In a few days Tijan will be releasing the first in her A Whole New Crowd series, a long awaited novel among Tijanettes, who have been seeing bits and pieces of the story through teasers and excerpts for a while now. The release, August 18, 2014, is a big deal because Tijan hasn’t even released the synopsis of her novel to her readers yet, which will be part of the release day blitz. This teaser that I am posting today is only a snippet of chapter one (posted in full along with chapter two) on her Facebook group in July. I am not posting the entire thing, you can go join the group for the goodies, but I will share a small part of the goodness with you because I want to warm you up for the release day and get your one-click finger all ready for it’s job! Enjoy, support Tijan, and please remember to BUY Indie Author books and not skim them from pirate sites because it’s expensive to publish your own works when you are the little guy!

A Whole New Crowd Teaser:

“Taryn.”
I rolled my eyes at hearing my sister’s screech. I didn’t wait for her and I kept going down the school’s hallway. She could screech all she wanted. I wasn’t going to help her, at least not in the way she wanted me to.
“Taryn,” Mandy shouted again. She was running now. The sound of her heels hitting the floor went from a normal clitter-clatter, but it was now a constant staccato. I rolled my eyes. My sister was an idiot. No one should run when wearing high heels, at least those high heels—they arched halfway up to her calves, but that was Mandy Matthews. She wore high heels, clingy tank tops, miniskirts, and on some days, a cheerleading outfit.
She was one of those people.
I had been adopted into a family that was the opposite of everything I was and had been all my life—the God blessed, rich kids. Mandy was the epitome of the golden child: blonde, petite, smart and popular by all accounts. She wasn’t the head of her clique, but she was one of them. The highest of the high. There was always a popular group at the top, but there was another circle within that circle. She was in there.
“Taryn, stop!”
I ignored her, opening my locker as I heard her stumble to a halt, panting beside me. My eyebrows went up. “Thought you were in shape. All those late night activities with Devon, right?”
“I’m not here to talk about Devon.”
I grinned, but I knew what she was there to talk about. “I heard Devon hooked up with Stephanie Markswith at Brent’s party.”
“Not gonna work, Taryn,” she said, but it had. I saw the twitch in her eye. She knew I was trying to distract her and she was fighting. I saw the play of emotions over her face, then smirked when she surrendered. Her eyebrows had been fixed, bunched together and her mouth was pressed in a flatline, but then it all changed. Her eyebrows shot up and she let out a dramatic sigh. “There’s no chance in hell that he would hook up with her. No way in hell!”
“Not what I heard.”
“She’s not suicidal.”
“She was drunk. I don’t think she was thinking sober.” I shut my locker and moved away.
Mandy latched to my side, seething at the same time. “The girl’s dead.”
I saw Stephanie turn the corner up ahead, along with her mini-Stephanie-wanna-be friends tagging behind: Jackie, Slappy, and Curlie. Those weren’t their real names, that’s just what I called them. They were like walking skeletons. They had no personalities and their two missions in life were to remain like skeletons and to become popular. Stephanie wasn’t where my sister was in the social status, but she wasn’t far behind.
That was perfect timing. “Better tell her that.”
Mandy didn’t say goodbye, she just veered in her direction.
I stopped to watch this. I had to. Stephanie spread a rumor my first week at Rawley High School that I stole a biology exam. It wasn’t true. Her boyfriend hit on me and she wanted revenge. When I got called into the principal’s office, my history was pulled up. Being known as a thief and being sent from too many foster homes to count, I wasn’t dumb. I looked guilty. He didn’t care to hear any argument on my behalf and gave me detention for two months. They couldn’t prove it was me, but it didn’t matter. Stephanie had tarnished my name and all my intents and purposes to be a ‘good’ kid had gone down the drain.
When I heard Mandy’s yell, “Stephanie!” I savored that moment. Revenge could be sweet.
***
Tray Evans dropped into the seat opposite mine at lunch. I looked up, locked gazes with him and sighed. No, it wasn’t one of those sighs because he’s gorgeous and it was love at first sight. I had been aware of him since I arrived. He was beautiful, but that’s not why I’d been so aware. It was because he was smart. He was more than he seemed. To everyone else, he was captain of the basketball team. He had sandy blonde hair, striking hazel eyes, and a jaw that had girls melting at their knees.
While my sister was in the crowd at the top, he was the top. What he said, they did. Tray Evans controlled this school and now he had searched me out. When this happened in the past, it was never good.
He propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Your sis preaches about your skills.”
“I don’t do that anymore.”
He narrowed his eyes. I was holding my breath. To be honest, I didn’t want to tangle with someone like Tray Evans. No one seemed to realize that he was dangerous. He was smart, smarter than people gave him credit for. He watched people. He held the power to make someone’s life miserable or blissful. I had gone against douchebags like him at other schools. None of them concerned me, but as I was still holding his gaze, a shiver wound its way up my spine and I admitted to myself that there was more to this guy. My gut told me to be cautious around him and I always went with my gut. It kept me alive.
“Taryn!” Mandy landed in the seat next to mine. “Tray, hey!”
“Matthews.” He nodded at her, but his gaze was still on me.
“Is it true?” Mandy asked. “Is the party at your place?”
