Hey Hey, I'm excited to be on the Spotlight Blog Tour for the new book
Busted by Gina Ciocca. This book sounds like a lot of fun to read! It's a cute, fun contemporary about a girl who's been hired to snoop on suspected cheaters! She's hired to snoop on a boy, but she quickly realizes that he might just be the boy for her. It sounds fun and cute. I can't wait to read it myself. Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for inviting me to be a part of the tour. Anyway.... here's all the stuff:
Title: Busted
Author: Gina Ciocca
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire
Released: January 2, 2018
ISBN: 9781492654292
Synopsis: Catching
cheaters and liars is a lucrative hobby—until you fall for one of
the suspects. Perfect for fans of Veronica Mars, this new novel from
the author of Last
Year’s Mistake
will steal your heart!
Marisa
never planned to be a snoop for hire. It wasn’t like she wanted to
catch her best friend’s boyfriend making out with another girl. But
as her reputation for sniffing out cheaters spreads all over school,
Marisa finds herself the reluctant queen of busting two-timing boys.
And
her next case? It’s for ex-frenemy Kendall. She’s convinced her
boyfriend, TJ, has feelings for someone else and persuades Marissa to
start spying on him. But the more Marisa gets to know sincere and
artistic TJ, the more she starts to fall for him. Worse yet, the
feelings seem to be mutual. Marisa knows she needs to give up her
investigation—and the spoken-for guy who may just be the love of
her life. Then she uncovers new secrets about Kendall and TJ, secrets
that take “cheater” to a whole new level…
Buy
Links:
Amazon
| Books-A-Million
| Barnes
& Noble |
Kobo
| Chapters
| iBooks
| Indiebound
Meet The Author:
Gina
Ciocca
graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in
English, but in her mind, she never left high school. She relocated
from Connecticut to Georgia, where she lives with her husband and
son. When she's not reading or writing, you can find her taking long
walks around the lake in her neighborhood. Gina can also be found
online at writersblog-gina.blogspot.com, on Instagram as gmciocca,
and Twitter as gmc511.
Marisa's Top 5 Tips For Sleuthing:
Hey
there. Marisa Palmera, Private Eye here. Okay, so I don’t actually
call myself that, and neither does anyone else. In fact, I never
meant to become a sleuth-for-hire. But spend one night scaling your
best-friend’s boyfriend’s house to take incriminating pictures,
and suddenly everyone wants you to be something you’re not…and
when they’re willing to line your sadly lacking pockets for it, it
doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
So,
should you find yourself an unwitting Girl Friday (or even a witting
one... Is “witting” a thing?) like I did, here are some tips that
just may save your butt:
-
Always
have a camera handy.
Whether it’s your cell phone, or the fancy camera you borrowed
from your school’s yearbook club, you never know when you’ll
need to snap an evidence shot. Just, um, make sure you turn off the
flash if said camera is aimed through a window into a dark living
room. I may have learned this the hard way.
-
Keep
your friends close, but your enemies closer. Sounds
ominous and dramatic, I know. But if someone gives you the vibe that
they shouldn’t be let out of your sight? GO WITH IT.
-
Think
fast. Suck
at
lying? Me too. Get over it, because you’ll be fudging the truth a
lot.
-
But
know when to say no.
Weave enough white lies, and suddenly they’re a sticky, tangled
web with you trapped inside. Know when it’s time to run, and do it
like the flames of hell are licking your feet.
-
Don’t
fall for the person you’re investigating.
Yeah. You’re just gonna have to do as I say and not as I do on
this one. Oops.
Pretty good huh? Here's an excerpt that will make it even more irresistible!!
My
eyes darted from TJ’s dark, furrowed eyebrows to the logo on the
left breast of his shirt and I sat up straighter.
“Um,
where’d you get the Maple Acres shirt?”
His
expression didn’t change. “Maple Acres.”
I
fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Right. I meant, do you work
there?”
“Yup.”
He sat back in his chair and pulled at the logo, stretching the white
cotton away from his chest before turning his attention back to the
computer screen. “Long time now.”
