Family Ties полностью

Preface

Introduction

Book 2

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Author

More Summer Camp Swingers

Also by Nick Scipio

Hello and welcome to Camp! If you’ve been here before, let’s talk about some changes.

First, the book titles. They’re new. Duh. But why? For starters, they’re more descriptive now. The old Volume X titles didn’t tell you a thing about the books, other than their order in the series.

The new titles are mostly for new readers. If you’re a fan from before, you probably don’t care what the books are called. But new readers don’t know me or my stories, and titles are an important part of the sales pitch.

Next, the series and universe, Summer Camp Swingers. Why the change?

Amazon. Specifically, their search and recommendation algorithms. I don’t want my books to appear beside ones about regular summer camps. Adding Swingers should make it clear that mine are for grown-ups.

Okay, that’s enough about the changes. If you’re new to Camp, let me tell you how this all began.

Back in the summer of 2002, I had a story growing in my imagination. It started as a simple fantasy that sprang from events in my real life.

My family vacationed at a nudist camp in the seventies and early eighties.

My parents were swingers at the time, although I didn’t figure it out until much later. And when I was a teenager, I knew a woman who was similar to Susan. As an adult, I always wondered what would’ve happened if she’d been more like the woman in my imagination.

So this “what if…?” story was growing in my head, and I kept remembering things and adding new details. It quickly became too much to keep track of, so I decided to write it down. I finished the first few chapters

and posted them online. People liked them, so I kept writing.

In the process, my coming-of-age story evolved into something far bigger than I’d ever imagined. I added an overall plot: Who died? Who’s the wife?

Then I sketched out the people and events in several more stories. Other writers wanted to play in my world, so I created the universe, Summer Camp Swingers. My own stories grew into books, and the books became series—

five of them, as it turned out.

So, where are we now, with this book? Christy is the fifth and final series in the main Summer Camp Swingers saga. You don’t need to read the first four series to enjoy this one, but they add a lot of background for the people and events here. If you’re interested, the earlier series are available on my website.

Whew! That was a lot of introduction. Yeah, sorry. I’ve been writing Summer Camp Swingers since that fateful day back in 2002, so we’re talking about 30 books, nearly 2.5 million words. In any event, I’m sure you’re ready to start reading. You bought the book, after all, so let’s get to it!

Nick Scipio

August 1, 2020

NickScipio.com

Summer Camp Swingers has always been a serial, published a chapter at a time. So the books in this series don’t begin and end like normal ones do.

They’re meant to be read as a complete story, one after the other. When you reach the end of this book, pick up the next one and keep going.

And when you get to the end of the series, the Epilogue will wrap up the whole saga and answer the two big questions from the very beginning—

who’s the wife and who died?

I met up with Christy, Wren, and Trip after lunch on Wednesday. We’d all gone to class, even though half the university had left for Thanksgiving already or was in the process of leaving. The day was gray and pensive—the sky couldn’t decide if it was going to rain or not—which reflected my mood perfectly. The others talked about the party the night before, while I was content to walk along in my own little world.

Christy’s “future husband” introductions had unnerved me. Sure, we’d been joking about “not until we’re married” for a while, but she seemed to be moving a lot quicker than I was. I still had a million questions about her, and none of them had easy answers, much less quick ones.

Wren seemed to sense my unease, and for once she didn’t needle me about it. She’d probably had time to think about things too, and even she’d have to admit that Christy had jumped the gun a little.

I desperately wanted to talk to Wren and find out how Christy and Simon had become engaged. I kept remembering what her brother Danny had said, that she’d simply declared him her fiancé. At the time I’d thought he was just teasing her, but all of a sudden I wasn’t so sure. Had the same thing just happened to me?