Author Name: Mia Kerick
Book Name: Clean
Publisher: Cool Dudes Publishing
Cover Artist: Louis C. Harris
Release
Date: December 1, 2015
Blurb:
High school senior Lanny Keating has it
all. A three-sport athlete at Lauserville High School looking at a college
football scholarship, with a supportive family, stellar grades, boy band good
looks… until the fateful day when it all falls apart.
Seventeen-year-old Trevor Ladd has
always been a publicly declared zero and the high school bad-boy. Abandoned by
his mother and sexually abused by his legal guardian, Trevor sets his sights on
mere survival.
Lanny seeks out Trevor’s companionship
to avoid his shattered home life. Unwilling to share their personal experiences
of pain, the boys explore ways to escape, leading them into sexual
experimentation, and the abuse of illegal drugs and alcohol. Their mutual
suffering creates a lasting bond of friendship and love.
When the time finally comes to get
clean and sober, or flunk out of high school, only one of the boys will
graduate, while the other spirals downward into addiction.
Will Lanny and Trevor find the strength
to battle their demons of mind-altering substances as well as emotional
vulnerability?
Clean takes the reader on a gritty trip
into the real and raw world of teenage substance abuse.
Pages or Words: 289 pages
Categories: Contemporary, Gay Fiction,
M/M Romance, New Adult, Romance
Excerpt:
PROLOGUE
Lanny
Trevor wouldn’t even look at me when I
walked over to the gas station this morning to say hi. And Jimmy’s Fuel Stop is
like three miles from my house so it
took a major effort to walk there, especially since I’ve been feeling like
total crap lately. Another one of my shaky human bonds bites the dust. I need
to go out and get myself a cat.
“Can’t you see I’m working, Keating?”
That was all he said. But I’ve always been good at reading between the lines. I
could tell what he was thinking as he stood beside the gas pumps, totally
caught up in not looking at me. “Take a
hike before you get me fired, loser. Some of us got goals in life....” So I
took off before he had a chance to make me feel like I shouldn’t have ever made
an appearance on the planet earth. But I still know it would have been better
had I never been born...maybe Joelle would still be okay.
It’s Saturday afternoon and nobody’s
home. Mom and Dad are probably off at the park with Joelle, sloshing through
the wet snow together so she gets her daily exercise. Or maybe they took her to
the make- your-own-sundae-place to improve her fine motor skills by sprinkling
sweet toppings on big scoops of ice cream. I’m in Mom and Dad’s bathroom, bent
in half with my head stuck in the closet, searching the cluttered shelves for
anything that will get me high enough to escape. And I mean anything.
That’s when I see the cough syrup. The
bottle in front is almost new, and there’s an older bottle of a different brand
right behind it, little more than halfway full. Seeing these medicine bottles
reminds me of something Chad suggested about a week or two ago— that we should
try robo-tripping. He told me that if
we drink enough cough syrup, the DXM in it would get us high in a “super
blissful, tingling-body-parts way,” which sounded pretty decent to me then and
still does now. Not completely surprised I remembered Chad’s exact description
of a DXM high, I thank God for this dextromethorphan stuff that suppresses
nasty coughs, because it looks like I’m going to find my much-needed buzz after
all.
Pleased that I don’t have to resort to
sniffing glue from the tube on my father’s basement workbench or huffing my
mother’s hairspray—and believe me I came close—I snatch the bottles with a
shaky hand. They’re both sticky with the syrup that dripped down the side last
time one of the Keating’s had a major head cold accompanied by a hacking cough.
Licking my fingers provides me with a hint of the cherry flavor I’m probably
going to be barfing up later tonight. But I don’t care. I can’t get through a
single day without some help, and by that I don’t mean help from my human friends, seeing as I have none
left.
The walk to the shed seems longer than
ever. It’s an effort to so much as put one foot in front of the other. I
haven’t eaten anything for a full day; I’m sure that’s why I feel like such
crap. And it’s not like I want to
think about this stuff, but I can’t stop myself. The “stuff” I don’t want to
think about is really people. The
people I have hurt so much lately because of my bad habits.
This list starts with my little sister
Joelle, who I told to “stuff a sock in it” when she asked me to read that
goddamned book about a kid going to school—for the zillionth time! “School’s
not all it’s cracked up to be, Jo. Stop being so damned excited about it! Those
kids are gonna tear you to pieces and won’t even wait until you turn your back
to do it!” It hurts too much to remember the expression on her face right after
I told her that, so instead I stare beyond the leafless trees into the gray sky
and think about my parents.
I’ve hurt Mom and Dad a lot too,
because they know I’m sick, they just don’t know exactly what’s wrong with me.
And I’m not sure how much they care. Their plates are too full already with
Joelle’s problems, I guess.
I glance down at the two bottles of
cough medicine dangling from between my fingers and remember Chrissy and Robyn,
who I use like toilet paper. They can do way better than me in the study-buddy
department.
I trip over a root that crosses my path
and fall to my knees, but just as quickly drag myself back to my feet. A stray
root isn’t enough to stop me from getting to where I’m going.
I’m almost at the shed now, and I can’t
avoid thinking about him any longer. Trevor hates me. He never calls anymore,
never asks me to go to the shed to drink some beer and fool around. He just
looks at me in the hallway at school with angry disgusted eyes, and tells me
every chance he gets “you’re fucking up your life and I’m not gonna let you
fuck up mine.”
Trevor Ladd...the ultimate untouchable.
If I could’ve made somebody like him
want to be with me, I would’ve surely
been able to win my parents back. Well, no such luck. I’m more of a zero to
Trevor than I ever was...and Mom and Dad still don’t care.
