Book Title: Familiar Ties
Author: Naya Nikki
Genre: Romance
Publisher: InkSpell Publishing
Publication Date: May 21st 2012
Format: eBook, Kindle, Paperback
Book Synopsis:
Max West is a
widower raising Phoebe, his four-year-old daughter. Phoebe has to live with the
fact that the day she was born is also the day of her mother’s death. As her
fifth year without her mother approaches, Phoebe finds solace in her godmother,
Amy Riley, and her daughter, Grace Crawford, another single parent family.
Amy Riley is
a successful fashion designer who spends most of her days raising her
four-year-old daughter, Grace, while her wayward boyfriend is travelling the
world making the next best film. As the fifth year without her best friend
looms she finds comfort in her ex-boyfriend, Max, and his daughter,
Phoebe.These two “broken” families have a tough week to face as the dreaded day
approaches.
However
through their past, present and debatable future will their choices affect the
outcome both parents clearly want and are simply denying? Or will Phoebe and
Grace lose the only “whole” family they have ever known?
Excerpt
“Amy,” Max warned,
“You’re not going to just take pictures.”
He chuckled as he stood
behind Amy, who was trying to figure out the new camera. Grace and Phoebe were
posed perfectly on the sofa like little angels, big smiles showing rows of
shiny white teeth, with the odd one or two missing. “You see,” he showed her.
“There's this new, fancy thing called a timer. This means that all of us can be
in the picture, including you.”
She playfully swatted
him, as he jumped back, “Oh zip it.” She laughed, “I look a mess. Anyway I want
a picture of you three for my desk, not me.”
Grace sat up as she
swung her little legs off the edge of the sofa, her feet not even scraping the
floor. “Come on, Mommy! Pwease?” She was missing her two front teeth and
therefore she couldn’t pronounce her L’s properly. Amy thought it sounded so
cute and secretly hoped that they’d never grow back.
How could she possibly
say no to her little darling? She watched as Grace began to pout and bat her
big, grey eyes at her. It was her infamous look that could make anyone fall for
her, including her mother and her Uncle Max.
“No, not the pout,”
she joked. “Anything but that, Gracie you know I can’t resist that cute little
pout of yours.”
Once Max finished
setting the timer, he curled his fingers around Amy's pale bangle covered wrist
and pulled her towards the girls and the sofa. As they both sat down, on either
side of the girls, he leaned over the girls’ heads to whisper, “I taught her
that pout.”
“Yes, I know,” she
replied. “Because that’s how you got Anna to fall for you.” She was about to
laugh when she realized what she’d said. There was a moment of silence as both
contemplated the loss of Anna. “Sorry,” she whispered to him. “I shouldn’t have
said that.”
“It’s fine,” he
whispered back, before he could say anymore Phoebe crawled onto his lap. He
smiled and saw the splitting image of his deceased wife staring back at him. He
didn’t mind that Anna was gone, because she’d left him the most precious of
gift. Amy smiled as she lifted Grace onto her lap. Both parents shuffled closer
together as a unit.
“How long do we have,
Daddy?” Phoebe asked, as she snuggled into her father’s chest.
“Thirty seconds,” he
answered. “Can you smile big for me?” he asked.
Phoebe nodded as she
smiled her massive toothy smile and reached for Grace's hand. “You too, Grace!”
Phoebe instructed her friend. “Smile really, really big!”
For a moment, Amy
remembered Anna again. They’d both been only eight years old when they’d sat
and posed for a different camera. Amy still had that picture on her bedside
drawer, next to one of Phoebe and Grace as babies. 'Smile real big,' Anna had
said as she’d tilted her head against Amy’s to become one.
The smile on Amy's
face wasn’t a sad one anymore. She was fortunate that she could feel Anna’s
presence, through her charming daughter.
As she looked at the
camera, she hadn’t realized that Max had put his free arm around her waist,
pulling them closer. The camera started to blink, indicating to be ready.
“Ready?” she asked them. “On the count of three, okay? One…Two…”
“Three,” they all said
together, smiling big for the camera, to produce the perfect family photo, to
anyone who didn’t know them.
Author Bio:
|
Born and raised in London,
England, Naya Nikki is a student who’s spent most of her life taming her
creative streak through writing short stories. She’s signed her first
contract with InkSpell Publishing to publish her first book “Familiar Ties.”
The story follows the journey of two single parents whose daughters want
nothing more than for them to become a happy family.
She is currently earning a
degree in English with a minor in Creative Writing that will allow her to
build her writing career. When she isn’t at the university, Naya loves
nothing more than spending time with her parents and grandparents as well as
meeting her friends for gossip sessions over some hot coco.
Links
|
Author website: http://nayanikki.weebly.com
Twitter: @NikkiNaya
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