FINDING YOUR FEET by Cass Lennox ~ #Giveaway #Excerpt

 

 

About Finding Your Feet

While on holiday in Toronto, Evie Whitmore planned to sightsee and meet other asexuals, not audition for a dance competition. Now she’s representing Toronto’s newest queer dance studio, despite never having danced before. Not only does she have to spend hours learning her routine, she has to do it with one of the grumpiest men she’s ever met. Tyler turns out to be more than a dedicated dancer, though—he might be the kind of man who can sweep her off her feet, literally and figuratively.

Tyler Davis has spent the last year recovering from an emotionally abusive relationship. So he doesn’t need to be pushed into a rushed routine for a dumb competition. Ticking major representation boxes for being trans and biracial isn’t why he went into dance. But Evie turns out to be a dream student. In fact, she helps him remember just how good partnering can be, in all senses of the word. Teaching her the routine, however, raises ghosts for him, ones he’s not sure he can handle.

Plans change, and people change with them. Learning a few steps is one thing; learning to trust again is another entirely.

Available from Riptide Publishing. http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/finding-your-feet

 

About Cass Lennox

Cass Lennox is a permanent expat who has lived in more countries than she cares to admit to and suffers from a chronic case of wanderlust as a result. She started writing stories at the tender age of eleven, but would be the first to say that the early years are best left forgotten and unread. A great believer in happy endings, she arrived at queer romance via fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, and manga, and she can’t believe it took her that long. Her specialties are diverse characters, gooey happy ever afters, and brownies. She’s currently sequestered in a valley in southeast England.

 

Connect with Cass:

Blog: casslennox.wordpress.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Cass-Lennox-1704635609768647/

Twitter: twitter.com/CassLennox

 

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Finding Your Feet, one lucky winner will receive $15 in Riptide Publishing credit! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on January 21, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

 

Excerpt

Chapter One

This was potentially the most stupid thing Evie had ever done.

She looked at the status board above the baggage carousel and sighed. Delayed. Of course. She was overcaffeinated, underslept, in a city very far from home, and somewhat uncertain about her accommodation arrangements, so of course the airline was sending her luggage the long route to the carousel. One m ore thing between her and a bed.

She stretched her arms out to ease the stiffness from the flight and caught a whiff of ten hours’ sweat and three mugs of airline tea. Delightful. So she could add a shower to the list of things between her and rest. Evie closed her eyes. I must be mad. How did I end up here?

A whim. That was how she had ended up in a Canadian airport at nine o’clock in the morning instead of looking for work at home in rain-ridden Blighty. A whim suggested by Sarah, sure, but Evie had made the decision to indulge it.

Thing was, she’d forgotten she didn’t do whims. When she did, she planned. She liked plans. She’d had a great plan, actually. One that had started out wonderfully about two months ago: an acceptance into the master’s course she wanted at the University of Toronto. Superb. The logical next steps had been quitting her job in a few months’ time, allowing for the notice period and the couple of weeks necessary to pack her things, cancel her lease, and say good-bye to her friends, family, and country. Then she’d start her degree in Canada, arrange a few internships, perhaps do the touristy stuff, and see what the new qualification would bring. That had been The Plan.

But then The Plan had gone to shit. Her company had gone into receivership and kicked everyone to the curb. Evie had found herself facing four months of summer in York waiting for the settlement payout because she couldn’t formally move to Toronto while her student visa was still processing. Her parents had called her every other day asking for updates. Her brother, Richard, had teased her about being an unemployed bum. Her options, she’d been told, were hanging around at home living off her savings, travelling for a while (on those savings), or working a scummy retail job to build up her savings.

Or moving back in with her mother and stepfather for the summer and not touching her savings. Not even an option.

So here she was. Only for two weeks, because of visa issues, but at least she was out of York and away from her family’s questions and fuss. Two whole weeks of getting away from life. Two whole weeks to see if Toronto was all she hoped it would be.

Evie scowled at the empty carousel. Sarah would be waiting for a while. If she was waiting.

It felt weird calling her Sarah. They were Tumblr friends, and Evie knew her better as her username, gaybeard-the-great, or simply Gaybeard. Despite having emailed each other for a few years now, it was dawning on Evie that while she knew Sarah’s favourite food, and the actors she’d bang if she was at all interested in doing so, and her personal journey to queerdom, Evie didn’t know that much real-life stuff about Sarah. She did something vague for a law firm, lived with Bailey, her long-term queerplatonic artist partner, was originally from some “asshole hick town in the asshole hick wild,” liked bad movies, and her last name was Delaney.

Sarah had also been super supportive; she’d gushed her sympathies about the job and suggested Evie come over early for Pride, because Toronto did Pride amazingly well and they could finally meet in person and Evie could totally stay with Sarah, who’d introduce her to the city. Yes, all very well and good, but now that Evie was thinking about it, agreeing to stay with someone from the internet whom she didn’t know that much about was pretty dumb.

Oh God, this was a mistake.

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