Miles Lawson goes to sleep dreaming of a future with his boyfriend Adam, but wakes to find he is married to Ana, an acquaintance from high school. When he learns he has been time traveling, Miles is consumed with finding a cure for his rare condition—and finding his first love. Traveling more frequently, Miles assembles the puzzle pieces of his life and, in doing so, alienates his wife. As he loses control, Miles must realize that sometimes fixing your past mistakes means changing your future. But will he be able to convince Adam he is telling the truth before it’s too late?
Excerpt:
Miles sat there and tried to make out shapes and colors in
the dark room as he searched his brain for a memory of anything.
Nothing looked familiar. His desk, his drum set, the sheets—all
gone. Not one thing looked the way it had when he'd fallen asleep, and Ana
certainly hadn't been in his bed.
He tried to replay the previous day's events, but everything
seemed fuzzy, like a fogged bathroom mirror that he couldn't wipe clean.
Why was everything
so fuzzy?
Last night... What
happened last night?
Adam had come over and they were watching TV together, and
Adam had given him a small stuffed giraffe because Miles was scared about
having surgery. He reached for his left arm, expecting to find the cast that
had been there for the last two months, but it wasn't there. His heart began to
beat so loudly he glanced over at Ana to make sure she was still asleep.
Unable to determine what had happened to his cast, Miles
resumed his tally of the previous evening's chain of events. At around
ten-thirty, his mom said Adam had to leave because they had to get up early to
go to the hospital. He had taken his pain meds and gone to sleep with the
phantom of Adam's goodnight kiss on his cheek. He'd been happy.
He'd gotten a text from Ana earlier in the evening, but she
was only wishing him luck with the surgery. She hadn't come over. In fact, as
far as Miles knew, Ana had been several hours away in her dorm room.
So how had she gotten into his bedroom? And who had changed
his sheets?
He threw off the covers and stood up, noticing he was only
wearing a tight-fitting pair of boxer briefs instead of his usual basketball
shorts.
He looked around the room for anything familiar, but it was
still dark out, and all he could see were shadows and vague shapes. On the
dresser opposite the bed, he found a few framed photos. Squinting to see
without turning on a light, Miles studied the images carefully.
As his eyes focused, he recognized a couple of the photos.
One was from last year's prom: Adam wearing that ridiculous corsage Miles had
bought him, Ana being dipped by her date, David, as all four of them smiled
widely in front of a cheesy faux tropical scene. One of the frames held a
collage of photos of his and Ana's friends. He recognized Adam, Lucky, Antonio,
Dahlia and Brienne. But the last one, the largest of all the photos, was of him
and Ana—her in a flowing white dress and him in a black suit, both wearing
broad smiles and flanked by Miles's parents and a woman Miles had only seen
once: Julia Espinosa, Ana's mother.
A loud clatter echoed through the bedroom as the frame hit
the edge of the dresser and fell to the hardwood floor. This wasn't his room,
and he didn't remember that photo being taken.
"Go back to sleep," Ana mumbled, her voice muffled
by the pillow.
"Ana," he whispered, risking her full anger, but
unable to stop himself, "we're married."
"Thanks for the update. Now go back to sleep before I
divorce your dumb ass."
He dropped to the floor on his knees, barely even noticing
the sharp pain of bare skin hitting the hard surface.
Married. To Ana?
What the hell had
happened?
A note from Author Carrie Pack, a little bit about herself and the Playlist for
'In the Present Tense'
Hi. I’m happy to
be here. This is my second novel and my first foray into Sci-Fi. I have loved
time travel for as long as I can remember, so I wanted to write something that
featured that. In the Present Tense
is about Miles’s struggle to fix his past by changing his future.
Playlist for In the Present Tense
One Man Wrecking
Machine — Guster
This Train Don
't Stop There Anymore — Elton John
Soul Meets Body —
Death Cab for Cutie
Never There — Cake
Unwell — Matchbox
Twenty
Butterfly In
Reverse — Counting Crows
Clocks — Coldplay
The Walker — Fitz
& The Tantrums
Crash Into Me — Dave
Matthews Band
Friday I'm In
Love — The Cure
Hang — Matchbox
Twenty
Hang On — Guster
Should I Stay or
Should I Go — The Clash
You Run Away — Barenaked
Ladies
Leave Right Now —
Will Young
Love In the 21st
Century — Neon Trees
Last Raindrop —Fitz
& The Tantrums
Here Before —
Barenaked Ladies
It’s also online
at 8tracks — http://8tracks.com/carriepack/in-the-present-tense
Carrie Pack is the author of Designs On You and
a part-time college professor who recently left her job in marketing to
actively pursue her writing career. Carrie lives in Florida, which she fondly
calls America’s Wang, with her husband and four cats.
Where to find the author:
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/mscarriepack
Twitter: https://twitter.com/carriepack
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mscarriepack/
Website: www.carriepack.com
Tour Dates & Stops:
24-May:
Unquietly Me, Dawn’s Reading Nook, BFD
Book Blog
26-May:
Love Bytes, Louise
Lyons,
A.M. Leibowitz
30-May:
Bayou Book Junkie, MM Good Book Reviews
1-Jun:
Prism Book Alliance, Molly Lolly
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Thanks so much for having me on your blog!
ReplyDeleteSounds great. Thank you for sharing the playlist.
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