Kyland by Mia Sheridan
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Kyland

by

Mia Sheridan

(Author)

4.6

-

6,203 ratings


From the NYT bestselling author of Archer's Voice, Mia Sheridan, comes a small town friends-to-lovers romance.

Dirt poor. Hillbilly. Backwoods hick. Mountain folk.

Tenleigh Falyn struggles each day to survive in the small, poverty-stricken mining town where she lives with her sister and mentally ill mother. Her dream of winning the yearly Tyton Coal scholarship is all that keeps her going. With it, she would get a free ride to a college of her choice and finally escape the harshness of this life. Secure a career that could one day get her family out of Dennville.

But Kyland Barrett has worked just as tirelessly to win this scholarship, desperate to leave behind the town that has brought him so much pain. Through near-starvation, deep loneliness, and against all odds, he'll let nothing stand in his way―certainly not the girl who's his main competition.

Then, one moment changes everything. Tenleigh and Kyland find themselves turning from strangers to friends, then tipping dangerously close to love. They're both determined not to form any lasting attachment, but the longer they're together, the more hopeless it seems.

Only one of them gets to win. Only one of them gets to leave. And when that day comes, what happens to the one left behind?

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ISBN-10

172828502X

ISBN-13

978-1728285023

Print length

320 pages

Language

English

Publisher

Bloom Books

Publication date

May 01, 2023

Dimensions

5.25 x 0.8 x 8 inches

Item weight

2.31 pounds


Product details

ASIN :

B0BPMY5XTD

File size :

4531 KB

Text-to-speech :

Enabled

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Supported

Enhanced typesetting :

Enabled

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Not Enabled

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Editorial reviews

About the Author

Mia Sheridan is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Her passion is weaving love stories about people destined to be together. Mia lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband. They have four children here on earth and one in heaven.


Sample

CHAPTER ONE

Tenleigh

Seventeen Years Old

The first time I really noticed Kyland Barrett, he was swiping someone’s discarded breakfast off a cafeteria table. I’d glanced away, attempting to preserve his dignity, a gut reaction on my part. But then I’d looked back as he walked in my direction toward the doors, stuffing the small portion of leftover food in his mouth. Our eyes met, his flaring briefly and then narrowing, as again, I averted my gaze, my cheeks heating as if I’d just intruded on a deeply personal moment. And it was personal. I should know. I’d done it myself. I knew the shame. But I also knew the achy emptiness of a Monday morning after a long, hungry weekend. Evidently, Kyland knew it too.

Of course, I’d seen him before that. I’d bet everyone who was female had let their eyes linger on him, with his strikingly handsome face and his tall, solid build. But that was the first time I really saw him, the first time I felt a throb of understanding in my chest for the boy who always seemed to wear an expression of nonchalance, as if he didn’t care much for anyone or anything. I was well acquainted with men who couldn’t give a rat’s ass. That was trouble I didn’t want any part of.

But apparently I was the only girl in school who had a problem with trouble because if he was in anyone’s company, it was always someone female.

It was a large school, serving students from three towns. I’d only had a few classes with Kyland over the three and a half years we’d been in high school, and he’d always sat in the back of the room, rarely uttering a word. I always sat in the front so I could see the blackboard—I guessed I was probably nearsighted, not that we could afford an eye exam, much less glasses. I knew he got good grades. I knew he must be smart despite his seemingly careless attitude. But after that day in the cafeteria, I couldn’t help looking at him differently, and my eyes always seemed to find him. I searched for him in the overcrowded hallway—packed with teenagers moving slowly to class like cattle being herded to greener pastures—in the cafeteria, or walking ahead of me up our mountain. Most times I found him with his hands stuffed in his pockets, and if outside, his head down against the wind. I liked to watch the way his body moved, and I liked that he didn’t know it. I was curious about him now. And suddenly that look on his face seemed more wary than immune or removed. I only knew a little about Kyland. He lived up in the hills like I did. And apparently, he didn’t have enough to eat, but there was no shortage of hungry people around these parts.

In the middle of rolling green hills, breathtaking mountain views, waterfalls, and quaint covered bridges lies Dennville, Kentucky, a part of the Appalachian Mountains that would put any urban slum to shame, where hopelessness is as commonplace as the white oak trees and unemployment is the rule more so than the exception.

