Today, Claire recommends some books and ways to feel productive for when you're sick...it's that time of year!
Monday, 22 February 2016
Sick Day Reading with Claire
Today, Claire recommends some books and ways to feel productive for when you're sick...it's that time of year!
Friday, 19 February 2016
#FridayReveal @Month9Books: THE LINGERING GRACE by Jessica Arnold
Today Jessica Arnold and Month9Books are
revealing the cover and first chapter for THE LINGERING GRACE, which releases March
15, 2016! Check out the gorgeous cover and enter to be one of the first readers
to receive a eGalley!!
A quick note from the author:
In The Lingering Grace, Alice is glad to find her life returning to normal after a near-death experience. When a young girl drowns in a freak accident similar to the one that nearly killed her, she suspects that something deeper might be going on. This incredible cover is a reference both to the drowning girl at the heart of the story, and to Alice—who is also in over her head. It’s hard to tell whether the girl under water is sinking deeper or rising to the surface. This story centers on Alice making that very choice.
On to the reveal!
Title: THE LINGERING GRACE
Author: Jessica
Arnold
Pub. Date: March 15, 2016
Publisher: Month9Books
Format: Paperback
& eBook
Pages:
320
All magic comes with a price.
The new school year brings with it a
welcome return to normalcy after Alice’s narrow escape from a cursed hotel
while on summer vacation. But when a young girl drowns in a freak accident that
seems eerily similar to her own near-death experience, Alice suspects there
might be something going on that not even the police can uncover.
The girl’s older sister, Eva attends
Alice’s school, and Alice immediately befriends her. But things change when
when Alice learns that Eva is determined to use magic to bring her sister back.
She must decide whether to help Eva work the highly dangerous magic or stop her
at all costs. After all, no one knows better than Alice the true price of
magic.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
“I’m so sorry.”
Tony turned on his left blinker. “Didn’t your dad say something about getting you a car soon?”
Alice gave a single, grating laugh. “He’s been saying that ever since I got a license.” Tony knew this as well as she did; if he was teasing, she wasn’t in the mood. She slouched down in the passenger seat as they pulled into the library parking lot. It was almost empty; the library was closing in twenty-five minutes. She rapped her fingers against the car door, gripping a notebook and a pen tightly in her other hand.
“Hey.” Tony parked. He grabbed her arm before she could jump out of the car. “Everyone forgets an assignment sometimes.”
She tried to smile, but her mouth ended up in a lopsided grimace. “You’re right. I’ve just been so . . . you know.”
Concern flashed across Tony’s face, and his grip on her arm tightened for a second before he let go. Alice clicked her pen as they hurried into the library. She’d had this assignment for weeks—how could she have left it until now? This wasn’t like her. Tony grabbed her hand as they walked and she looked down at their entwined fingers, glad that this at least was surviving, despite her half-present brain.
It wasn’t sudden, this relationship, so it baffled her why it still felt fragile—why she was still relieved every time he wanted to spend time with her. They’d been officially dating for two months now, and they’d known each other for three. She was certain she had gotten the better end of the deal; Tony had been helping her keep her head above water ever since last summer. Meeting him had been one of the only good things to come out of that vacation from hell. He’d helped save her life when she had nearly died, the victim of a witch’s curse on a creepy old hotel.
Physically, her recovery had only taken a few weeks. But everything else … well, it was still an uphill battle. Daily life was mundane and mind-numbingly routine—more meaningless than it had ever seemed before. Alice zoned out on a regular basis. The world would fall away and she would stare into space, not thinking anything, not feeling anything but the empty space inside her where everything was quiet. That empty space had never been there before, and it was only with Tony that she felt it close up for a few precious hours at a time. Only with Tony was she herself again.
Tony noticed her looking at him and smiled.
“We’ll find something here. I know it.”
“We’d better.”
It was hard to be hopeful after spending three hours driving around to all the libraries in the area with no luck at all, courtesy of this supremely dumb assignment. They’d been talking about primary and secondary sources in English class and Mr. Segal was requiring them to find one primary source (not on the Internet either—at the library) to include in their research paper. Alice knew she shouldn’t have put it off. She just hadn’t known it would be this hard. Now, with the paper due tomorrow, she had absolutely nothing to show but a blank computer screen and mounting panic.
“I think I chose the wrong topic,” she said as they walked by the front desk. A librarian looked up and scowled at them.
“We’re closing in twenty minutes,” she said. Her expression made it clear that if they made her stay a moment later, they would regret it.
Alice squeezed Tony’s hand and spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m gonna fail this project. And the class. And I’ll become a high school dropout. And I’ll never get into college. Will you still like me when I’m living under an overpass?”
“Yes. But you’re not going to fail. And I wouldn’t let you be homeless.”
“My hero,” she grumbled and he laughed.
