Callum & Harper, Book One in the Sleepless Series [Kindle Edition]

Fisher Amelie (Author)

Book Description

Caution: Recommended for readers seventeen and up for language and mature situations.

Life sucks for orphans Callum Tate and Harper Bailey.

Kicked out of their foster homes because they suffer the 'eighteen disease' with nothing but a hundred dollar check from the government and a pat on the back, they're forced to rely on a system that failed them miserably.

So they sit. They sit inside Social Services, waiting for their social workers to call their names and offer them the miracle they know will never come but they sit anyway because they have nowhere else to go, no other options on their very literal and figurative empty plates.

But as they sit, they notice the other. Although captivated, they each come to the conclusion that life is complicated enough without throwing in a boiling tension that can't ever be acted upon because they're both too busy thinking about where their next meal will come from but when their names are called and both are placed on a year long waiting list for permanent housing, suddenly relying on each other seems like a very viable plan B.

And, oh, how lovely Plan B's can be.

Well, except for the psycho from Harper's past that haunts her and, oh, yeah, there's the little issue that neither of them knows they're in love with the other.

Needless to say, Callum & Harper's life just got a bit more complicated.

“One day, you and I are gonna’ wake up and be alright. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but one day. One day. I promise you.” - Callum Tate

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Fisher Amelie resides in the South with her kick ace husband slash soul mate. She earned her first 'mama' patch in 2009. She also lives with her Weim, 'Jonah', and her Beta, 'Whale'. All these living creatures keep the belly of her life full, sometimes to the point of gluttony, but she doesn't mind all that much because life isn't worth living if it isn't entertaining, right? Fisher grew up writing. She secretly hid notebooks and notebooks of dribble in a large Tupperware storage container in her closet as a kid. She didn't put two and two together until after college where it suddenly dawned on her, "Hey, I like writing". She's a bit dense. "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are. Put down that Oreo, your butt can't take any more." "You're rude." "Yeah, yeah." Anyway, she likes to write and has finally beaten her self-esteem into submission enough to allow herself to be scrutinized under the 'other readers' microscope. "No! No! Not a cover slip! Last time it gave me a ra...." (mumbling) Rescue Fisher from her metaphorical specimen slide at www.fisheramelie.com (less)

Product Details

• File Size: 831 KB
• Print Length: 382 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0615582052
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006P7UODU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,350 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Giddy Inducing January 3, 2012

By Shelly Crane

Format:Kindle Edition

Wow. Expect me to rave and gush about Fisher and all of her awesomeness!

First line from the book:
"I was sitting next to one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen in my entire life. She was so intriguing, I could actually feel the sweat dripping down the back of my neck at the effort it was taking to keep from staring at her."

How can you not want to pick up this book after that!?

This book....ah. I can't even begin to describe it. The pace and flow were perfect. It was so hard to put down. It was one of the sweetest books I've ever read in my life! It was also one of the saddest, gut-wrenching books ever. But that part of it was from circumstances around and happening to the characters, not the characters stupidity or messing up things.

Callum & Harper were utterly real, adorable, sweet, feisty, caring, and two people I want to get to know for real. I want to invite them to Christmas dinner and kick some ace for them and tell everyone who keeps pushing them around to screw off! I loved them both to the point of giddyness, which is seriously rare for me. Callum was sweet and caring for everyone but super protective; my three favorite qualities in a yummy guy.

The reason they danced around each other the whole book was the most heartbreaking of all. They'd been kicked to the curb by everyone their whole life, so why risk it with the one person, literally, in the whole world that loves you and needs you just as much as you need them? I totally got it and Fisher totally worked it to just the right amount.

And when they finally did get together?? HOLY SMOKES!!! Fireworks.

If you enjoy love stories, stories that tug that artery in your chest, stories that bring light to human situations, stories that show that love really is all that matters in the now and in the end, I would definitely recommend this clean, fresh, inspiring book to you.

My favorite line in the book is from Callum :"Each time you sit next to me on the train, warm and folded into me, I have to force my hands to stay buckled at my side, to keep from seizing you. When we study on the sofa, your feet in my lap, it's everything in me not to drag your body onto mine and kiss you senseless. Every time I've placed my lips on your neck, I've imagined guiding those lips up your soft skin until they reach your mouth and owning that mouth with my own, possessing you with my tongue, Harper."

Go ahead. Fan yourself if needed! And then go and download this book, pronto!

5 solid, giddy inducing, cry my eyes out, smile like a fool and then want to slap a douche-bag named John, stars from me

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Proper Grammar: It's a Gift to your Reader April 20, 2012

By heathyliz

Format:Kindle Edition

Admittedly, I am not Fisher Amelie's target audience. I teach high school English, and so I read a lot of YA in order to recommend books to my students. That being said...

I liked the premise of this book. The idea of two kids failed by the foster care system is both timely and important. I also liked Callum--who wouldn't?! I also thought Fisher did a good of creating suspense with the John Bell plot line.

