American
Flowers
Michael
A. McLellan
Genre:
Young Adult/New Adult Contemporary Drama/Thriller
Chris
was in the second grade. His mom dropped the bowl of Fruit Loops in
front of him splashing milk onto the sun-faded, oak table. "You
know, I really wanted a baby," she said, poking one of her
ever-present cigarettes into the corner of her mouth and lighting it
with the Bic that she kept in her bathrobe. She drew in smoke, her
cheeks sucking in momentarily while she did. Chris thought she looked
like a fish whenever she did that. His dad didn't look like a fish
when he smoked. She exhaled; it drifted upward to join the layer of
smoke that always seemed to hover just below the ceiling in their
house. "And then once I had one," she continued, "I
found that I really didn't want one after all. But once you have a
baby, you're stuck with it."
A lump formed in Chris' throat and it was a real effort for him to swallow his bite of cereal.
A lump formed in Chris' throat and it was a real effort for him to swallow his bite of cereal.
"You
mean....
me, Mom?" he asked, his voice wavering and tears welling in his
eyes. She picked up her vodka tumbler and drained it.
"Of
course I mean you. Now go to school."
Chris Shafer spent the next ten years trying to earn his parent's love—straight A student, baseball star....drug addict.
Enter
Allie Laughton: smart, self-assured, and raised in a similar
environment of indifference and neglect.
They
hit it off immediately.
American
Flowers follows the lives of Chris and Allie as they go from
promising, young adults to the couple the media ignorantly begins
calling a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. On the run from Chris'
volatile-tempered drug dealer and manipulated by a psychotic
ex-convict, Chris and Allie are caught in a dangerous game where
there can be no winners.
Author
Bio
Michael
A. McLellan is a self-proclaimed blue-collar writer. His body of work
includes the 2014 novel, After and Again, the 2015 novel, American
Flowers
and the shorts, Joe
Price
and Anywhere
But Here.
Website: http://www.michaelamclellan.com
Author
Giveaway: (2) Signed copies of American Flowers, and (2) twenty-five
dollar Amazon gift cards to (2) winners