Guest Post (and a Giveaway!): Cher Gatto & Something I Am Not

Welcome to the Blog Tour & Giveaway for Something I Am Not by Cher Gatto, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours! I’m delighted to welcome Cher to the blog today to share some of her favorite quotes from this powerful novel!

Title: Something I Am Not by Cher Gatto
Publisher: Lighthouse Publishers of the Carolinas
Release Date: January 25, 2019
Genre: Mature Young Adult

A father who never loved him. A woman who stole his worth. A brother he couldn’t protect. Where does someone run in the face of his deepest shame?

Billy McQueen works hard to keep his life together … and concealed. At seventeen, he dreams of an escape from the barroom, his father’s manipulation, and the advances of his father’s girlfriend. However, on his eighteenth birthday, he is introduced to a younger brother he never knew he had. An eight-year-old, barely capable of navigating the distorted and corrupt world of his father’s boxing club. Billy realizes in order to protect his little brother, he can never leave.

After discovering a battered young woman in the back shed of the club, Billy uncovers the true nature of his father’s activities. Before he can share it with the sheriff, Billy is kidnapped by his father and sold to a wealthy old maid who imprisons him on her yacht in the Gulf of Mexico. His death is fabricated and his little brother used as leverage for his compliance.

In order to secure his freedom, Billy must fight for it. To save his little brother who is next in line for the slave trade… he must die for it.

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my favorite quotes from the book

by Cher Gatto, author of Something I Am Not

The photo had captured the flashing lights along with my father’s messed-up face and radiant smile. I stood at his feet then, but the cameraman had left me out. Each time I held the photo, I willed the lens to pan down, just once, to know for sure if the face, and its frozen expression, matched the recollection. To know if the light in the boy had been snuffed out then. Or years later.

I stood over my father for a moment in the calm. His arm clutched the pillow, and one leg hung over the edge. I did not know the woman who slept next to him. The muscles on his broad bare back, still solidly defined without the gym, rose and fell with each steady breath. His profile seemed so serene and almost beautiful. The ironic paradox of my father. All my life I wanted to believe in him. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to be like him in many ways and yet nothing like him. I loved my father, and I hated him.

He would lavish me with new clothing or expensive gifts and spontaneous getaways in fancy hotels. Then, as quickly as it came, like the full-moon tide, he would forget about me for months on end. The surge would retreat, leaving in its wake the small tide pool creature to shrivel and die in the evaporating waters. I often thought it would have been better had the tide never come in at all.

There is something unnerving, alarming even, when a grown man cries. Everything strong and safe implodes. The fortress crumbles. And the boy recognizes the mortality of his hero.

At the very end, demanding more latitude than a narrow slip, floated the most beautiful 150-foot yacht, dipping and tugging against her ropes and lit from within like a warm, glowing ember. The Damsel was inscribed in flowing letters off her bow, and her beauty took my breath away, drawing an audible gasp from my lips. That pleased the lady at my side, and I chastised myself for being so pathetic to admire the vessel that would soon be my prison. For I was convinced that was her plan.

My stateroom, like my life, had been meticulously tended to when I returned. The brokenness was concealed. The fractured remnants replaced by polished adornments, and the upheaval shrouded once more in illusion.

For the yacht’s mistress, I represented merely a shiny toy, a shelved plaything. I stood when ordered, sat when commanded. She dressed me like a paper doll, ushered me into this room or that one, fed me rich foods, and then sentenced me to work it off. I rubbed her wrinkled hands and bloated feet. Mixed drinks and passed truffles. I read to her when her eyes tired and escorted her to bed, garnished with a good night peck on the cheek. And all the while, the hands on the clock never marked the hour, and we floated and bobbed out to sea like an engorged baroness taking respite before next course.

There are those moments that life deals out that can never be erased, never redone or prepared for. Never justified or reconciled. And the level of pain it causes is commensurate to the indelible effects it has on the soul.

The deserted stands rose before me, a sticky coat of bright blue paint covered over the chips and scars of yesterday. The roar of the crowd and brass band lingered in the warped benches and patches of trampled grass. The massive lights hovered, illuminated only by the glare of the sun, and a banner, half hung, flapped in the wind, waiting for next year’s heroes

I thought about those in my life … how our lives collide with so many, and sometimes they splinter off and leave pieces lodged within our flesh that we carry forever. Sometimes the splinter embeds in our mind and causes us great pain and sorrow, and sometimes it embeds in the heart and causes us great joy. But in the end, we are made better by each one, even the most difficult ones.

Cher Gatto is the award-winning author of Something I Am Not. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and their five teenaged children. Together, she and her husband founded a kids’ ranch in Mexico (www.ranchoelcamino.org) and a recovery ministry (www.recovery-hub.org) based in NJ. Cher also launched the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) NY/NJ chapter to support other writers in her area and currently serves as president.

Visit her website: www.journeywithwords.com and sign up for her newsletter and monthly blog for inspiration and encouragement. Follow her on Instagram @chergatto.

CONNECT WITH CHER: Website | Facebook | Instagram

(1) winner will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

Be sure to check out each stop on the tour for more chances to win. Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway will begin at midnight April 27, 2020 and last through 11:59 PM EST on May 4, 2020. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.

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What about you? What makes you want to read Something I Am Not? Which of the quotes that Cher Gatto shared interest you the most?