Blew my entire life sky high. Which is where I’ll be soon, if all goes
according to plan. I lift each bottle of sticky sweet cough medicine to my
lips and kiss them, one by one.
Just the sight of the tiny, beat-up
brown shed fills me with an indescribable sense of relief, probably like the
feeling of coming home after years at sea. As soon as I push open the door, I
see that Trevor isn’t here and I’m illogically disappointed. But Trevor can’t
save me from myself. He did his duty; he tried to get me clean, and he got
clean in the process.
Way to go, Trevor.
Alone in a frigid shed in the middle of
the woods, I’m more than eager to suck down a couple bottles of cough medicine
so I can be somewhere else...someone else.
A vision of Landon Keating forms in my mind—not Lanny, the student, or Lanny,
the athlete, or Lanny, the son and brother—but the near-future version of me
when I’m “simultaneously mellow and stimulated,” if the online experiences I’ve
read about taking DXM are accurate. Sad truth is, I’ll take just plain disoriented.
Any effect will be fine if it whisks me away.
I drop down to the cold floor and
without ceremony open one of the small bottles. The cough medicine goes down
more easily than I thought.
Cherry-berry-sweet-thick-burning-soothing-
pleasure-pain. It doesn’t take too long.
Itchy as hell...belly’s on fire....
“Read to me, Lanny...read it again!
”Can’t feel my legs at all....
“Wishes don’t wash dishes, son.”
Can’t stop barfing.... So sick....
“Take a hike, Keating—you filthy, no-good, loser boozer-druggie!”
Blew it with Trevor...blew it with everybody.
Can’t breathe...need a breath....
Gonna die here alone.
Buy the book:
Q & A with author Mia Kerick
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Mia
Kerick author of Clean.
Hi Mia, thank you for agreeing to this
interview.
Hello, and thank
you so very much for welcoming me to your blog today to promote my new YA LGBTQ
EDGY Contemporary Romance, Clean.
1) How do you develop your plots and
characters?
1. I start with the scenario- what is
character A’s major problem in life.
2. I do the same for character B—problem in
life
3. I move on to personality- how does A
carry himself? How does A deal with his challenge?
4. I do the same for B—personality
characteristics, ways of addressing problem
5. I create A’s family and detailed
backstory
6. I do the same for B
7. I determine how the plot will fit
together and how A and B will fall and love and fit together
8. FUN PART- once I know who A and B are as
individuals and how they will fit together, I search online for my visual image
of these characters. I print out lots of pictures of the images, trying to
capture them with all types of expression.
9. I start to write, and as I do so, I keep
a log of areas in which I want each character to grow and change. I continually
return to these notes as I write the book, to be sure I am creating character
growth.
10. There is no number ten but I hate to leave it
at number nine, as it isn’t a round number.
2) Who doesn’t love a good hero? Tell us
about your protagonist. Was there a real life inspiration behind them?
There
are two protagonists in Clean, and I’m
going to focus on Lanny. Until recently, Lanny was the All-American boy with a
family who supported him, incredible athletic ability, and commendable grades—all
adding up to the potential for a bright future. But one day it all fell apart.
And this hero begins his journey DOWNWARD. Lanny, though struggling with
painful neglect at home, is nonetheless a sweet person who you can’t help but
like. He is honest about his feelings and hopeful that things will get better
and falls in love so easily… Lanny is almost too sweet and trusting and kind
for his own good. Until he gets hooked on drugs and alcohol and they become the
priority in his life.
Okay,
now that you know the inside of Lanny I will describe the outside. Think Harry
Styles, of One Direction. Wide-eyed, heart-shaped face, soft brown curls… that
is my hero Lanny.
3) What real-life inspirations do you use
when world building?
Most
often I use characteristics of New England towns and cities as the settings for
my stories because I’m most comfortable writing about settings I’m familiar
with. I usually create a fictional town and a high school that remind me of one
I know of in the real world. Sometimes I take two nearby towns and combine them
to create the town where my book is set.
4) Did you learn anything from this book and
what was it?
In
my research about why teens abuse drugs and alcohol, I learned that they use
them for a wide variety of reasons ranging from peer pressure, to wanting to
act adult, to curiosity, to alleviating boredom, to self-medication, and many
more. In order to describe Lanny’s experiences with addiction and recovery I
did a great deal of research on Alcoholics Anonymous, even emailing a teenage
AA member some questions which he answered, and asking him to comment on an
excerpt of my book. I know the twelve steps now, as well.
5) It’s your last meal on earth. What do you
choose?
Let’s
start with pretzel bread. I’d like a
turkey sandwich with American cheese on the pretzel bread, and please don’t
forget the mayo. I would like a package of my favorite cheese crackers called
Whales. A red solo cup filled with Arizona Raspberry Pomegranate Diet Iced Tea
is pretty much required. And plenty of ice. Dessert is more important than
dinner, though. Molten Chocolate Lave Cake, please,
drizzled in my sister’s homemade hot fudge. And a mocha latte with extra
espresso.
BURP!!!
Excuse me. But that was damn good.
Meet the author:
Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional
children—all named after saints—and five nonpedigreed cats—all named after the
next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox players. Her husband of twenty years
has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about
that, as it is a sensitive subject.
Mia focuses her stories on the
emotional growth of troubled young men and their relationships, and she
believes that sex has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly
established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with
romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble
lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for
safekeeping. She is thankful to CoolDudes Publishing, Dreamspinner Press,
Harmony Ink Press for providing her with an alternate place to stash her
stories.
Mia is proud of her involvement with
the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for each and every victory made in the
name of marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or
computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered
pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.
Where to find the author:
Tour Dates & Stops:
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Prize: $10.00 Amazon gift card
