Sometimes love...can drive you crazy.
Adelaide Carmichael and Damien Allen couldn't be more opposite.
Adelaide's mother abandoned her when she was ten years old, leaving her to be raised by her abusive and alcoholic father.
Damien on the other hand came from a wealthy family, was a local celebrity, and seemed to have a bright future ahead of him.
Despite their differences, Adelaide and Damien were young, wild, and fiercely in love.
And they had a plan.
They were going to run away.
Be together forever.
And their plan was set in motion, until tragedy struck and for some reason, Adelaide wound up in The Oakhill Institution for the insane.
Adelaide has no idea what she did to wind up at Oakhill, but she knows one thing for sure...
She wants out.
And after Damien follows her there to aid her in escaping, Adelaide slowly begins putting together the pieces of her memory that are missing.
And it doesn't take Adelaide long to figure out that sometimes...
That one true love never dies.
Excerpt 1 ~
Shoving my feet off the side of the bed, new surroundings burn my eyes. Tan plaster walls instead of thick white padded ones. One oblong barred window. Two dressers. Two closets. Two beds.
They've moved me to a different room.
A gentle squeaking noise bounces off the walls and my eyes avert to my right. Oh crap. They put me in a room with a nut job.
They say I'm a nut job.
But not like this.
Not even close.
She rocks back and forth on her cot, knees to her chest, twisting a piece of her wiry, red hair between her fingertips. Her freckled arms are trembling. She sings with vibrato.
I am slowly going crazy. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Switch.
Crazy going slowly am I. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Switch.
I think about screaming again. I think about plugging my ears. Somebody turn her off.
She lifts her head slowly, a maddening look in her big, brown eyes, an eerie smile crawling across her pale, freckled lips. “Shh,” she whispers. “They're coming for us.”
“Who's they?”
She shakes her head and lets out a cackle laced with the deepest kind of crazy. I think they put her in here with me purposely. They're trying to break me. They think if they put me around truly insane people that I'll accept my place here.
Well...They are wrong.
Book Excerpt 2 ~
After supper, which consisted of rubbery meatloaf, a wax-like colorful vegetable medley, and a piece of stale bread, I retreat back to the rec room and stand at the window. The sun is setting now and the sky is splashed with darkened oranges, yellows, and browns. There is no one outside anymore and I keep my eyes glued to the ground, watching as the wind tosses up dead leaves and spins them around in tiny cyclones before depositing them back on the ground.
For some reason, focusing on the skyline reminds me of summer.
And Damien.
We both used to sneak away from our houses at sundown. Daddy would be passed out by then and his parents were wealthy and donated a bunch of money to different charities so they always had some elaborate party to go to. In the summers they had one every night. Even on the weekdays.
His deep husky laugh sounds off in my mind and I revel in it. I close my eyes and he's chasing me through the field. “You know I'm going to catch you, Addy!” His voice carries on the wind and as the wind tousles my hair Damien's voice caresses my ear lobe.
I laugh and pump my legs harder, zig-zagging through the long, swaying grass, willing myself to go faster. “Ha! You'll never catch me, Damien Allen!” I shout back.
His footsteps thunder in my ears and I can feel him coming up on me. Before I know his hands are wrapped around my waist and we're crashing to the ground, laughing so hard we can't breathe.
A lonely tear escapes from my eye and I wipe it away quickly when open them. I miss him so much that since yesterday my heart has felt like a towering inferno and there isn't any water or a fire extinguisher around to put it out.
The tips of my fingers graze against the glass window. It feels cold. Distant. Startling. I'm perplexed because Damien knows I know he's here. So why hasn't he sought me out? Why hasn't he come looking for me? I relax when I think of the consequences. What would they do to him if they saw us together? An orderly and a patient who the staff thinks is insane? He'd probably be fired and God only knows what would happen to me.
I'd probably be given electroshock therapy or worse.
No... Having Damien here is too precious. Too magnificent. Too amazing.
And I'm not willing to risk giving it up.
Taking one last look at the sky, I turn to go to my room when I feel a pair of hands sliding up my back. At first, I tense up because I'm terrified of who might be touching me. Then I see his blue blue eyes in the window. Damien. “You caught me,” I whisper musically.
He flashes me a radiant smile that I can see through the window and then he wraps his arms around my waist. This feels like heaven. So beautiful. So blissful. So perfect. I never want this moment to end even though I know deep down inside that its going to at any second. His lips, his full luscious pouty lips are against my ear sending shock waves of desire through my nerves. I guide his hand down my stomach, feel the warmth of his fingertips through the thin fabric and just before his hand reaches my thigh he yanks it away. “No,” he whispers. “Not here. Not now.”
“Then where?” I lean into him and his body heat sets me on fire. I'm burning, burning, burning. I want to burn eternally.
About Lauren:
It all began with a dinosaur, a T-Rex to be exact. He was the main character in my very first short story. Me and T, well, we went places. He is the reason I won my first essay contest at age ten. And he is probably one of the number one reasons, I pursued a career in writing.
Throughout high school, I was what you would call a rebel. Someone who had convinced herself that she had life figured out at age sixteen. Still, writing was my only safe-haven during that time. I wrote notebooks full of poetry, even writing fellow classmates papers for them.
Unbeknowest to me, creative writing, seemed to be my one, true calling, my passion in life.
At age twenty, I began writing my first novel. After that, everything seemed to fall into place.
I won Best Poets and Poems of 2007, and The Editor's Choice award for my poem, Summer Days.
Also, during that time I wrote or co-wrote fifteen different screenplays, some which earned me finalist spot in various screenplay competitions.
In 2010, I've come full force, with my novel Love Sucks, that was released by Punkin House Press, in August of 2010. On top of Love Sucks, I have six novels that are slated to be released through the next five years. Also, doing some various marketing work for authors and publishers.
I pride myself in telling fellow writers to always follow their dreams. Who knows where I would be if I would have given up.
Lauren’s Links:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/NovelistLauren
Purchase links for Insanity:
Amazon ebook - http://www.amazon.com/Insanity-The-Asylum-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B008173I62/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337796479&sr=8-1
Barnes & Noble ebook - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/insanity-lauren-hammond/1110620686?ean=2940014360340
About Insanity:
Goodreads page - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13557662-insanity
Released: May 8th
Series: Asylum, book #1
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