Buongiorno! Oggi Blog Tour ed era da un po’ che non capitava. Vi presento una trilogia che sembra davvero carina anche se intensa. Se scorrete verso il basso trovato un estratto del secondo libro, Hope. In fondo in fondo trovate anche un Giveaway mooolto ricco quindi andate a partecipare!

Good morning! I’m here today to host the tour of a trilogy that seems very interesting and intense. If you scroll down you’ll find an excerpt from book 2, Hope. Further down there’s a giveaway with amazing prices. What are you waiting for?

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My grandfather took the stand, his eyes seeming to burn through me. “My daughter was a struggling single parent when she met Charlie Baker seven years ago. Due to David’s abusive behavior, Cheryl left him when Ashley was only three months old, and we celebrated the day they came back home to us. We never looked back. David didn’t show the slightest interest in seeing Ashley. The only evidence of his existence was the child support payments he was bound by law to send. Charlie Baker is a great provider. I’ve never seen a man work as hard as he does, and I know that if a child I was supporting made allegations like Ashley has, it would take an act of Congress to get me to stay around. The fact that Charlie is even still willing to be part of our family after the public humiliation this incident has caused—well, it speaks to his devotion.”
Watching Papaw on the stand, it was hard to believe that this was the same man who had taught me how to ride a bike. I remembered my shaky first try without the training wheels and how Papaw ran alongside me, promising me that he wouldn’t let go of the seat until I was ready. As he walked back to his seat behind Charlie, my grandfather looked like he wanted to spit on me.
Unlike Papaw, Nanny wouldn’t look at me at all. The scent of Estée perfume trailed behind her when she walked up to the stand. She sat, and I remembered being a little kid and stomping around in her high heels, wearing her big straw hat and her “Kiss the Cook” apron over my T-shirt and jeans. She’d sit at her vanity putting on makeup, and when she’d finished, she would spray Estée on her wrists and at the hollow of her throat, then turn to me and spritz a tiny bit on my wrists.
Nanny stared at the back wall of the courtroom. “You may begin,” Judge Corn prompted. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and seeing her cry made my eyes fill with tears, too. In a choked voice, she said, “My daughter . . . loves Charlie Baker with all her heart. He is completely devoted; he’s wonderful to her. He’s just . . . he’s just a good man. I am begging you, Your Honor, not to take my son-in-law away from my daughter. She’s already lost—” She looked at me at last. “So much.”
Nanny’s composure collapsed. She closed her eyes, and her face looked as if it was folding in on itself. She rose, but she held onto the railing for a moment before going back to her seat. Nanny was so close, within ten feet of me, and part of me wanted to run into her arms and tell her I was sorry for all the trouble I’d caused.
My mother nearly fell, teetering a moment on her high heels. She usually only wears flats; I guess the shoes were just part of her costume. Watching what happened in court that day, I felt like I was watching a play. I look back on it now and still can’t believe it was real.
Mom kept her eyes on Charlie the entire time she spoke, her voice shaky. “I have not been . . . a perfect mother. I tried to save money by sharing a wardrobe with Ashley, and maybe that makes me a bad parent for not buying her every little thing her heart desired whenever she wanted it.”
I looked over at Charlie, and he had tears running down his cheeks. He wasn’t even wiping them away; he was just letting them fall. I’d never seen him cry before.
“Your Honor, please don’t make my husband pay for my failures as a mother. Everything that happened is—it’s all my fault. If only I had been a better mother to Ashley Nicole—more firm with her— from the time she was a baby until she was eight, when Charlie came into our lives . . . I hate to think where we’d be today, if it weren’t for him.”
Images of hurting myself scrolled through my mind, like I was watching some kind of bizarro movie. I envisioned stabbing myself in the chest with a knife, running out in front of a tractor-trailer rig, and shooting myself in the head. I know that this always happens any time my mom shows me what kind of mother she is. It’s as predictable as pulling a chain on a ceiling fan and seeing the blades turn. Dr. Matt tells me to separate facts from crap when I start having self-destructive, spinning thoughts at times like this. But it’s easier said than done.
I found something to focus on: the stained-glass window in an archway above the judge’s bench, and I allowed the numbness that began in my chest to move on up my body, through my upper arms and shoulders to my neck, and, finally, my head, which was buzzing with whoosh. A few more minutes and the suicidal mental movie blips might or might not be there. But either way, at least I wouldn’t feel the pain that causes them.
Judge Corn said, “I will now pronounce sentencing. The defendant will rise.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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In addition to writing Young Adult Contemporary Fiction, Beth Fehlbaum is a high school English-Language Arts teacher who frequently draws on her experience as an educator to write her books. She has a B.A. in English, Minor in Secondary Education, and an M.Ed. in Reading.
Beth is a featured author on the 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading List- High School for the Kirkus Starred Reviewed Big Fat Disaster (Merit Press/F+W Media, March 2014) and The Patience Trilogy: Courage (1), Hope (2), and Truth (3) (Steady On Books, April 2016).

Beth is a member of the RAINN (Rape , Abuse, Incest National Network) Speakers’ Bureau. She has a following in the young adult literature world and also among survivors of sexual abuse because of her work with victims’ advocacy groups.

She has been the keynote speaker at the National Crime Victims’ Week Commemoration Ceremony at the Hall of State in Dallas, Texas and a presenter for Greater Texas Community Partners, where she addressed a group of social workers and foster children on the subject of “Hope.”

Beth is in-demand as a panelist, having presented/appeared at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference, the American Library Association’s annual conference, YALSA, and N.C.T.E./ALAN, and she is a member of The Author’s Guild.

She is a survivor of a traumatic childhood, like Ashley in The Patience Trilogy, and the day-to-day manager of an eating disorder much like Colby’s in Big Fat Disaster. These life experiences give her a unique perspective, and she writes her characters’ stories in a way meant to inspire hope.

Beth lives with her family in the woods of East Texas.

Thanks to XPresso Book Tours for giving us the opportunity to promote this book.