by Jen Minkman
“Hey, sweetie,” he mumbled into her dark-blonde hair, when she ran up the steps and flung her scarred arms around him. The burn marks had faded to light scars, thanks to Sani’s treatment and Emily’s aftercare, but they would always remind her of the dangers she’d had to overcome in order to stay with Josh. Two months should be no biggie after all she’d been through, but her tear-ducts didn’t agree with her. “I’m going to miss you so much. Excuse my blubbering,” she sniffed.
“You are excused,” he softly replied, with a few tears rolling down his cheeks. “Ditto with the blubbering here. I’m going to miss you like crazy.”
They stood on the porch, glued to each other until Ben had retrieved the very last box from the kitchen. He put it in Hannah’s Datsun and looked up at the inseparable couple. “We really need to go, sis! It’s a long drive back.”
When Hannah disentangled herself from Josh’s embrace, he slid his hand in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a beermat, handing it over to her.
Hannah looked at it, nonplussed. “What’s this?”
“A beermat.”
“Shrewd,” she giggled, still confused.
“Why don’t you turn it over.”
Hannah obliged. On the white backside of the cardboard coaster, she saw a cellphone number. She bit her lip.
“Call me,” Josh said, a playful smile on his lips.
“You have a cellphone?” she yelped.
“Since yesterday.” His hand stroked her hair. “I don’t have a private landline on campus in Tuba City. So that’s going to be a problem if I want to call my girlfriend every day and be able to coo down the receiver without being interrupted or ridiculed by my fellow freshmen.”
“O-oh,” she said eloquently.
“Or maybe I’ll text her. Once I’ve figured out how to actually do that, of course.” He grinned.
Hannah blinked, beaming at him breathlessly. Her heart sped up with love, once more having a hard time keeping up with all the emotions tumbling through her body.
“Get real,” she suddenly heard Ben snickering out loud. “A beermat with your phone number on it? Finally succumbing to the ways of the white man?”
Hannah and Josh both burst out laughing. “Only because palefaces are too stupid to remember a phone number by heart,” Josh challenged Ben. “Or would you rather listen to your sister’s yammering for two months because she forgot my number and can’t call me?”
Ben bounded up the steps and slapped Josh on the shoulder. “I’m going to miss your bad jokes, man. I’ll take Katie here for Christmas. Will you be all right without me until then?”
After another ten minutes, Ben and Hannah were finally behind the wheel and ready to leave. Hannah waved at Josh, dried-up tears on her cheeks and a loving smile on her face as she drove away. All the memories of her summer vacation would stay with her and help her to survive the next two months. Keeping her eyes on Ben’s Chevy in front of her, she pulled onto the main road and dreamily reviewed the past eight weeks. Sunshine, new friendships, mortal enemies and eternal love. She had a lot to share with her mom.
She got gas at the same gas station where she’d bumped into Josh for the first time this summer. Ben waited by the side of the road while she filled up her Datsun. Whistling, she trotted to the counter, remembering Josh had said hello to her here at this very spot, giving her that playful smile she’d come to love so much. And all she’d managed was her best impersonation of Stammering Shygirl. Who would ever have thought she’d become his girlfriend, entering this very same building carrying a beermat with his phone number on it in her bag?
Hannah got back into the car and dug up the beermat and her cellphone from her handbag. She saved Josh’s number to her contacts.
“I <3 u!! :)” she texted him.
She chuckled when it took twenty minutes for a reply to come in, reading his text with a broad and amorous smile.
“i love you too”
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The Island – a YA dystopian novella
Out June 2013
‘I walk toward the sea. The endless surface of the water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.
Our world is small. We are on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep within us, as taught to us by our forefathers.
If I were to walk westward from here, I would come across a barrier – the Wall.
Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that’s what everyone says.
I have never seen one.’
Leia lives on the Island, a world in which children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they are ten years old. Across this Island runs a wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it are not amenable to reason – they believe in illusions. That’s what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors.
But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same. Is what she and her friends believe about the Island really true?
Or is everyone in their world, in fact, a Fool?
* * *
The Boy From The Woods – a YA Paranormal Romance novel
Out December 2013
Julia fell down on her knees next to his lifeless body, her heart filling with dread as she noticed the left side of his face was covered in blood. He had fallen off the motorbike and hit his temple on a sharp-edged rock. His head injury looked really, really bad.
“Michael?” she whispered softly, putting a trembling hand on his forehead. “Can you hear me?”
Julia has been in love with Michael for years. He’s the hottest guy in school, and she can’t believe her luck when they finally hit it off during Senior Prom. But after a few dates, he callously dumps her out of the blue. Summer vacation starts with Julia feeling lovesick and miserable.
But then she rescues Michael in the woods after he had an accident with his motorcycle in a heavy thunderstorm. From that point onward, her life is turned upside down. Michael has changed completely after the blow to the head that nearly killed him... and he wants her back. But why is he so different? And will she be able to trust him this time around?
Can the boy who broke your heart ever win it back again..?
* * *
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to my proofreaders Marije Minkman and Maaike Plugge, without whose valuable advice I couldn’t have turned this book into the story it is today. Another big thank you to my Dutch publisher, Larry Iburg of Ellessy Publishing, who took a chance on me and offered me a contract to put the very first Dutch-authored, traditionally-published paranormal romance novel ‘Schaduw van de Tijd’ on the market in the Netherlands and Belgium. And a big thank you to all the family and friends around me who had to put up with my incessant ‘Native American’ anecdotes, quotes and tidbits while I was writing and researching stuff for this novel. I can get quite OCD when writing novels – or actually, in general. My sincere apologies!
It doesn’t stop there. I have to thank all the bloggers who agreed to review, promote and cover-reveal my book. Without you, no one would even know this book existed. Translating my own book from Dutch into English and self-pubbing it through Amazon meant a lot of promotion and marketing, and you have all gratuitously given me your time to help me out. I can’t thank you enough.
Secondly, my editor Alexis Arendt deserves a big round of applause. I hired her to make the manuscript U.S.-proof (as I mainly speak British English), checking spelling and grammar along the way.
Last but not least, my parents Berry and Sia Minkman helped me out, translating bits of the historical part of this novel. This way, I made sure the chapters from Josh’s perspective really had a different feel to it. Thank you for all the hard work!
I tried my very best to describe the Navajo culture and reservation as well as I could.
Since I’ve never actually been to the U.S. (let alone Navajo Nation), I had to do all my research from a distance, using literature, movies, Internet databases, YouTube (thank you, DaybreakWarrior!) and dictionaries to really get to know the rich Diné culture and background. If you are Navajo and you spot any painful mistakes or inconsistencies, let me know. The good thing about self-publishing and POD is that you can correct your manuscript at any given time, even when it’s already for sale!
And of course, my utmost gratitude to you, the reader. I hoped you enjoyed this book, and if you did, don’t hesitate to drop me a line. Check out my website, where you can listen to the songs Hannah and Josh are singing in this book (I write soundtracks for all my books) too!
http://www.jenminkman.nl
Twitter: @JenMinkman
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e-mail: [email protected]