A faint grin teased at the corner of his mouth. He answered her, but he never looked from me. “Thinking about it.”
“Devon’s excited. It should be epic.”
I broke the gaze. I couldn’t watch him any longer. It was usually in my advantage. I could sense when people would shift away, but it wasn’t working with him. He was wining in that stare-off so I turned to Mandy. “Why are you here?” She didn’t sit by me at lunch. I sat alone. It was my rule.
She sighed, “Come on, Taryn. We need your help.”
Understanding dawned. “That’s what this is about? Both of you are coming to double-team me?”
“Well…yeah.”
Tray leaned forward, propping his muscled arms on the table, teasing me with a view of a tattoo peeking out from underneath his polo sleeve. “Mandy says that you’re good at stealing stuff. We need something.”
“No.”
“Taryn, why are you being so difficult? Come on, you’re like a legend at this stuff. Mom and Dad had to attend conferences about this stuff just to prepare the family for you.”
Of course. I knew, but hearing that in the way she said it was a dagger to me. A harsh laugh came from me. “Sorry that your family had to learn how to thief-proof their home before their new defected adoptee moved in.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I really didn’t. Taryn—”
I wasn’t listening. I stood and crossed the cafeteria until I was out the door and down the hallway. Without thinking, I found myself in the parking lot, my car keys dangling from my fingers, but as I got inside and put the key in the ignition, I stopped myself. What was I doing? It was times like these when I missed Brian. He would’ve known. He would’ve understood from the way I walked that I needed to get away, but he wasn’t there anymore.
The passenger door opened and my heart stopped. Brian?…no. Tray got inside. He smirked at me. “Going somewhere?”
“Get out.”
He laughed. “You know, you’re having an unusual reaction to me. All I did was sit down at your table and ask you a question. I’m wracking my brains trying to figure out what I’ve done to piss you off, but I can’t think of another time that we’ve even talked. Did I hit on you at some party and act like an asshole?” He grinned. “I tend to do that more often than I remember. If so, I apologize right now. It was probably because you were hot and I was drunk.”
He sounded all nice now, but it was an act. Every alarm was going off inside of me. He was not this innocent guy and as I stared at him, I found myself checking him out. He really was gorgeous with eyelashes that girls would kill for, full plump lips, and my gaze fell to his tattoo. His shirt had moved higher so I could see it better.
I had a thing for tattoos and the sight of his tribal one was reminding me that it’d been awhile since I’d been with Brian. Shit. Brian. Tray Evans was the rich and blessed version of my ex-boyfriend. The difference was that Brian Lansers never got away with anything. They got in trouble just because they existed. The Tray Evans of the world pulled the same stunts and were worshiped.
Dangerous. He was just dangerous in my opinion.
“Like what you see.”
I laughed softly. It hadn’t been a question from him. “You got the package. We both know that, but I doubt you have the quality.”
“You think so?”
“I’ve dealt with boys like you. There’s no surprise there; you’re all the same.”
“Boys?” He flashed me a grin. “I’m all man. There’s no part of me that’s a boy anymore.” He leaned forward so his face was close to mine. He came in slow and his breath teased my skin. Then he tilted his head to the side and his cheek grazed against mine.
I held firm. I had to. He was testing me, seeing if I would flinch or melt. I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t give him any reaction because if I did, he won. I was the weaker one. Heat spread through my body and I gritted my teeth. My body was betraying me. No one had gotten that reaction from me, not even Brian when we first kissed and that knowledge made me hate this guy.
I smirked at him, his eyes so close to mine. “Good for you.”
His eyes were laughing and the hazel color darkened to an amber color.
“But I’m not interested.”
A low chuckle slipped from him, but he moved back. “Listen, business only, okay?” He continued, “Next week is homecoming and we play the Panthers from Pedlam.” Judging from my silence, he proceeded, “Last year they stole our game book and we got screwed. This year, it’s our turn.”
“You want me to steal their game book?”
“Mandy says you used to do this stuff. I respect that you don’t want to do it anymore, but we know that they’ve already been sniffing around campus. We caught a few of ‘em Friday night. They were trying to take our state championship flag from last year.”
“You won the state championship?”
“Yeah.”
“So the one loss didn’t hurt that bad.”
“It hurt enough. They had to revise an entire new game book.” I could hear the bitterness from him.
“You don’t even play football. Why do you care?”
“Because this is my school. I take care of what’s mine.”
This wasn’t my school. I didn’t have a school, but I knew Pedlam. “I know people from there.”
“You went to school there?”
“A few times. I don’t know if I want to help you screw with a school that I used to consider mine.”
Tray sighed, rolling his eyes. “You’re Mandy’s sister. This is your school now, Taryn.”
That was the first time I’d heard him say my name and hearing it, I hated it. I hated him. A whole host of emotions were unlocked. They were rolling around inside of me, wrapping around each other. Memories seared through me and Brian’s voice, saying my name, was on repeat inside of my head.
I wanted it gone. I wanted him gone. He unlocked all of that and his absence could lock it back up. “Get out. I’m not helping you.”
“What?”
“Out!”
“Fine.” He got out and shut the door. As he walked away, I took deep breaths and tried to calm the storm he had unknowingly unleashed.

