Kerry Lonsdale, the Wall Street Journal bestselling, riveting voice behind Side Trip, is back with a mesmerizing first installment in her newest No More series. No More Words (Lake Union Publishing; on-sale July 6, 2021; available in trade paperback original and Kindle book) simmers with drama and secrets, sure to dazzle readers as an unmissable summer read. Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from No More Words before it releases on July 6th!
Sixteen and pregnant, forced to choose between abortion or adoption, Lily Carson runs away from home, never to return. But she writes. Once a year, Lily mails a picture of her son, Josh, to her big sister Olivia. For thirteen years, this tradition continues, until suddenly Josh himself arrives at Olivia’s doorstep. He’s alone, terrified, and in possession of a notarized declaration from Lily. It begins, “In the event I go missing…”
Josh has difficulty talking. He can’t read or write, but he’s a prolific artist, exhibiting skill beyond his age. His drawings are as detailed as they are horrific. Olivia soon realizes Josh’s artwork tells a story. There’s more to his arrival and to Lily’s untimely disappearance than it seems. Using the drawings as a road map, Olivia traces Josh’s path back to his mom. Each drawing sheds light on Lily’s past and reveals a darkness that forces Olivia to question everything she thought she knew about her family.
“Everything’s about you,” he accuses. “What about me? You’re kicking me out, for Chrissake. At least hear me out.”
“Too late.”
“Come on, Livy. Just last night you were begging me—”
“Shut up!” He doesn’t need to remind her how wonderful he makes her feel, not when she’s trying to end them, as he so eloquently put it, before he can do any more damage. Her scars already run deeper than the lake they used to swim, holding hands while they floated on their backs, squinting into the sun. She yanks the cord to Blaze’s McIntosh turntable from her receiver.
“No! No, no, no.” He drops his PUMAs and shoves her aside. “Don’t touch my MTI.” He carefully lifts the turntable off the shelf and balances the component in his arms before turning to her. “Grab those.” He gestures with his chin toward the milk crate of vinyls on the floor.
Olivia heaves up the records and follows him out the front door, her gaze on his backside. He does have a nice ass. She’s going to miss looking at that, and him. Too bad she can’t trust the man, or anyone for that matter. She’s tired of being betrayed. It’s like she’s walking through life with a neon sign on her forehead: Screw Me Over. Picking up the pieces after they break her is exhausting. A part of her is left missing every time. She hasn’t felt whole since she broke up with Blaze in high school.
Correction. She hasn’t felt whole since her brother, Lucas, ruined their summers at the Whitmans’.
“Don’t throw my collection,” Blaze tosses over his shoulder.
“I won’t.” She isn’t that much of a bitch.
“Hey, Blaze.”
“Oh, hey, Amber,” he says when he walks past Olivia’s best friend. Amber lounges on the porch steps, making her way through a bottle of pinot noir.
“Thanks for coming,” Olivia says to her friend.
“Ah, well, I guess the end was inevitable.” As it always is with Olivia’s relationships.
Olivia cringes, embarrassed she’s such a failure in this area. Amber smirks. “For the record, I was holding out hope for you guys. But since it’s come to this, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
This isn’t Amber’s first Olivia breakup rodeo. Olivia called Amber right after she’d hung up on Blaze. After that incident several years back that left her with a fat lip and keyed car, she never kicked out a boyfriend without a friend on-site. One day she’ll learn to stop inviting men to make themselves at home.
Blaze sets down his turntable on the walkway and Olivia drops the crate alongside. “Careful,” he snaps, pulling out his phone. He approaches Amber. “You slept with Shane. Tell Liv this isn’t me.” He enlarges the photo on his 11 Pro Max.
“Good god. Put that thing away.” Amber covers her eyes.
“Screw you, Amber.”
“No, thanks. Already got Mike for that.” Amber drinks her wine like she’s washing down the taste the photo left behind.
Blaze shoves his phone away and turns to Olivia. “What’ll it take to convince you there’s nothing between me and Macey?”
She glances away. She can’t go through this again with him.
“This is it then.” Blaze shuffles his feet. His boot heels scrape on concrete.
“This is it,” she concurs, ignoring the inkling of remorse churning inside her stomach. She fooled herself into believing they could keep their relationship light, firmly seated on the fun level. She’ll miss him like family because at one time, he was family. But she doesn’t plead for him to stay. She bites her bottom lip hard so she won’t apologize and admit she might be making a mistake.
