Book Info
Title: Before He Was Famous
Author: Beck Wicks
Release Date: May 29, 2014
Goodreads Link:
Before He Was
Famous Blurb
Falling in love with your best
friend isn’t always a great idea, especially when he’s Noah Lockton - the
sexiest, most famous new talent on the planet. When 21-year-old small-town
photographer Chloe Campbell is offered the chance of a lifetime – to join her
celebrity childhood friend Noah on tour as an exclusive blogger for a New York
magazine – she’s certain both have put what happened four years ago behind
them. But his eyes still burn; his voice is still a jackhammer to her
heartstrings; all his songs are about her. Is it possible that that night still
haunts them both?
The music industry is a machine,
spinning hype and rumors as much as his records. It’s not just Noah’s
girlfriends who’ve got it in for Chloe (there’s no stopping the
Twitter-obsessed, cat-loving pop-star Courtney Lentini for starters). Pretty
soon, the jealousy and media frenzy surrounding these so-called-friends takes a
life-changing turn and it seems making love means making enemies at every turn.
When tragedy threatens to pull the final curtain on their relationship, both
Chloe and Noah must make a choice. As much as this world leaves them
starstruck, is living their dream really worth living without each other?
A story of lifelong friendships,
love and hope, set in a world of celebrity, fame and social media gone very,
very wrong.
Author Bio
Becky Wicks is a HarperCollins
author going indie! Itchy feet has led her to live and work all over the world
since leaving England at age 21, including NYC, Sydney, Bali, South America and
Dubai. Right now she’s scribbling the second book in the HotFlush series in
Vietnam, and will soon be in Vancouver if any hot Canadian men want to make her
a cup of tea?
Becky has also written three
funny travel books about her time in Dubai, Bali and South America
(HarperCollins). Her first book, Burqalicious - The Dubai Diaries, her second
book, Balilicious - The Bali Diaries and her third, Latinalicious -The South
America Diaries are out now as ebooks.
Becky has also written a comedy
romance with author Sarah Alderson under the name Lola Salt, called The
Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) which should raise a giggle or
two... think Bridget Jones if Jackie Collins had written it!
Author Links:
Twitter: bex_wicks
Excerpts – Pick one
Excerpt 1. Chloe.
Let me guess. When you say the name Noah Lockton, you see him
standing with one of a hundred guitars around his neck, glistening with sweat
in the glare of the stage lights.
You see him grinning, maybe on a pap shot, maybe snapped on
a red carpet, smiling at you from the middle of a magazine. You see him in the
spotlight; hot in more ways than one, right?
You see shouting headlines, hear the shrieks of infatuated
fans, visualize the vacuous presenters buffing up his ego on all those TV
channels and him batting away compliments like they're bees. You see bulbs
flashing, neon flickering, videos playing on loop everywhere. They're in the
gym, on the seatback screens of airplanes; in your Facebook sidebar when you're
messaging your friends.
You hear his music, obviously. How could you not? It's
everywhere. His voice is everywhere. You know the stats. Noah Lockton.
Twenty-three. Five-foot-eleven, messy brown curls and steel-gray eyes. Pisces.
You think you know him, this superstar, guitar-playing rock star.
But there are some things you don't know about Noah Lockton.
You don't know how proud he was that time, to have made me a
cake out of Lego, mud and toothpaste. How when he was eight, he sat up in the
tree house for three whole days after Prairie died. I was freaking out that if
the dog fell down from heaven no one else would be as close to the sky to catch
him. Noah just didn't want anyone else to see him cry. So we sat up there
together, neither of us saying a word. Just holding hands.
You don't know how crazy he made me, teaching me guitar till
my fingers bled. How we perfected the art of burping the entire first Britney
Spears single together after four cans of Diet Coke and convinced a radio
station to put us on air.
You don't know how his arms felt wrapped around me when my
world came crashing down; how I clung to the feeling of him inside me, filling
me up; bringing me back to life again when all I could feel otherwise was numb.
You don't know how we avoid the subject now.
When we were kids, his dad said his eyes were so shiny in
all my photos because of all the stars inside them.
Noah was always going to shine.
He was always going to be mine.
But sometimes even I forget the way things were before he
was famous.
Excerpt 2. Chloe.
Madeline places her glasses back on her nose, studying me
seriously. 'I see it in Noah, the way he looks at you. Chloe, I've seen that
look in a man's eyes. It's more than desire for your body. It's the secret
world you've built together in spite of all of this - that's what he can't
lose. You're his normality. You're a part of him, and he is a part of you.
That's what makes this frightening, but that's what makes it right.'
I can't help it now, I'm biting my cheeks, holding my breath
to stop from crying. She hit a nerve. Actually, she pretty much battered it
black and blue. I feel my chin wobble and I cover my face as Madeline walks
over, places a hand on my shoulder, brushes back my bangs. 'I'm sorry,' she
says, but I shake my head, squeeze her hand.
No one's ever sat me down and hammered this into me before.
No one's ever laid it all bare, exactly what I could lose, because no one knows
what we did. But he's my best friend. I sent him away four years ago to keep us
safe, not just because I felt guilty.
That night my dad died I sobbed and sobbed as he did the
same into my hair, my skin, my mouth and that was the first time in my life I
think I really ever, truly appreciated Noah; not just as my friend and a guy
I'd just made crazy, passionate love to, but as a necessity in my world. In
that moment he was everything I had and could never lose; my sun, my moon, my
star, a rock, a chest in which I could store every single secret and trust
implicitly with the key.
'I can't lose him,' I say.
'Chloe, my darling girl, how can you lose what you've never
had?' she replies.
Excerpt 3. Noah.
'Noah!' she yells again. 'You have to spin for aunt
Madeline, remember?'
It feels like so long since I saw Chloe laughing and
something lifts from my shoulders almost instantly. Aunt Mads told us she and
her boyfriend danced and span in the rain on the deck of a ship once, just
because she'd seen it in a movie and always wanted to do it. Then, when it
rained, she dragged us to her yard in The Bronx and we all span around till we
were soaked and hysterical, doing stupid high kicks on the grass.
I can't take my eyes off her as she spins and spins and
spins. And I feel it hit me. It smacks me hard; the thought that Chloe is the
most beautiful creature I've ever seen, right here, right now, spinning like a
figurine in a silver snow-globe.
She bounds up to me, giddy and still laughing. Raindrops are
careening down her cheeks and her eyes are huge now. 'Come fly with me, Peter,'
she breathes, reaching for the hand that isn't clasped around the umbrella. 'Or
are you too grown up for that now?'
The wind picks up and clutches at her dress. I reach out
instinctively to her face, run a thumb along her cheek, swiping at raindrops.
'You're drunk,' I whisper, but even as she frowns and rolls her eyes at me I
have to smile because I see her; the kid who held my hand when my
dog died, who gave names to the snails in her yard, who made me jump about her
bedroom carpet like it was an ocean full of islands.
I see the seventeen-year-old who clung to me when her dad
died. The secrets we left in the branches; the way our desperate lips searched
frantically for some modicum of sense as we let our minds go out the window and
fucked with more passion, more heart than I've ever experienced with anyone
else in my life; even if she was drunk, even if we were grieving. It doesn't
change what it meant to me.
Fuck. She's amazing. I love her. Why the hell did I let her
go back to Cooper? Why the hell did I not just tell her sooner? Would it even
have made a difference?
She's tugging on my arm and I realize I haven't spoken yet.
'Chloe...' I start. But the flash strikes us like lightning. I'd know it
anywhere and it has nothing to do with the weather.
'Paparazzi,' we say in sync, and I grab her hand, pull her
with me as we both break into a run.
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