Actin' Up with Books: Elizabeth Scott

Elizabeth Scott is one of many of my favorite young adult authors. I've read over half of her books and the over half are in my TBR pile. Heartbeat, her newest book published by Harlequin Teen, came out yesterday. Today I'm hosting Elizabeth as a part of the Heartbeat Blog Tour hosted by Kismet Book Touring. I've asked Elizabeth to share her favorite bookstore memory.

Welcome Elizabeth!!!

I grew up in a very rural area. We had one tiny library and one--even smaller--bookstore. (Picture a large closet, and there you have it.)

I spent my first paycheck at that bookstore.

When I went to college, I took the bus everywhere (because it was free) and still remember seeing my first non-campus bookstore. It was in a shopping center and now I realize the bookstore wasn't that large, but at the time, it seemed mythical. I walked in and thought, "I'm home."

I still feel that way every time I walk into a bookstore, actually. I just--books are my comfy blanket.

Add to Goodreads

Purchase

Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Emma would give anything to talk to her mother one last time. Tell her about her slipping grades, her anger with her stepfather, and the boy with the bad reputation who might be the only one Emma can be herself with.

But Emma can’t tell her mother anything. Because her mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the baby growing inside her.

Meeting bad-boy Caleb Harrison wouldn’t have interested Old Emma. But New Emma—the one who exists in a fog of grief, who no longer cares about school, whose only social outlet is her best friend Olivia—New Emma is startled by the connection she and Caleb forge. Feeling her own heart beat again wakes Emma from the grief that has grayed her existence. Is there hope for life after death—and maybe, for love?

Excerpt from Heartbeat

I sit down with my mother. My smile is shaky as I tell her about my day.

“I think I did okay on my History test,” I say. “Oh, and Olivia wore her new pair of false eyelashes, the ones I told you about. She was batting them around so much that a teacher stopped and asked if she had something caught in her eyes.”

I laugh at the memory, and the sound is shaky too. “Olivia wasn’t super happy about that.”

There’s the slightest movement, but it’s not on Mom’s face. Her face never changes. But under the skin of Mom’s stomach…I don’t want to look but I can’t help it, because there my mother’s skin is moving.

Because the baby is moving.

I close my eyes.

When I open them, Mom’s stomach is stretched out and still.

“Emma, are you ready to go?” Dan says as he comes into the room, and I look up at him and nod.

“Did you two have a nice chat?” he says, bending over to kiss Mom.

I stare at him.

He must feel it because he straightens up, clearing his throat, and pats Mom’s stomach. “Look how big he’s getting. Lisa, he’s growing so much.”

Mom doesn’t say anything, not even to that.

She can’t.

She’s dead. Machines are keeping her alive. They breathe for her. They feed her. They regulate her whole body.

My mother is dead, but Dan is keeping her alive because of the baby.

About Elizabeth Scott

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr

ELIZABETH SCOTT grew up in a town so small it didn’t even have a post office, though it did boast an impressive cattle population. She’s sold hardware and panty hose and had a memorable three-day stint in the dot-com industry, where she learned that she really didn’t want a career burning CDs. She lives just outside Washington, D.C., with her husband, and firmly believes you can never own too many books.