My older sister, Marlo, said God had created Appalachia and then had promptly left and never come back. Something inside me suspected that more often it was people who disappointed God than the other way around. But what did I really know of God anyway? I didn’t even go to church.

What I did understand was that in a place like Dennville, Kentucky, Darwin was the one who had his facts straight: only the strongest survived.

Dennville hadn’t always been as bad off, though—there was a time when the Dennville coal mine was open and families in these parts made a decent wage, even if some had to supplement with food stamps. That’s when there had been at least a few thriving businesses in town, jobs for people who wanted one, and folks who had a little money to spend. Even those of us who lived on the mountain in a sad collection of small houses, shacks, and mobile homes—the poorest of the poor—seemed to have enough to get by on in those days. But then the mine explosion happened. The papers called it the worst mining tragedy in fifty years. Sixty-two men, most with families relying on them at home, were killed. Kyland’s father and older brother both lost their lives that day. He lived in a tiny house a little ways below mine on the mountain with his mother, who was an invalid. What she suffered from, I wasn’t sure exactly.

As for me, I lived with my mama and sister in a small trailer nestled in a grove of pine trees. In the winter months, the wind would come howling through and rock our trailer so violently, I was sure we’d tip over. Somehow it had managed to hold its ground so far. Somehow, all of us on that mountain had managed to hold our ground. So far.

One late fall day, as I walked up the road that led to our trailer, pulling my sweater around me as the wind whipped through my hair, I spied Kyland walking a ways ahead. Suddenly, Shelly Galvin went running past me to catch up to him, and he turned and nodded his head at her as she walked beside him, acknowledging something she’d said. They turned at a bend in the road, and I got lost in my own thoughts. A few minutes later when I rounded the curve, they were nowhere in sight, but as I passed a grove of hickories, I heard Shelly giggle and stopped to peer through the brush. Kyland had her pressed up against a tree and was kissing her as if he were some wild, untamed animal. Her back was to me so I could only see his face. I don’t know why I stood there, staring at them, blatantly interrupting their privacy rather than moving along. But something about the way Kyland’s eyes were closed and the raw, heated look of concentration he wore as he moved his mouth over hers made me clench my legs together as heat flooded my veins. He moved his hand up to her breast, and she made a moaning sound in the back of her throat. My own nipples pebbled as if it were me he was touching. I reached out to grab hold of the tree right next to me, and the small noise of my movement must have caught his attention because his eyes popped open and he stared at me as he continued to kiss her, his cheeks hollowed slightly as he did something with his tongue I could only imagine. And imagining I was. Hot shame moved up my face as our eyes locked, and I was unable to move. His eyes narrowed. As reality came flooding back, I stumbled backward, filled with humiliation.

And jealousy. But I hardly wanted to acknowledge that. No—trouble I did not want any part of.

I turned and ran all the way up the mountain to my trailer, flinging the metal door open and rushing inside before falling onto the couch, gasping for breath.

“My goodness, Tenleigh,” my mama singsonged, as she stood in the tiny kitchen, stirring a pot of something on the electric hot plate that smelled like potato soup. I glanced over at her as I got hold of my breathing. I groaned internally to see that she was wearing a negligee and her tattered Miss Kentucky Sunburst ribbon across her chest. Today was shaping up to be a very bad day. In more ways than one.

“Hi, Mama,” I said. “It was cold outside” was all I offered in explanation. “Need any help?”

“No, no, I’ve got it covered. I’m thinking of bringing something warm into town for Eddie. He loves my potato soup, and it’s going to be such a chilly night.”

I grimaced. “Mama, Eddie’s at home with his wife and family tonight. You can’t bring him potato soup.”

A cloud moved over my mama’s features, but she smiled brightly at me and shook her head. “No, no, he’s leaving her, Tenleigh. She’s not right for him. It’s me he loves. And he’ll be cold tonight. The wind…” She continued stirring the soup, humming some nameless tune and smiling a small smile to herself.

“Mama, did you take your medicine today?”

Her head snapped up, a confused look replacing the small smile. “Medicine? Oh, no, baby, I don’t need medicine anymore.” She shook her head. “That stuff makes me want to sleep all the time…makes me feel so funny.” She wrinkled her cute little nose as if it was just the silliest thing. “No, I’ve gone off that medicine. And I feel wonderful!”

