Author Spotlight: Featuring Danielle Beach, Psychological Ballistics

 
Welcome back to Mera's YA Book List! Today, it's time for a new author spotlight! We are featuring Danielle Beach, author of Psychological Ballistics. Want to find out more about Danielle and her novel?

Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt !
 
Blurb:
Eric Schultz, Parker Lowe, Jen Tyler and Sean Hackert have been good friends for over two years. It is their senior year of high school and their thoughts should be on the future, which is rapidly approaching. Soon enough, they'll each cross the stage at graduation and receive a diploma.

But there's a problem.

Life for the four has not been easy these past four years, and Sean is not about to let his old injuries pass without retribution. He has been humiliated and ostracized by his peers for the last time.

This chapter of the group's life cannot conclude until someone pays.

The book is currently available through Amazon.com.
 

PUBLICATION DATE: October 24, 2012
Published in Paperback and E-book Formats
 
 
Now for the excerpt!
 
  “Hey,” Eric poked Parker in the shoulder.

            “What?” Parker looked up from the floorboard he apparently found fascinating.

            “Are you okay?  You zoned out.”

            “No, yeah, sorry, I was just thinking about something.”

            “Obviously.  Otherwise you were probably having some kind of stroke.”

            “Funny,” Parker snatched the remote from Eric’s hand and turned to the national news channel.

            “Almost as funny as a hundred and ten dead in a landslide,” Eric commented, reading the ticker at the bottom of the screen.  The two were silent for some time.  Parker enjoyed these moments.

            Bella eventually settled herself on the couch between them, and the opportunity for talk was lost in the comfortable breathing rhythm of the seven year old while she studied Cartoon Network as though she would be tested.  Parker momentarily wondered whether it was wrong to feel such an impulse to wrap an arm around the young girl and pull her to his side, just to feel the fragility of a tiny body, resting against his own, fragile-in-a-different-way, body.  He glanced sidelong at Eric, who seemed so strong, youthful compared with him.  Eric’s face was somewhat rounder, and always a healthy peach color, aside from two drops of blush in the apples of his cheeks.  The color was permanent, whether he was playing a video game or running in gym class.  His arms were average, but underneath a thin layer of fat rested toned muscle from who-knows-what kinds of exercise he may or may not have secretly engaged in.  No shame in wanting to have an attractive body.  Eric’s face was actually an unending source of fascination for Parker.  Perhaps because Eric was actually not bad looking.  Jen had thought so at one time, and Madeline certainly found him desirable.  Parker mentally shrugged and zoned back out into the TV.

            Eric thought Parker was acting somewhat strangely today.  He often opted to sink into his own thoughts, but today he seemed further away than usual.  He had known the other boy for only two years, but in the comfortable silences they frequently found themselves lulled into, it often seemed as though they had been with one another all of their lives.  They had met in chemistry class; neither knew any of their classmates well enough to presume they would immediately have a lab partner for the year.  They had been generally aware of each other in the past, they had shared a class in ninth grade, and Eric knew that Parker was “that freaky trench coat Mafioso” in middle school.  Parker knew Eric was attending drama club meetings, a name on the roster of people whose sexual orientation was in question, circulated among the general student population.  Also on this newsletter was who was dating whom, who might be pregnant, and who to buy pot from.

 

            Mr. Donnivan eyed the two boys critically when everyone else had immediately paired up.

            “Well, Parker, looks like you and Eric are both without partners.”

            Parker felt sick.  He hated working with other people, especially in a subject which he found himself very strong.  The guy would probably leech off all his work and not do anything all year.  An A by association.

            “Yeah,” was all the gaunt boy muttered from behind his curtain of brown hair.

            “So… get to know each other.  Become best friends.  And get yourselves to a lab station!”

            “Do you know anything about chemistry?” Parker asked, in almost a growl.

            “No, well, I mean, I know like H₂O and NaCl and stuff.  Why, what do you know?”  Eric challenged.

            “A lot more than that.”  Good god, this guy was an asshole, Eric ascertained with an unpleasant curling of his lip.  “Just don’t get in the way if you’re planning on not doing anything, alright?” the statement did not seem threatening anymore, more resigned, annoyed perhaps, but not dangerous.  As if to punctuate this lack of underlying violence, the boy rubbed his temple in a pained manner.  He had had this conversation many times before.

            “Why wouldn’t I do anything?  My grade’s at stake.”

            Parker chuckled.

            “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

            “Yeah, I do.  You’re Parker Lowe.”

            Parker looked at him expectantly.

            “Then you are aware of the social suicide associated with even looking in my direction, much less speaking to me, right?”

            “Hell with social standing; I’m more concerned with getting through chemistry in one piece.  Science has never exactly been my strong suit.  So I have to work doubly hard to get the grade I want.  If that means working together, then, whatever.”

            Parker suddenly smiled.  As much as a smile was capable of being at home on his lips, anyway.  He did not look any less scornful or depressed with this change of expression, but he did say, “Well then, Eric, it’s your lucky year.”

            “Huh, I’m surprised you know who I am.”

            “Why would that surprise you?” Parker asked as they moved to a lab table in the back of the room.

            “I dunno, I’m not exactly at the forefront of gossip,” Eric winced as though he had just impaled himself on something sharp.  And rusty.  Parker countered him with a subtle barb of his own, though not in a completely nasty manner.

            “You’d be surprised what circulates in the gossip rags.”

            The lesson on saturation and super saturation was elementary, at most, for Parker, and he quietly instructed Eric on the proceedings for each step in the lab.  The two were done in three-quarters of the time that had been allotted for the experiment and Mr. Donnivan seemed pleased.

            “Where’d you learn this stuff?” Eric inquired conversationally.  Parker did not look up from the beaker he was emptying into the sink.

            “Here and there.  Not like I have a lot else going on on the weekend,” Parker’s smile was wry this time, Eric could not immediately tell the intention of the comment.  Was Lowe being self-pitying?  Self-deprecating?  Sarcastic?  Did he lead a double life as a drug kingpin or active gang member on his days off?  Parker seemed to relax in the silence that followed his comment and eventually said, in a way totally uncharacteristic of the much-whispered-about version of Parker Lowe, “You know, I don’t mind you as a partner.  At least you’re not a complete idiot.”

           

            “What the hell are you looking at me like that for?” Parker asked, an arched eyebrow climbing toward his hairline as Eric snapped back to his living room couch.

            “Oh… uh, no reason.  Sorry.”

 

 

If you liked the excerpt, check out Psychological Ballistics on Amazon!