@Tijan A WHOLE NEW CROWD. Posted by TijanWritings at Tijan Author Fan Page, July 17, 2014.

Purchase A Whole New Crowd:

Amazon-US | Amazon-CA | Amazon-UK | Amazon-AU

Meet Tijan:

I didn’t begin writing until after undergraduate college. There’d been storylines and characters in my head all my life, but it came to a boiling point one day and I HAD to get them out of me. So the computer was booted up and I FINALLY felt it click. Writing is what I needed to do. After that, I had to teach myself how to write. I can’t blame my teachers for not teaching me all those years in school. It was my fault. I was one of the students that was wishing I was anywhere but at school! So after that day, it took me lots of work until I was able to put together something that resembled a novel. I’m hoping I got it right since someone must be reading this profile! And I hope you keep enjoying my future stories.

Tijan’s Web Tracks:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page

Tijan on All The Things Inbetween:

Book It – In News Today: Tijanettes Meet A Whole New Crowd
He Said, She Said – Gabfest and Gossip: Tijan
Book It – In News Today: Tijan Gives Another Sneak Peek for Fallen Fourth Down‬
Book It – In News Today: Tijan Releases New Sustain Teaser
Book It – In News Today: Tijan Reveals Cover of Sustain with First Two Chapters
Any Day That Ends In YA – Fallen Crest Public by Tijan

Tijan’s Books:

Fallen Crest High Synopsis:

 

Mason and Logan Kade are two brothers who did their own thing. They were rich and expected to attend her school, Fallen Crest Academy. They chose public school and now Samantha has to live with them. The problem is that she doesn’t care at all: about them, about her friends, about her cheating boyfriend, or even about her parent’s divorce. But maybe that’s a good thing.

Maybe change is a good thing.

Purchase Fallen Crest High:

Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Kobo

Fallen Crest Family Synopsis:

 

Samantha and Mason are together. Everyone knows it. Not everyone is dealing with it. While Mason’s ready to give them the middle finger, there’s one not going away. Her mother. Threats are issued. Ultimatums are given. Even blackmail is used, but only Samantha can put a stop to Analise. However, when a trauma from her past is triggered, she may not have the courage or strength to do what’s needed. If she doesn’t, Mason’s future could be destroyed.

Purchase Fallen Crest Family:

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Fallen Crest Public Synopsis:

 

Sam’s first day at Fallen Crest Public doesn’t go well. Some girls want to be her. Some girls want to destroy her. And some just don’t like her. All in all, despite being protected by Mason and Logan, it’s still only the strong survive. Sam will not only have to survive, she needs to learn how to conquer too, but there’s another battle growing. Things are about to come to a disastrous end between the towns, Roussou and Fallen Crest. Sam’s other main dilemma? Keeping Mason and Logan from getting arrested or hospitalized.

Purchase Fallen Crest Public:

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Family Crest Alternative Version:

This book was originally written to be the sequel to Fallen Crest High. It was scrapped and not used. Fallen Crest Family was written instead as the number two book in the Fallen Crest Series. However; this version was posted on the author’s page for free reading as a thank you to her readers. After reading what she posted, enough fans requested this story to be published so here it is. This book is not meant to be promoted or a part of the Fallen Crest Series. It has been published at the readers’ requests and it is for them to enjoy. With all this said, please enjoy. The original chapters are still posted for free reading.

Purchase Fallen Crest Alternative Version:

Amazon | B&N

Mason Synopsis:

Mason Kade is not known to be nice. He is ruthless, manipulative, and unforgiving. Most will say that he is an a**hole and he is to those that cross him or cross his loved ones. However, he does not want to be who he is. He does not enjoy hurting others, but there is no limit to the lengths he will go to protect himself and his brother. This is the story of how he came to be and this is why so many love Mason Kade.

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Amazon-US | Amazon-AU | Amazon-CA | B&N | Smashwords

 

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