Hi J.J. Coby followers!
I must apologize for my lack of new content! But these have been some busy weeks for me, and the final stages of publishing my first novel! It has been up and down fun! Though, requiring my hyper-focus and astute attention.
I needed to sign off on my wonderful editors suggestions, and then approve of the final book cover. Also my catch phrase on the back of the book needed to be phenomenal! But I was totally over thinking it, and then I was overstating it... and so in the end, I settled for simple and a bit mysterious---though it's not a mystery novel!
Anyhow, lots to do, and worth the effort, and hopefully now---for my potential fans---worth the wait! And since you all signed on early and showed your support for my blog, you will now all have the very exclusive chance to be the first human beings in the world outside of my editor and her dog Barlian to read the very first chapter of my romance/drama/comedy/comeback story of the year called Two Things That Make Us Whole, two days before it appears on Amazon June, 19th, 2020!!
And here's just a small itsy bitsy suggestion from J.J. Coby: if you absolutely love it, or everything or anything about it (but only IF), please take a choice below of your freedom:
Copy and SHARE the chapter!
Just completely blast the blog out! (email, share, talk about it!)
Or save the date of launch, and countdown with someone/everyone you believe would love it too!
Or all of the above!
Well, why am I still talking?? Here goes! Enjoy! And also enjoy the sneak-peek at the book cover!
And here's a big old gigantic Thank You from yours truly,
J.J. Coby.
Chapter One
After three miscarriages and one failed childbirth, you never truly feel like a woman again. I mean, the Pastor hasn't gathered and pronounced a section of Deuteronomy over your feminine grave or anything, and everybody who pretends they give a shit haven't yet rushed to your funeral in their best starched black dresses and shed “because-I'm-supposed-to” tears into the sleeves of their neighbors as not to ruin their own clothes. The thing is, when you're dead inside, no one knows to gather for the wake.
Isn't that a twist of bitter irony: They only show up to support you when you’re somatically and palpably dead.
I wasn't palpably dead, but according to a few medical professionals I perhaps might have been "clinically dead", and it's only predictable that when you're considered that way for as presumably long as I have, you fall into a chasm. Or at least I did . . . How can I explain what a chasm is so that you're able to touch my perception and perhaps come so close to feeling it, for a second you forget you're not actually you, but me. . . It's a lake. No, no, there's beauty sprouting around a lake. It's a well; yes, that's perfect. It's darker the deeper you go, and the scenery inside is a tower of molded moss and rain slicked cement with the same sporadic cracks as your soul. And there's frigid water at the bottom---there’s always frigid water at the bottom. Sometimes it sustains you in the last moments where you'd rather die; yet sometimes it drowns you and you're coughing out your lungs. But it's always cold. Cold like the loveless eyes of Jared Hastings.
I speak of my husband as if mentioning a stranger, and in so many ways my husband is. Tonight I sat in my dining room with eight strangers. One stranger was myself, one was my best friend since the third grade, Nikki; the other, her husband Lance (he still wore AC/DC shirts like he did in college); the fourth, my own lovelorn husband Jared, and two other couples who'd we met post-marriage. They were boring as hell.
We had just finished up Chipotle takeout, and my husband was sitting next to me ignoring me as usual. Next we would be carving up dessert. Yay, I couldn't wait.
"No. It's my second year! I swear. Jaylee, a little help?" That was the voice of my ex-best friend trying to get me involved in their dinner discussion, but I still hadn't recovered from the morning sickness from the baby I never had. So, the smell of carnitas was making me nauseated, and maybe it was the fifth glass of wine I had, or was it the seventh? Who cares? It tasted sweeter than Jared had been in years.
"Yes, I can definitely help Nikki." At twenty-one I was brunette and busty; my breasts were like two little no-fly softballs, and my butt was tight enough to be mistaken for two cantaloupes, courtesy of all my hours of straining in gymnastics. (Sorry, I should say this isn't me bragging. I never thought of myself as beautiful or drop dead gorgeous. I just think it's necessary for you to know me pre-well, so that you can manage all the snippets of my life, and paste together the full picture about me, Jaylee Brianna Hastings). Anyhow, I used to loathe boys who fawned over my body for basing love on something so Neanderthal. So, I never really noticed them, until I met my husband. Jared was . . . different, a special species of "man"---yes, I've become hopelessly convinced that men are more primate than the women species. I mean, it's not scientifically founded or anything, but here's my proofs: 1) They can laze around for hours doing absolutely nothing. 2) They would be completely acceptable not having to shower save once a week. And 3) When you speak to them about expressing their emotions they suddenly get all chimpish and pretend like they can't understand English. Until you say something like, "I Jane. You Tarzan. Want sex?" Then miraculously they're comprehensive to western English. Anyways, that was me, Jaylee Brianna Hastings, and I wasn't that twenty-one-year-old tight bodied gymnast anymore, I was thirty-one, and truly and irrevocably drowning....