Today we’re spotlighting Blowin’ My Mind Like a Summer Breeze (Benjamin Roesch)
Read on for more about Benjamin, his book, and a giveaway.
Meet Benjamin Roesch
BENJAMIN ROESCH is author of the debut YA novel, Blowin’ My Mind Like a Summer Breeze. He has an MFA from Lesley University and is a writer, musician, teacher, podcaster, and award-winning essayist. For twelve glorious, exhausting years, he was a high school English teacher, and is now a full-time writer based in Burlington, VT, where he lives with his family. Oh, and his name is pronounced “Rush,” like the band from Canada.
About Blowin’ My Mind Like A Summer Breeze:
Fifteen-year-old Rainey Cobb never thought meeting someone could actually change her life. But, then again, she’s never met anyone like Juliet.
It’s 1995 and The Cobb Family Band, led by Rainey’s rock star parents, has arrived for a week-long gig at the Midwestern resort owned by Juliet’s family. Dazzled by Juliet’s carpe diem attitude, DIY tattoos, and passion for grunge, Rainey falls hard. And when Juliet gives Rainey a mixtape that unlocks her heart’s secret yearnings, Rainey starts seeing herself—and her vagabond, show-biz life—through new eyes.
If Rainey quits the band, her parents’ fading career might never recover. But if she doesn’t leap now, she might be stuck forever in a life she didn’t choose…and always wonder who she could have been.
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~Excerpt~
Side One:
A Week on Lake Michigan
July, 1995
Track Zero—I Am So Not Ready
Hotel ice chips are melting down my knuckles. Juliet’s warm breath is on my neck. Our eyes meet in the bathroom mirror. Our lips wear the same shade of purple.
“Harder,” she says.
I jam the ice chips harder against my flesh, wondering if I’m doing it right, then feel them beginning to slip. I can’t feel my nose anymore. My fingertips are tingling.
How do I slow my heart down?
“Are you remembering how to punch yet?” she says, pushing her black hair away from her face.
“Almost,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “Right in the balls.”
I laugh in the uncomfortable way I do.
The music from the bedroom is so loud I can feel it rattling my chest. Wailing guitars and vocals drenched in reverb. I can’t decide if I want her to turn it down—or turn it up. Either way, her music is starting to grow on me.
Juliet has yet another swig of her grape soda. I do the same, determined to keep up, wincing as I swallow. How much vodka did she put in here?
“Will it hurt?” I ask.
She says something in response, but I’m so dazzled by the snap and glow of her lighter flame as she plays it across the stud’s sharp metal point that I don’t hear.
“That’s enough ice,” Juliet says, then draws the tiniest X on my left nostril with a blue pen, an action I can barely feel from the numbness, then hands me the freshly sterilized stud.
“Ready?” she asks.
I take another sip. I am so not ready.
“I think so,” I say.
“Push really fast and really hard,” she says.
“Fast and hard,” I say, as if this advice is supposed to make me feel better.
I try to hold the metal point still above my nostril, then press it against the X on my skin, yanking my hand back in terror the moment I feel it. It’s not pain. Not yet. Just a horrible pressure.
“I don’t think I can do it,” I say. I hate myself for being so afraid.
Juliet takes my shaking hand and looks into my eyes, and, it feels like, all the way down into my soul where nobody has ever been before.
“I’m right here,” she says.
***
Push the rewind button. Right there. Stop.
Track One—Pirouetting to Nowhere
I quit.
Two words. Two stupid little words. Subject + verb = I get a whole new life.
So why are they so hard to say?
The backstage green room of The Groovy Rhino, the past its prime nightclub in downtown St. Louis where The Cobb Family Band is playing tonight, has stained carpets and lazily graffitied walls. Back in the seventies, my parents played palaces, places like Carnegie Hall in New York City and The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, but I don’t really remember the good old days. Instead, I’m stuck in the unimpressive present.
The remnants of our dinner lay scattered on a geriatric folding table: Domino’s Pizza, wilted bag salad, and a jug of Sprite. My family already went out, which leaves me here alone, staring into a dirty mirror and trying to summon the courage to say two stupid little words. I quit.
Book’s Title: Blowin’ My Mind Like A Summer Breeze
Author: Benjamin Roesh
Release Date: July 22nd, 2022
Publisher: Deep Hearts YA
ISBN-10: 177766683X
ISBN-13: 978-1777666835
Genre: YA
Age Range: 13+
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*
Five (5) winners will win a signed paperback copy of Blowin’ My Mind Like A Summer Breeze (Benjamin Roesch) ~US ONLY!
*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*
I used to travel around in a class C RV with my parents so it seems like the perfect read for me!
Yes, I need this book! It’s set in the same month and year I was born.
Sounds really interesting, and I love the awesome cover!
I enjoy historical YA fiction and this one sounds amazing.
I love this cover. It’d be great to read this historical LGBTQ+ story.