Title: Retrouvailles
Author: Bill Chastain
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: June 5, 2017
Publisher: Roane Publishing
Publisher: Roane Publishing
The Siren’s Book Review - “Very emotional, gripping, sad and joyous story of never-ending love, mistakes, lost time, and a second chance to feel it all over again but this time, the essence of love will go on forever but it's physical manifestation is limited by an expiration date…”
A Book Lover’s Emporium Book Blog - “I took a chance on this book and it is now one of my favourite reads of 2017.”
Unbound Book Reviews - “This book wrecked me and hurt so good.”
Alex Overstreet is exceptional.
Mature beyond his years, he understands the value of education and where having one can take him. Adverse circumstances are no match for the "anything is possible" residing in his soul, a place where self-pity need not enter. His future is mapped in his mind. Staying the course will bring a worthwhile end game.
Enter India Blue Kirkland.
The most popular girl in school is the unknown Alex failed to factor into his carefully calculated life plans. She is everything he is not—outgoing and popular. A chance encounter with her sets into place a life-long love affair.
Together they find a passion and embrace the best of their different worlds while exploring the wonder of love. Both are more than ready for a future together. But Alex’s family situation looms in the background, and eventually catches up to him, forcing him to make sacrifices that change the course of his relationship with India. Though driven apart, their love never wavers.
Years later, Alex is successful on a large scale professionally, yet emptiness clings to him like free-floating lint to a dark suit. India should have been a part of it all. He's never moved on from her. She is the love of his life. Meanwhile, India is trapped in a marriage and longs for what she had with Alex. One glance of Alex at her father’s funeral sparks a romance that never died.
Retrouvailles validates the compelling power of first love and how the snapshots of moments together matter most. Those snapshots representing sweet moments in time can be more compelling than a lifetime spent together.
Alex sipped a Presidente while sitting on the deck outside “The Parched Pelican.”
Indian Rocks Beach had fancier places than the open-air tavern facing the Gulf of Mexico. Alex just preferred the dive with the dowdy name. The hand-painted sign showing a cartoon pelican with muscles and tattoos cracked him up—Florida tacky at its finest. Plus, no steel drum bands, no Tiki torches and, best of all, few patrons at that time of day. You could drink a cold beer and just be. Alex preferred to blend in with the scenery, be invisible, thus, serenity.
A salty breeze grazed his face and the rhythm of the gentle surf performed the duty of a fairy-tale sandman, making heavy his eyelids. Giving in to such an urge would be his normal inclination. Take a few steps down to the beach, stretch out in the sand underneath the azure sky, and suddenly he’d be blowing Z’s like Dagwood Bumstead.
Not today.
Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip while his thumb picked off the label from the bottle of Dominican beer. He stared at the naked green bottle, hoping a state of nothingness would come to him. If he studied the inanimate object long enough he might forget the troublesome reality weighing heavy on his mind.
Maybe they’d waltz around the subject of her pending doom, tiptoeing like one of those Russian gymnasts on the balance beam, tension…tension…tension, but cool. Dying was an extremely personal matter and something she might not want to share with him. If she did, he couldn’t show pity and pity was hard to disguise. The slightest sign of it would piss her off. Taking a direct approach suited India.
Alex undid the top buttons of the light cotton shirt he wore loose at the waist and ordered another Presidente. Several months had passed since he awoke wearing socks and a monster hangover, unable to remember where he’d parked the car. The moment frightened him into an abstinence pledge.
Feeling too good for too long had brought him to the conclusion that his initial solution felt too much like Alcoholics Anonymous. He rationalized the step lacking from the guiding twelve steps was moderation; and all that guilt if you fell off the wagon for a couple of drinks. Besides, he enjoyed alcohol too much to quit. Common sense told him that all the alcohol in the world would not change his life. Thus, hoping to avoid self-destruction, he imposed a three-beer limit, installed like a father does a governor to his son’s go-cart to prevent him from driving too fast.
Alex’s eyes closed and he rocked back in his chair, evoking a sad moan from the deck constructed of rough-hewn two-by-fours. Balancing his body with one leg resting on an adjacent chair, he heard steps approach. A cold palm touched his face, then two moist lips met his for a lingering moment.
Bill Chastain is a sports journalist who is the author of two previous novels, PEACHTREE CORVETTE CLUB and THE STREAK. He also has penned non-fiction sports titles including THE STEVE SPURRIER STORY: FROM HEISMAN TO HEAD BALL COACH; PAYNE AT PINEHURST: THE GREATEST U.S. OPEN EVER; HACK’S 191: HACK WILSON AND HIS INCREDIBLE 1930 SEASON; SEPTEMBER NIGHTS: HUNTING THE BEASTS OF THE AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST; and JACKRABBIT: THE STORY OF CLINT CASTLEBERRY AND THE IMPROBABLE 1942 GEORGIA TECH FOOTBALL TEAM.
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