Dear Adam
Authors: Ava Zavora
Tags: #literary, #romantic comedy, #womens fiction, #chick lit, #contemporary romance, #single mother, #contemporary women, #bibliophile
“
You’re the more real to me than any man I’ve ever
known…”
To book blogger Eden, Adam is the embodiment
of every literary fantasy she’s ever had. Intelligent, wickedly
funny, sexy, and attentive – he and his fascinating life seem right
out of a novel. Their whirlwind relationship is so intense and all
consuming that soon she can’t imagine being with anyone else.
But there’s one little thing that’s keeping
Eden and Adam from their happily ever after.
They’ve never met. She doesn’t even know what
he looks like.
Despite how hard she’s fallen for him and how
he makes her feel, Eden’s doubts begin to threaten their passionate
love affair. Why is he so mysterious? Why does he seem reluctant to
meet her? What is Adam hiding?
Afraid that she’s being made a fool of, Eden
is forced to choose between her heart and her head. Is Adam too
good to be true, as her common sense is telling her, or is the
truth more startling than fiction?
by
Ava Zavora
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Ava Zavora
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.
Editor: Orry Benavides
Smashwords Edition
Other Works
Rosethorn
Belle Noir
Transfigured
Mirabilis
No Loyal Knight and True
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Books and Authors Mentioned in Dear
Adam
BOOK BOHEMIAN BLOG
POST TITLE: Why I Don’t Have a Boyfriend
DATE OF POST: July 31
STATUS: Draft
After a long period of being single, I
finally find The One. He’s romantic and adventurous, and we spend
all our time together. However, I start to panic when I realize
that during the entire relationship, I’ve only read two books.
“You’ll have to give up some of that,” he says/vaguely threatens.
Life is full of romance but I am suddenly dissatisfied.
Single again (See above. Just kidding. No,
not really.), I cautiously start dating. The men are intelligent,
well-read, and funny, yet for some reason, there will come the time
when I look across the table during a nice dinner at a restaurant
and think inevitably, self-defeatingly, “I could be home reading a
book right now.”
When asked out, I am hesitant, my glance
straying to the beefy, 400-page mystery thriller lounging
seductively on the nightstand next to my bed, with come hither eyes
that promise an exciting evening of one climax after another. Never
had a chance. Staying in Saturday night.
The longest relationship
I've ever been in was with a man who was all sorts of bad and even
worse. But dude let me read as long as I want and gave me a leather
bound, limited edition of
The Hobbit
for my birthday. Farewell, Mr.-So-Wrong-for-Me -
we'll always have Middle Earth.
Instead of marrying myself (that's so last
year), I think I’ll marry a library instead. In sickness and in
health. Till death us do part. I do.
Eden kept her index finger poised on her
mouse, the cursor hovering right on top of the "Publish" button.
She'd written semi-personal posts on her blog before, but they were
always about books or bookish topics. Although this particular post
was loosely connected to her abiding love for books, its tone was
decidedly snarkier than usual. Contemptuous even. It was so sharp
she could cut herself by posting it on the web for the entire world
to see, her love life disemboweled for public consumption.
Readers would probably get a laugh out of it,
but its honesty would make them uncomfortable. It made her
uncomfortable reading it now.
She was supposed to be writing a book review
for tomorrow but the confessional had poured out of her instead,
like blood from a gaping wound.
And for what? So she could lobby a
not-so-veiled parting shot at Troy – who may or may not be reading
her blog weeks after their breakup? If she really wanted to tell
him off, she should have just returned his phone calls and e-mails
rather than throw up an impenetrable wall of silence.
She looked around her study, where teetering
piles of books covered most of the floor. And still more piles in
her bedroom. Often, she would wake up in the middle of the night,
having fallen asleep reading, a book splayed open on her chest or
on the empty space next to her in bed.
Was she truly still wounded by the breakup or
by something else entirely?
Book Bohemian might be her own creation but
it didn’t, shouldn’t, double as her diary as well. She was a
blogger, not the second coming of Sylvia Plath.
Eden hit "Save as Draft"
and finished writing her review of the new Arturo Valiente
novel,
The Angel’s
Shadow
. Purged of her anger and derision,
she could now concentrate on one of her favorite authors and spent
an hour or so crafting a thoughtful analysis.
Each of Valiente’s stories were set in dark,
seductive cities, such as 1930s Barcelona or Madrid, and peopled
with mysterious characters full of secrets. There might be moments
of happiness, but the endings were uneasy and left her haunted for
days. Yet she eagerly anticipated each one, pre-ordering months in
advance. And as soon as she received a copy, Eden would devour
Valiente’s books until late into the night.
This time, however, she
didn’t have to pay for
The Angel’s
Shadow
, as the publisher had sent her a
finished hardcover for review. After regularly writing reviews for
three years on Book Bohemian, she no longer had to beg publishers
for advance copies of upcoming books - now they were asking her if
they could send her one to review on her blog.
Angel
was beautifully made, with deckle edge pages and a splendid
deep blue and burnished gold jacket. Its embossed spine stood
proudly with Valiente’s other books on her special shelf, the one
she reserved for signed first editions.
She had finally met Valiente three days ago
during his book tour and had taken with her all his novels, even
the ones in the original Spanish she had ordered from abroad, to
sign. Valiente was a compact Spaniard who spoke eloquent English
with a soft accent. He had sharp eyes that seemed to miss nothing,
probably seeing the stories lurking beneath the surface. His
colorful wit made the book signing one of the liveliest she had
ever attended, prompting the moderator to declare, “How I wish I
could explore the labyrinth of your strange mind.”
She was a bit more wistful
than usual in her review, noting how in
The
Angel’s Shadow
, as well as
The Palace of Forgotten Memories
and
The Midnight
Garden
, the hero becomes obsessed with an
unattainable, angelic girl who turns out to be his
downfall.
“
In Valiente’s
world
,” Eden wrote, “
Love is never consummated, but remains a figment of the hero’s
own imagination. In preferring dreams to reality, the hero dooms
himself. He would rather risk a physical death than the death of
his beloved illusion
.”
This review, like all her reviews, was not
personal. Nothing at all like the post she had spewed out in a
tempest of emotion. But still, something of her soul resided in
them.
Eden yawned. Dante had gone to bed long ago,
dutifully pecking her cheek good night before turning in. Knowing
how she got lost in writing and forgot the time, he had cleaned up
downstairs, turned off the lights and locked the doors.
It was late and she had spent too much time
on something that was supposed to be just a hobby.
She quickly scanned the review for any typos,
added a high res image of the book cover, as well as a picture of
her standing next to Valiente at the signing, and then scheduled it
to publish the next morning.
@bookbohemian Excellent review. Though I
immediately dislike you for having seen Valiente in the flesh.
Eden smiled when the e-mail had come in that
someone had replied to her tweet linking to the review that
morning. It was from an “@adamagelast” – no one she recalled ever
having had a Twitter conversation with. She had to log into Twitter
covertly. She was at work and supposed to be typing up 50 subpoenas
for a case going to trial in a few weeks.
“
@adamagelast” was
apparently one of her 176 Twitter followers. Hmm. His avatar showed
a comic book drawing of a bald man with a big nose and double chin.
Figures that the only person who would find her review interesting
would be a fat, old man. But she liked his mixture of flattery and
irreverence.