But that's about all I liked. Harper's actions and words didn't fit a kid with a rough past who got into fights. She was way too damsel in distress (which would be fine if her background and initial attitude supported it). And what eighteen year old New Yorker would say, "Bless my soul!"? The resolution to the conflict took six years. Really? These people would have to be blind to be together six years and not know the other's feelings. Also, the initial connection between Callum and Harper, being foster kids, was lost in the second half of the book. Certain things seemed not to fit, like the laptop and stereo they owned even though they were college kids on work study and no family support. It was like they went to college and all their money troubles subsided. Yeah, right. The dialogue was very choppy in places, with little transition from the narrative.

But as a writer and a teacher, what really bothered me was the butchering of English. I could not find a publisher listed, so I can only assume this is self-published. With that comes a lack of professional editors. BUT, there is really no excuse for confusing words such as your/you're, accept/except, then/than and affect/effect in a piece of writing you put out there for the world to see. This may have been the first time I've ever seen you're used when your should have been! The tense shifts were also very distracting (especially in the first half of the book). That may seem like a picky English teacher's comment, but it was very distracting, and took away from the story.

Oh, and one last complaint: what was with all the smelling of one another??

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written and unrealistic August 11, 2012

By Ms. Mayhem

Format:Kindle Edition

The issues that made this book a one star read:

One-dimensional wish-fulfillment heroine. Harper was unflawed, perfect, so gorgeous that all of the men who encountered her immediately fell in love with her.

Seriously awkward writing, which causes disasters like this sentence: "Callum was as selfless a man could be and in a world where an attribute of that caliber was more rare than a pink diamond, I clutched him tightly to my heart, fully aware of just how priceless he undoubtedly was." The next time Ms. Amelie writes a book, she should put down the thesaurus. Because that sentence is INSANE, and it is one of many that are just as awful.

Totally unrealistic financial situations: in what world do two completely unskilled, homeless, and unemployed high school graduates in NYC manage to earn 5K in two weeks by grabbing odd jobs? Whether the author can do the math or not, I can. This is $1200 a week, which is a whopping 62K a year per character. Why would anyone ever get a college education or a job if they could make more than the average teacher by washing dishes under the table on an ad hoc basis. Let's not even talk about the ridiculous "wedding" that a bunch of (basically) strangers threw for our H & h, on their own dime, for no other reason than that they were pretty

Random tense changes within the same sentence, which led to this: "Heat coursed through my arm and when he removes his hand, I felt a lacking I'd never known I could possess."

WARNING: THIS PART IS SPOILERIFIC

Two freaking years of being fake married. Two freaking years of being fake married. Two freaking years of being fake married. Yes, seriously. Totally in love with each other, yet living together in an unconsummated marriage for two years, afraid to admit their feelings for each other. I could've believed six months, but two years of unrequited, yearning, celibacy is just completely unrealistic and absurd.

Finally, as the piece de resistance, beautiful Harper is stalked by a serial killer who is also a former foster kid, in a story line that really just devolves this book into farce. He burns down their apartment. He murders a bunch of women who either share her name, her address, her hair color, or some other attribute, and when the police finally catch him after he nearly murders her in a library, they are so incompetent that he escapes by bashing one of them on the head and running away. And then, instead of issuing an APB for him, he blithely boards a plane with Harper and kidnaps her on her way to Seattle so she can confess her love to Callum. Then he hauls her all over Seattle, makes her dress up and pretend to love him, and then nearly beats her death. While she is hospitalized, he conveniently throws himself from a pier and his body washes up as she recuperates.

END SPOILERS

Ack.

When I bought this book, I was hoping for a simple, cute story about a pair of foster kids growing up and falling in love. What I got was a poorly written, unrealistic, absurd, wish-fulfillment, nonsense-filled pseudo-crime-drama.

More About the Author

Fisher Amelie resides in the South with her kick ace husband slash soul mate. She earned her first 'mama' patch in 2009. She also lives with her Weim, 'Jonah', and her Beta, 'Whale'. All these living creatures keep the belly of her life full, sometimes to the point of gluttony, but she doesn't mind all that much because life isn't worth living if it isn't entertaining, right?

Fisher grew up writing. She secretly hid notebooks and notebooks of dribble in a large Tupperware storage container in her closet as a kid. She didn't put two and two together until after college where it suddenly dawned on her, "Hey, I like writing". She's a bit dense.
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. Put down that Oreo, your butt can't take any more."
"You're rude."
"Yeah, yeah."
Anyway, she likes to write and has finally beaten her self-esteem into submission enough to allow herself to be scrutinized under the 'other readers' microscope. "No! No! Not a cover slip! Last time it gave me a ra...." (mumbling)

Rescue Fisher from her metaphorical specimen slide at www.fisheramelie.com