Boomer Lit Friday - March 23

Thank you for stopping by to participate in Boomer Lit Friday, the meme where authors of books featuring Baby Boomers get together and post excerpts from their works. 

Our snippet today is from I.O.U. SEX. Reading June's high school diary inspired three friends to search for their old boyfriends to make amends for vetoing sex when they were teenagers. Divorced from Stan for about a year, in this scene June is getting dressed for her first meeting with Denny, her high school steady, when thoughts of her ex-husband intervene.

She added silver hoops to her ears and straightened her shoulders for a last look in the mirror. She turned sideways, patting her not-so-flat stomach, frowning at her not-so-perky breasts.
     Stan's criticisms nagged: Is that cellulite on the back of your thighs?

      Now she answered him in words she'd never spoken aloud. "Shut up, Shithead, and get out of my mind. I may not be perfect, but for a woman my age, I look pretty damned good."

Boomer Lit Friday

A weekly blog hop event for Boomer Lit writers

To read excerpts posted by other Boomer Lit authors, click HERE.

To connect to the Amazon link for I.O.U. SEX, click HERE. For more info about I.O.U. SEX, click on the tabs above this post. 

Teaser Tuesday - Goodbye Emily

I knew I'd enjoy this book (especially since I'm a Baby Boomer), but I had no idea it would be such a touching and entertaining story. This isn't merely a flashback to the 1960s; it is a story of love, healing, and the power of friendship. The characters felt real and the plot kept me engrossed. I finished reading GOODBYE EMILY in one day. 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Humor
Author:  Michael Murphy

Number of Pages: 270

Amazon Link: Goodbye Emily

Teaser:

He wore a greasy green Transcontinental Transport T-shirt and carried an empty pitcher of beer. His shaved head, shirt and thick toad-like body reminded me of Shrek, without the ogre's charm. To my great relief, he chose a stool at the other end of the bar.
[at 1% on my Kindle - approx Page 4]

GREAT description, isn't it? Can't you just see that guy?

Goodreads Synopsis: 

Three baby boomers relive their 1969 trip to Woodstock. One final roadtrip. One last chance to say Goodbye Emily.

They met at Woodstock, and the love lasted a lifetime. Then she was gone, and so was his college teaching job. Heartbroken but determined, he calls on his two best friends to help him return to the place it all began.The professor and his Woodstock buddy need the third tripper from back in the day, now in a nursing home with early stage Alzheimer’s. When the home refuses to allow their friend to come along, the professor and the vet bust him out, attracting the attention of the cops and the media, fascinating the public.   The roadtrip turns into a flight from “the man” and not even the professor’s defense attorney daughter can help. In a psychedelic van, the trio dodges cops and prosecutors. Against all odds, they close in on their destination, where thousands of supporters and cops await them.   Goodbye Emily is the irreverantly funny story about a journey of self-discovery for a man who thought he’d left all important journeys in life behind.

NOTE: If you like this, you might also like our book: I.O.U. SEX

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away -- you don't want to ruin the book for others)
• Share the title and author too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers

Sweet Saturday Samples - Mar 24

In last week’s Sweet Saturday Sample, our friend June (from I.O.U. SEX) found out she was pregnant. What is she going to do now? She still loves Denny, but she hasn’t heard from him since he told her to go to hell, ended their relationship, and returned to Texas. What will he say if she calls him? Uncertain of the right decision, she decides to stay in her dorm at UC Berkeley and go to school as long as possible while considering the possibilities. But before she can come to any concrete decision …

Shortly after the spring semester started, June heard a shout from the dorm hallway. "June! Hey, June. Phone call." She struggled out from under her quilt and walked down the hall to the pay phone.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Kiki. What's up?" Kiki rarely called unless she had something important to say, like she'd decided to change her major again or she'd met a new guy. June wasn't in the mood for her drama.

Kiki's voice came through the receiver. “Uh, June, I heard something at a party, and I wanted to be the one to tell you. Um, well, you see ...."

June sighed. "Kiki, just spit it out." She pushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ears with her free hand. It wasn't like Kiki to be so hesitant. Usually she blurted out whatever she had to say and to hell with the consequences.

"It's Denny. He ... he got married."

June felt a lurch deep inside, as if the baby had reached up and twisted her heart. She sank to the floor, stretching the phone's metallic cord to its full length. "What? Denny's married?" Surely she'd misunderstood.

"Junie, I'm so sorry, but I thought you would want to know. That bastard married Nita Crawford. They ran away to another state, I'm not sure where. You remember Nita. Black hair? Bad reputation? She was a year behind us at Rayburn. I heard she might be knocked up."

June's lips were too numb to form words. She shook so badly she had to grasp the receiver with both hands to keep from dropping it.

"June? June? Are you there?" Kiki's worried voice shrieked in June's ear.

"I'll ... I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"But June ...."

June hung up the phone and stumbled to her room. Back in bed she pulled the quilt over her head, shaking, freezing even under the heavy covers. She felt a flutter in her womb, a reminder of Denny's child. Her heart ached for the unborn infant and for herself.

Looks like I can scratch one item off my list. Marrying Denny is now an impossibility.

The sudden elimination of any possibility of marriage forces June to make some even tougher decisions about her predicament. She must now consider the only choices left to her—an illegal abortion, single motherhood, or adoption—and all three ideas almost break her heart. Yet she must decide, and soon!

 

You'll find links to lots more Sweet Saturday Samples here: 

Sweet Saturday Samples

Thank you, J. Gunnar Grey, for hosting this weekly get-together.