Second Summer by Kris Kassidy

I like to highlight different genres on my blog and today I have romance for you. Second Summer is the fourth book in The Summer Series by Kris Kassady. It was just released on September 26th and can be read as a standalone book. If you like steamy contemporary romance with a difference, along with plenty of heat and a guaranteed HEA, you’ll love Second Summer. I hope you enjoy this excerpt as part of Love Book Tours schedule.

Darius and Tizita test the furthest boundaries of true love. He’s from a privileged family and a life of opportunity. Tizzie’s life is a complete mystery and she’s not talking about it. 

But, together, the chemistry is smoking hot.

Darius Williams has dedicated his life to helping those less fortunate. As Executive Director of the Rose City Homeless Shelter and Food Kitchen, he works with street people in Portland, Oregon, and lives at Second Summer, a halfway house for people getting a second start in life.

When Tizita Mehaku shows up at the Portland homeless shelter, she’s a complete mystery. With dark skin and a bag over her shoulder, she has no driver’s license, no social security number, no passport, and no identification whatsoever. She also refuses to talk about her history.

Convinced that Tizzie is on the run, Darius sets about helping her find places to live and work. Sparks fly and a promising romance blossoms. But Tizzie’s past finally catches up to her and the lovers are forced to confront a situation that threatens to destroy their relationship and Tizzie’s life.

Darius wants nothing more than to help Tizzie move beyond the circumstances of her traumatic past, but there is danger ahead for both of them. Can they join forces to conquer her demons and create a future together at Second Summer? Or will the shadowy figures from Tizzie’s past emerge to destroy their bond… and their lives?

Excerpt:

He thought about her all afternoon. When he’d seen her face, the astonishing green eyes coupled with the creamy brown skin had triggered a memory. He knew he’d never seen her before. He would have remembered. But he couldn’t get the image or feeling out of his mind, confused by the sense of familiarity it had spawned. He’d never seen her before, but yet she seemed familiar.

After work, when he walked in the door of the house where he lived, it came to him: it was a famous photo. He poured a glass of wine and sat in the living room with his laptop to start a Google search. He thought for a few moments about what he was looking for. First he Googled photos of African women. His screen populated with thousands of photos of African women, from tribal to modern. He added “rural,” and an entirely different set of photos appeared. The same with “village.” He then tried “Middle Eastern” with no luck. But when he went with famous photos of Hindu women, the photo he was looking for popped up front and center.

He clicked on it and discovered it had its own Wikipedia page under Afghan Girl. Darius read with fascination about the 1984 photographic portrait of Sharbat Gula taken by photojournalist Steve McCurry. It appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic magazine and was considered one of the most famous photographs ever taken. The image was of an adolescent girl with green eyes in a red headscarf looking intensely at the camera. The subject’s identity was not known at the time of the photo, but the international attention the photo brought resulted in her later identification. She was a Pashtun child living in a refugee camp in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, age twelve when she was photographed.