“Mama, Marlo and I have told you a hundred times you can’t just go off your medicine.” I walked over to her and laid my hand on her arm. “Mama, you’ll feel good for a little while and then you won’t. You know I’m right.”

Her face fell just a little as she stood stirring the thick soup. Then she shook her head. “No, this time will be different. You’ll see. And this time, Eddie will move all of us up to that nice house of his. He’ll see that he needs me with him…he needs all of us with him.”

My shoulders sagged as defeat made my limbs feel heavy. I was too tired to deal with this.

My mama patted her deep chestnut-brown hair—the same hair she’d given me—and smiled brightly again. “I’ve still got my looks, Tenleigh. Eddie always says I’m the most beautiful woman in Kentucky. And I’ve got this sash to prove he isn’t lying.” Her eyes grew dreamy as they always did when she talked about her Miss Sunburst title, the one she’d won when she was my age. She turned toward me with a smile and lifted a strand of my hair. “You’re as pretty as I was,” she said, but then frowned. “I wish I had the money to enter you in some pageants. I bet you’d win them just like I did.” She sighed heavily and went back to stirring the soup.

I startled as the door flew open and Marlo burst inside, her cheeks flushed and breathing heavily. She grinned over at me. “Lordy, that wind is bitter today.”

I nodded at her, unsmiling and moving my eyes over to our mama, who was spooning soup into a plastic container. The smile vanished from Marlo’s face.

“Hey there, Mama, what are you doing?” she asked as she took her jacket off and tossed it aside.

Mama looked up and smiled prettily. “Bringing soup to Eddie,” she said as she snapped the lid on the container and walked with it into our very small living/dining area.

“No you’re not, Mama,” Marlo said, her voice sounding bitter.

Mama blinked at her. “Why yes, Marlo, I am.”

“Give me the soup, Mama. Tenleigh, go get her medicine.”

Mama started shaking her head vigorously as I scooted by her to get her medication, the medication we could barely afford, the medication I bought with the earnings I made sweeping floors and dusting shelves at Rusty’s, the town convenience store, owned by one of the biggest dickheads in town. The medicine Marlo and I missed meals for so we’d have the money to buy.

I heard a scuffle behind me and hurried into the bathroom, where I grabbed my mama’s pill bottles from the medicine cabinet with shaking hands.

When I ran back into the main area of the trailer, Mama was sobbing and the soup was spilled all over the floor and all over Marlo. Mama sunk down onto her knees in the mess, put her hands over her face, and wailed. Marlo took the medicine from me and I could see her hands were shaking too.

She went down on the floor with our mama and kneeled in the mess and hugged Mama to her, rocking.

“I know he still loves me, Mar. I know he does!” my mama wailed. “I’m pretty. I’m prettier than her!”

“No, Mama, he doesn’t love you,” Marlo said very gently. “I’m so sorry. But we do. Me and Tenleigh, we love you so much. So much. We need you, Mama.”

“I just want someone to take care of us. I just need someone to help us. Eddie will help us if I just…”

But that thought was lost in her sobs as Marlo continued to rock her, not saying another word. Words wouldn’t work with our mama, not when she was like this. Tomorrow she’d take the sash off. Tomorrow she’d stay in bed all day. Eventually, the medicine would kick in again and she’d be somewhat back to normal. And then she’d decide she didn’t need it anymore and secretly go off it and we’d do this all over again. And I had to wonder, should a seventeen-year-old girl be so tired? Just tired down to my bones…weary in my very soul?

I helped Marlo and Mama up, and we gave Mama her medicine with a glass of water, walked her to bed, and then quietly returned to the main room. We cleaned up the potato soup, spooning it from the floor back into Tupperware, preserving as much as we could. We didn’t live a life where wasting food was ever acceptable, even food that had been on the floor. Later that night, we spooned it into bowls and ate it for dinner. Dirty or not, it filled our bellies all the same.

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About the authors

Mia Sheridan

Mia Sheridan

Mia Sheridan is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author. Her passion is weaving true love stories about people destined to be together. Mia lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband. They have four children here on earth and one in heaven. Mia can be found online at www.miasheridan.com or www.facebook.com/miasheridanauthor.