As
soon as he said it, my memory was triggered. I’d always thought he
looked familiar but could never quite place where I’d seen him. As
I thought back to every trip I’d taken to Maple Acres, twice a year
since I was two years old, the image of a boy with dark curls stuffed
beneath a knit cap and a heavy flannel coat that made him look like
Paul Bunyan clicked into place. The farm stretched over two hundred
and fifty acres, selling pumpkins and cider and offering hayrides and
a corn maze in a fall, then Christmas trees that you cut down
yourself in the winter. The place had a storybook quality to it that
I loved, and I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to figure
out TJ was a part of it.
“We
go there for our tree every year. I think I’ve seen you.”
TJ
kept his eyes on the screen. “Probably. I’m usually bundling the
trees or in the checkout area. Sometimes I drive the tractor for the
hayrides.” He glanced over long enough to shoot me a half smile.
“Maybe you’ve seen the back of my head.”
That
would’ve been an occasion I definitely hadn’t noticed him. The
one and only time I’d taken a hayride had been the lone trip I’d
made without Charlie or my dad, both of whom are allergic to hay. I’d
gone with Jordan. Superman himself could’ve been driving the
tractor and I would’ve been too busy drooling over Jordan in his
plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up around his gorgeous
forearms to notice.
Vom,
vom, vom. I pushed the chunks down and forged ahead. “So, that
thing you didn’t want to do the last time we talked, is that…
still an issue?”
“Uh,
no. That fell through, so my article should be good to go on Monday.”
He’s
not making this easy for me, that’s for sure.
“Take
your time, really. I hope you didn’t cancel your plans because of
me.”
He
glanced over and gave me a wry smile. “No.”
“So, um, the tree farm. I go
all the time.” I mentally slapped myself. Twice
a year is all the time? “Do
you live nearby?”
“You
know the green colonial across the street behind the barn?”
“Uh
huh.”
He
smiled again. “That’s my house.”
“Wait,
I thought the owners lived there.”
“They
do. We have for my whole life.”
“Your
family owns Maple Acres?” I blinked a few times, dumbfounded by my
own dumbness.
“Well,
co-owns. Have you seen the guy with the white hair who sneaks free
gourds to all the little kids at Halloween? That’s my Uncle Roger.
He’s there all the time, but my dad does more of the financial
stuff.”
My
face lit up. “That’s awesome! I love that place! I took a picture
of the white barn from the top of the hill once and tried to sketch
it. All the trees had snow on them, the sky was this amazing gray
color and the pond was reflecting it” – I remembered mid-babble
that I’d veered off course and reigned myself back in – “anyway,
let’s just say it was magical, but drawing isn’t my strong suit.
So, um, if you didn’t move, then why did you switch schools?”
TJ’s
eyes slid back to the computer screen and his shoulder tensed ever so
slightly, as if I’d brought up something he didn’t really want to
talk about. Now I was getting somewhere.
“Our
property is right at the intersection of three town lines.
Technically, I could’ve gone to any one of the high schools.” He
stabbed a few keys with his pointer finger, eliciting three clipped
clicks. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I swore his jaw
tightened. “I left Templeton because it was time for a change of
scenery.”
“It
must’ve been hard, though, transferring for your senior year.”
And pretty odd, in my opinion. “I’m sure you had a lot of ties
there.”
TJ’s
fingers paused in mid-air over the keyboard and he looked at me. “Not
that many.”
This
time when he turned his attention back to the screen, I knew our
conversation had ended. He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture
that had a definite undertone of irritation. Whether it related to my
question or some memory pertaining to the school, I couldn’t tell.
But when I caught sight of the leather bracelet on his wrist, my
desire to exclaim OMG
THAT’S GORGEOUS WHERE DID YOU GET IT
almost overruled my desire to ask what the hell his comment was
supposed to mean. I’d been baiting him to say, “Yeah, my
girlfriend goes there.” He hadn’t. What did that mean?
Maybe
nothing.
But
damn it all to hell, I suddenly had to know for sure.
Giveaway!!!
