donavon has been James’s best friend—and the boy Sarah’s had a crush on—for as long as she can remember. As their forbidden relationship deepens, Sarah knows she’s in trouble. Quiet, serious Sam has decided he’s going to save her. Neither of them realize James is far more unstable than her father ever was, or that he’s not about to let Sarah forget her half of the pact...

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Guest Blog:


Spring Break Lost, from Sarah O’Brien’s POV:

For those of us unfortunate enough to live in Granite Falls, Spring Break is pretty much the highlight of the school year. It doesn’t matter that in Oregon, it’s still cold as hell and usually raining in April; everyone throws their gear, some junk food, and a cooler full of beer into the back of someone’s truck, and heads up to Mack Lake for a week of soggy partying.

For the first time ever, my brother is letting me come along

James tosses me my tattered green duffel bag and gets to work unloading the pile of supplies he, Sam, and Alex spent the last week pulling together—supplies that include Alex’s deluxe eight-man tent, and a much smaller two-person tent I assume is mine. It’s never been safe for me to have my own bedroom, so the idea of having any space to myself, even if it’s cold and smells like sour beer cans, is more than worth braving a moss-infested forest.

Images of Sam sneaking into my tiny tent dance through my mind like pattering raindrops.

Heat spreads across my cheeks, though it’ll never happen. Even if Sam—my brother’s very intense, very not-interested-in-me best friend—knew that I spend most nights imagining what it’d feel like to kiss him, James is always there, reminding me to stay away. He’s not good for you, James said last night while we were lying in his bed, listening to our father’s drunken snores echo through the walls. No one is.

I tug my long sleeves over the faded yellow bruises that circle my wrist. James is right. I know he’s right. And yet, when Sam glances at me from across the campsite, I don’t want him to be.

As soon as he looks away, I slump against our campsite’s picnic table and watch the guys wrestle with Alex’s eight-man tent. The rain that dumped on us back in town has dissipated into a mist that makes Sam’s t-shirt cling to his body. Alex, in typical Alex fashion, whipped off his shirt the second we got here, blinding everyone within a two mile radius with the kind of pale skin only found on people who’ve spent their whole lives in the Northwest.

Even though it can’t be more than fifty degrees out, I hope against hope Sam will take off his shirt, too. I need to know what’s hanging from the chain around his neck that teases me whenever he moves. That chain has fueled almost as many daydreams as his dark eyes and even darker hair. If I could just see—
James curses. One of the tent poles has gotten caught in his shirt and tore the thin fabric. Sam laughs, a sound I don’t hear near enough, but can’t appreciate. Not when I spot a fresh bruise on my brother’s stomach that I can’t account for. A large, fist-shaped bruise.

Bile burns my throat. It’s been relatively quiet in our house since the Armory’s new fighting season started, and quiet is as close to safe as our house gets. If James and our father had gotten into it again, I would know about it.

Wouldn’t I?

I hug my duffel bag to my chest and try not to think about what this means. That my brother, the boy who sacrifices so much to keep me safe, might be throwing away more than I thought.
I’m not worth this.


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Pre-Order Flawed from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or Book Depository; add to Goodreads
Find Kate on Facebook @KateAvelynn on Twitter, or on Goodreads

Now for the giveaway!




One lucky US resident will win a FLAWED dog tag!

a Rafflecopter giveaway