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Reviews

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

6,203 global ratings

Wendy LeGrand

Wendy LeGrand

5

A Beautiful Story of Love, Sacrifice and Selflessness

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2015

Verified Purchase

Mia has done it again. She has managed to pull my heart right out of my chest, play with it for a while and then gently lay it back in it's rightful place. I don't know how she comes up with her stories or where she learned to craft such beautiful characters, but once again I have fallen head over heels for the perfectly imperfect world she has created in Kyland. Set in the impoverished town of Dennville, Kentucky, Kyland and Tenleigh are high school seniors who are destined to carry on the vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness unless a miracle occurs. That miracle is presented in the form of the Tyton Coal Scholarship. The one and only chance they have to escape their small town and get a college education.

Mia paints a very vivid picture of the town and the people who live there. What is amazing and heartbreaking is that this type of town actually exists in parts of the US. The biggest source of income in this town is working at the Tyton Coal Mine, which isn't much anymore ever since the terrible mine explosion happened, killing 62 miners and devastating the town. Now, families with no fathers or brothers are trying to survive, the monthly food stamps and welfare barely making it to the end of the month.

Both Kyland and Tenleigh are determined to win this scholarship and get out of this town and away from the cycle of poverty they have been stuck in their whole lives. Kyland vows to get out, he lost his father and brother in the mining accident and there is nothing left to keep him there. Tenleigh wants to win the scholarship so she can get her degree and a good job, make enough money to get her mama and sister out of there and into a place where they will all have their own rooms. Both are focused on the end goal and no one and nothing will get in their way. Neither one wants to form any attachments to anyone that would prevent them from achieving their goals. But one day all that changes when a twist of fate throws Kyland and Tenleigh together. They form a friendship...that is all...but naturally the more time they spend together the more attached they become to each other.

The emotion expressed in this book between Tenleigh and Kyland just hit me straight in the heart. They are falling for each other but both are determined to still make it out of this town. But how are they going to do this and leave the other behind? Can they do this? Will they survive if one of them leaves? The love these two have for each other and the sacrifices they are willing to make just gutted me, because as usual, sacrifice doesn't come without intense heartache. And this is the part of the book where Mia removed my heart from my chest, scrunched it all up and batted it around for a while before carefully and gently putting it back where it belongs. Now it feels bigger and fuller than it did before I was introduced to these two beautiful, strong, selfless people.

The scenery, the emotions, the lives, the people, all are alive and vivid in my mind because of the flawless writing of Mia Sheridan. Thank you, Mia for another beautiful story! There's a million different lines in this book that I loved but this passage is my favorite, because it is what every person in the world should remember every single day: "We had everything we needed. None of it was big. Most of it was simple. But what I knew in that moment was that the size of your home, your car, your wallet, doesn't have one single thing to do with the size of your LIFE. And my life...my life felt BIG, filled with love and with meaning."

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Loraine Oliver

Loraine Oliver

5

Kyland by Mia Sheridan - A Beautiful, Heart- Touching Story! Reviewed by Loraine Oliver

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2015

Verified Purchase

Kyland by Mia Sheridan was a beautiful poignant story about two young adults and their lives. This book captivated me like no other book I have read in a while, and it was a very emotional read for me as well.

This book is about poverty and being so hungry because there was nothing to eat, and children going to bed hungry, it was about being dirt poor, and having to wear cardboard shoes, and the same clothes day in and out, it was about being hopeful in a hopeless world, and walking six miles to school with the hope of bettering oneself, one day and getting out of there, to go somewhere better to live somewhere better and to be someone better.

This book is also about having pride, despite one's circumstances, and it was about how a community that had nothing would share their last can of beans if it was needed. In the case of Kyland, a young man, still in his senior year of school where the book starts out, and Tenleigh, the girl who lived down the road from him, also a senior in high school, it was the hope to win a scholarship that would enable one of them to go to college anywhere all expenses paid so they could get a degree and make something of their lives. For Kyland it was everything.

This is the story of Kyland and Tenleigh, told in both viewpoints, and how they fall in love. It is the story of each of them making the ultimate sacrifice, for each other. They both want the scholarship to find a way out of the horror and cruelty of their lives, the hopelessness, and the darkness they live in every day, and although they have seen each other in school before, they both kept to themselves, until one day they start talking, and start spending time learning about each other, and tell each other the difficult things they are living with: Tenleigh and her older sister have always had to take care of their Mom, who is mentally ill, and they love her so much, but sometimes it is hard for them to control her, especially when she gets off her medication, and for Kyland, his father and brother died two weeks after their mother left them, and now for 4 years Kyland has been alone in his house and everyone thinks his mom is in the home too ill to come outside.

