Welcome to Teaser Tuesday where I share snippets from new and past releases and works-in-progress and occasionally con unsuspecting author friends into doing the same. Like today.
Read on…
It’s been hot!
I’ve actually had to break out shorts from my wardrobe. Nice for me, not so nice for the unsuspecting populace of Newcastle who’ve been blinded by my lily-whites. We Heins don’t really do tans. We’re too fair and freckly and prone to painful sunburn, and I usually don’t venture outside without first slathering on sunscreen and donning a hat. Which gives me the excuse to buy hats. Lots of hats.
But enough about hats. We’re here to talk dresses!
Well, one dress in particular. And it’s a very special dress with a story. A story by none other than Rachael Johns so you know it’s going to be a cracker.
Four women, one dress, and the secret that binds them all…
That’s the tag for Rachael’s brand-new release Lost Without You, and she’s here today to share a little about the book and treat you to a peek inside.
Please give Rachael a warm Teaser Tuesday welcome!
ARGH – it’s always so hard to choose an extract for Cathryn’s fab Teaser Tuesday because all the juicy ones contain spoilers… but I did my best. LOST WITHOUT YOU is at its core a story about family and how keeping secrets from those close to you can have an impact on your relationships and so I’ve decided to give you an insight into Rebecca’s secret.
Rebecca is one of four main characters and in many ways, she is the link between them all…
Happy reading! X Rach
As Molly twirled three times like she always did before a snooze and then settled herself down in her favourite spot in front of the bed , Rebecca glanced at the closed door, praying Hugh would respect her request for privacy. Then, taking a deep breath, her hands shaking ridiculously, she went into their walk-in robe, stretched up high on her tippy-toes and pulled down a box she’d labeled ‘Old Music Notebooks.’ Neither Hugh nor Paige shared her love of music and so they would never think to pry into this box. Besides, it wasn’t a lie – the box did contain her old journals, but, right at the bottom, it also housed a whole load of mix-tapes leftover from her teenage years, letters, and something even more precious to her than them.
She took the box over to the bed and her breath caught in her throat as she lifted the lid. What if the photo was gone? There was no reason why it should be but suddenly the fear felt real. Without care, she lifted the notebooks that were at the top and flung them on the bed beside her, then rifled through the rest of the box, resisting the urge to look at the tapes from her high 
school boyfriend – she should have thrown them away years ago. Finally, she found what she was looking for, the old journal filled with the angst-ridden songs she’d written as a teenager. They were all dismal – singing was her skill, not song-writing – but she’d put her heart and soul into them anyway. Ignoring the R&R Forever scratched into the front cover in her flowery adolescent handwriting, she flicked straight to the end.
And there it was.
There he was – tiny and perfect, a bald-headed angel looking up at her with big blue innocent eyes. Well, not at her, she’d never got that close to him; he’d been looking up at whoever took the photograph and she didn’t know who that was. Maybe a nurse. She certainly couldn’t imagine her mother would have done so.
Tears prickled Rebecca’s eyes as she touched a finger to the photo. She let out a long slow breath., one she felt like she’d been holding since she’d thought of this photo in the hospital two weeks ago. This little boy had never been far from her mind these last thirty-five years, but she’d kept him in a box and kept that box buried deep in her heart. Yet now, having come face-to-face with her own mortality, everything felt like it had changed. Now it was like her long-lost son was actually in that box and that he was knocking on the lid, trying to push it open and get her attention.
Pain throbbed in her forehead and she forced deep breaths in and out, unsure whether her sudden breathlessness was because she was having a panic attack or if it was a symptom of her blasted kidney disease. Either way, this photo couldn’t stay here, in the house, where it could so easily be found by someone looking for something else.
But what could she do with it? She didn’t trust her parents not to ‘lose’ it and besides, her dad hadn’t been in the best of health lately either; she didn’t want to put anything else on them.
Did banks still rent out safe boxes? Rebecca wasn’t sure if they were actually a thing or if it was just something used in the movies. She could ask Hugh – he always knew stuff like that – but of course then he’d want to know why she needed one. Google! The answer landed in her head and she went to grab her mobile only to realise her handbag was still out in the hallway where she’d dumped it when she’d dropped down to hug Molly.
Bugger. Why did everything have to be so hard?
Lost Without You is gathering brilliant reviews everywhere and making a lot of readers very happy. Which means you deserve a copy of your own, oh yes you do, and thanks to the internet instant gratification can be yours.
Purchase Lost Without You in paperback and ebook from these stores now.
iBooks | Kobo | Google Play
By the way, those good folk at Booktopia have signed copies of Lost Without You available for purchase but they won’t last long. If you’d prefer one of those, grab it today!
If you’d like to learn more about Rachael and her books, please visit her website. You can also connect on Facebook, Twitter using @RachaelJohns, Goodreads and Instagram.
Read a longer excerpt of Lost Without You here.
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