Amber quirks a brow. “You sure you want him to go?”
“Yes, why?”
She shrugs. “Thought I’d check while there’s still time to fix this.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“For a guy with a man bun, I kind of like him. And he didn’t key your Mercedes.” “Blaze wouldn’t have done that. Present fuckup aside, he’s too nice.”
“Then why am I here? And why are you breaking up with him?”
Olivia quirks a brow. “Seriously?” she asks while at the same time thinking Blaze may be 100 percent accurate. She’s been looking for an excuse to break up and Macey handed one to her in the shape of Shane’s—
Okay, she’s stopping right there.
Either way, a picture is worth a thousand words.
They watch Blaze throw a leg over his bike and the pang of regret in her chest sharpens, though not enough to invite him back or admit she’s wrong.
“You forgot your stuff.” Amber yells the obvious.
“Sure. I’ll pile everything on.” He gestures roughly at his ride and straps on his helmet. “I’ll be back later with my truck. Don’t touch my things.” He flicks down the visor and revs the cycle loud enough to scare off a cluster of blackbirds in the enormous pine across the street. He then flips Olivia his own bird and blows out of there.
Olivia exhales loudly. He’s gone. And she’s free.
She finger combs her hair back, holding the long, cinnamon-brown locks off her forehead, and turns to her friend. Their eyes meet. Amber’s brows lift.
“What?” Olivia barks.
Amber fixes her messy bun and refills her wineglass. She makes a contemplative sound deep in her throat.
“You think he was telling the truth,” Olivia presumes.
Her friend since college freshman orientation sips her wine. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
Olivia settles beside Amber on the porch steps. “He was telling the truth.”
“Yep.”
She extends a skinny jean–clad leg and pulls out the single Marlboro and lighter she’d tucked in her front pocket before Blaze showed up. She knew she’d need a smoke after he left, a nasty habit she’d picked up in San Francisco when she worked seventy-plus-hour weeks. Something to take the edge off when exercise and sex couldn’t. The other side of her California king will be cold tonight and exercise isn’t on the agenda. She has too much work to do before she turns into a pumpkin. And that damn recurring nightmare is back. Good thing sleep isn’t a priority.
She lights up and inhales. Sensing Amber’s hesitation, she exhales a long stream of smoke before muttering, “Out with it.”
Amber sighs. “You know Shane’s an idiot—whoa.” She perks up. “Check out that car.”
Olivia looks across the lawn. A pristine, two-door Lincoln Continental pulls up to the curb and rolls to a stop within a hairbreadth of Amber’s red Tesla. The driver, an elderly woman with her nose in the air to peer over the dash and her seat pulled forward enough to kiss the steering wheel, shifts the car into park, leaving the engine to idle.
Amber whistles. “Wow. That car’s mint. ’77 or ’78?”
“Something like that,” Olivia says absently, watching the people inside the metallic blue antique. There’s a kid in the front passenger seat. He can’t be older than fourteen. Probably the woman’s grandson. They stare blatantly at Olivia and Amber through the open passenger window.
“Are you having a yard sale?” the woman asks.
Laughter bubbles from Amber. “Take the lot of it. It’s yours,” she says for Olivia’s ears only.
Olivia’s heart pounds wildly. There’s something familiar about the boy. She nudges Amber’s thigh, a warning to behave. “No, sorry. Cleaning house.”
The woman nods, then murmurs a few words to her passenger. The boy gets out of the car, slides on a backpack, and shuts the door. The woman waves and, after backing up, pulls away from the curb.
“Where’s she going?” Olivia asks, alarmed.
The car crawls to the end of the street and turns the corner. “Did she just leave that kid?”
“Maybe he’s a neighbor,” Amber says.
Maybe, but doubtful. Olivia hasn’t seen him around here.
The boy turns, thumbs tucked under the shoulder straps, and looks up at them on the porch. His chin quivers and Olivia swears his legs tremble.
She inhales sharply. He isn’t a neighbor. The brown hair under the flat-billed Padres cap, the almond shape of his eyes, and the slope of his nose, even the hesitant tilt of his head and body stance, tell her exactly who he is. This boy is identical to her baby sister, Lily, when she was his age. A sister Olivia hasn’t seen in fourteen years.
“Josh.”
Excerpted from No More Words by Kerry Lonsdale with permission from the publisher, Lake Union Publishing. Copyright © 2021 by Kerry Lonsdale.