Through their friendship a strong bond forms and Kyland is torn, he does not want to have anything stand in his way for when he leaves town and never comes back, For Tenleigh, she wants the scholarship so bad to get out and make something of herself. But they fall in love and now one of them is going to be left behind. Who will get out and who will stay?

Tears are shed, lies are told in the name of love and it is so sad, but there is no other way. Four years pass, and then the person who left comes home. What will happen, is there still love, or is there nothing there anymore? Read this book and find out, but have tissues nearby because it is so good it will make you cry and it will make you feel, and for me it made me realize how lucky I am to have the necessities in life that so many do not even have.

The book had a good plot and it twists in a way you do not see coming, and there is a great cast of characters all so well described you feel like you know them. The dialog is good and the author does a brilliant job of describing the circumstances that the people in this coal mining town live with day after day, year after year, lifetimes. I really like how the story is told from Kyland and Tenleigh's point of view. Most of all I loved how she shows that with love all things can be possible.

I gave this book 5***** stars, and I just have to say that Mia Sheridan is a brilliant author, and I will be reading everything she writes. She captured my interest, and with this book she captured my feelings and my heart.

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3 people found this helpful

Kim R.

Kim R.

5

A LUMINOUS LOVE STORY THAT WILL LIVE IN MY HEART FOREVER

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2016

Verified Purchase

Wow just wow! My heart is overflowing with feels and I am literally grasping for words to express how unbelievably moved I was by this brilliant masterpiece by Mia Sheridan.

KYLAND is honestly one of the most breathtakingly beautiful, achingly EMOTIONAL, quietly majestic romances I have ever read. The author’s depiction of young love in its purest form, set against the rugged backdrop of a poor Appalachian mining town, may have been short in financial prosperity but so rich in pride, honor, chivalry and EPIC love!

It is the story of a remarkable young man named Kyland Barrett, who selflessly sacrifices everything---his hopes, his dreams, his plans for finally getting out of the poor mining town that represents only unbearable pain, impoverishment and unspeakable loss—in the name of selfless love for one enchanting young woman. Tenleigh Falyn, the girl who steals his heart and soothes his soul, is a bright, beautiful, resilient high school senior who has also seen her fair share of pain and suffering and lifelong struggle. The moment their paths cross both their lives change in immeasurable ways...and sets them on a collision course of love, passion, heartbreak, sacrifice and destiny. Ms. Sheridan’s depiction of the struggles this community faces in the poverty-stricken, coal mining town is harrowing and tragic but also quietly profound and uplifting at the same time. Through the course of the story, Kyland, and Tenleigh and their friends and family fight valiantly to survive amid impossible odds yet they never lose hope no matter how much hardship they are forced to endure on a daily basis.

Sigh…but at the core of this complex, deeply layered novel is a tender-hearted love story that was so swooningly romantic it gave me goosebumps!

"Right here is where I fell in love with you." I paused and her eyes widened. "I tried to figure it out, after you left. Where was it that I lost my heart? As if the moment . . . the place would matter somehow, would make it easier for me to get hold of, to understand. And I did figure it out—it was here. Right here."

The incredibly unique romantic bond that was forged between Kyland and Tenleigh through the course of the story was simply unforgettable and will forever leave an imprint on my soul. This was a very visceral read for me. I cannot tell you how many times my pulse raced, I shed tears of joy/ sadness, or felt butterflies flutter in my belly as I lived vicariously through these young adults as they experienced the giddy throes of first love and the crushing devastation of lies, disappointment and heartache that inevitably followed in its wake.

The writing was pure poetry, brimming with gorgeous imagery and symbolism, and exchanges like this literally stole my breath!!

"I am going to make all your dreams come true. All my life." Her eyes filled with tenderness. "And I'm going to make all your dreams come true. All my life." I smiled, and leaned in to kiss her. "You already have. You are my dream."

Thank you, Mia Sheridan, for making THIS reader’s dream come true by sharing this timeless love story with the world. KYLAND broke my heart into a million pieces, slowly patched it together again and made me believe in the miraculous power of love!!

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