They hurried through the nonfiction sections, passing row after row of packed shelves. The farther into the library they went, the more overwhelming the smell of old paper became. Alice wasn’t sure if the musty library air was thanks to rotting books or the persistent mold problem that had shut the library down for months a while back. The city said everything was under control; Alice’s nose told her otherwise.
“Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to come here.” She ran her fingers along the book spines as they hurried down a row. “This place creeps me out.”
Tony looked up at the dim rectangles of fluorescent lights scattered across the ceiling. “Not exactly cozy, is it?”
Alice shook her head and then stopped, squinting at the books to her left. “804 . . . 804.01 . . . here we go.”
She traced the call numbers with her fingers. Tony knelt down next to her, scanning books as he spoke.
“Excellent. Let’s hope Mr. Librarian Number Two was right.”
They’d been hunting down a copy of Literary Criticism of the 1800s for three hours now. Alice had discovered it while digging through the online library catalog—it was the only thing she could find that fulfilled the “contemporary criticism” requirement for her paper. The only problem was that the full text wasn’t online and, thanks to an interlibrary loan snafu, the only copy had slipped under the radar almost completely. The librarian at the last library they’d visited had been ninety-nine percent sure it was at the downtown branch, and so they had braved the rush-hour traffic and hurried over.
“What a nightmare,” she groaned. “I don’t see it.”
Tony grabbed her notebook and squinted at the call number she’d written. “Are you sure that’s a four? Looks like it could be a nine to me.”
“Let’s hope it’s a nine, then.” She jumped to her feet and grabbed his hand, pulling him up as well. They hurried to the next aisle.
He squeezed her hand. “Hey—we’ll find it. Don’t worry.”
She squeezed back but said nothing. Don’t worry. If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, her blank moments didn’t bring Zen into the rest of her life. They were more like blackouts than meditations—moments when fatigue got the better of her. The rest of the time, she was sprinting to keep up with the mindless churn of to-do lists that filled her days. How did people live like this? Every day stuffed with pointless urgency. It was exhausting. Sometimes Alice found herself longing for just a taste of magic again. Magic was a glimmer of something beyond logic and reason and sunrise and sunset. Without it, life melted into a meaningless churn of waking and sleeping.
Tony was patient with her—in more ways than one. She wasn’t sure how he managed to put up with her frequent mental lapses and her total lack of girlfriend know-how. Frankly, she was mortified by her own awkwardness. In her more positive moments, she told herself it wasn’t her fault. He was her first boyfriend. No one had warned her about these things.
If only someone had warned her about these things. Holding hands, kissing, it all looked so easy when other people did it. At first, for her, it had been a humiliating disaster. She didn’t know what to do with her body, how to move. She would press her lips into Tony’s without aim or direction, as haphazardly as she kissed her dad’s cheek. For Tony, on the other hand, finesse seemed to come naturally. His kisses were caresses. He was artistic. When they held hands, while her arm went stiff as a board, he would stroke the back of her hand with his thumb, making little circles—or hearts. She liked to think of them as hearts.
Her heart was pounding from half-jogging to the end of a row.
“Do you see it?” Alice asked, trying to read the call numbers on both sides of the row simultaneously.
Tony shook his head. “Not yet.”
“I don’t believe this,” Alice grumbled, sinking to her knees. “It’s got to be here. I can’t rewrite this whole paper—I don’t have time!” She ran her hands across the books on the bottom shelf, vainly hoping that the right one would just jump out and grab her by the throat. Tony scratched his forehead. Alice was starting to recognize these things he did. She knew now that when he scratched his chin, he was thinking deeply; when he scratched right below his hairline, he was worried.
“Maybe it was just shelved wrong,” he suggested. He turned around and started scanning the bookshelf behind him.
Though Alice worried it was useless, she re-scanned the spines on the shelf in front of her. Maybe Tony was right—maybe they had missed something. But she had that sinking feeling in her gut and her eyes were burning; she was frustrated almost to tears. Her sight grew blurry as she stared at book after book.
“The library will be closing in five minutes,” said a voice over the intercom.
Five minutes.
She blinked very quickly, trying to clear her vision. Her eyes stopped on a particularly tattered old book without a visible call number, and she reached out to grab it, glancing behind her at Tony, who still had his back to her.
Her fingers touched the binding and she gasped. It was the strangest feeling—a tingling in her fingers, a warmth that traveled up her arm and into her shoulder. Alice pulled the book from the shelf and felt as if all the hair on her body were standing on end. She shivered and stroked the cover, which was brown leather and plain. It was blind-stamped with three concentric circles, like a rounded eye.
Peeling the cover back, she scanned through a few pages at random and knew immediately what she was holding. There was a sharp tug in her abdomen, and she almost put the book back then and there. It wasn’t the first spellbook she had seen. She had discovered several while fighting for her life in the hotel last summer. They’d belonged to the witch who set the curse. One of them had been covered in scrawls and notes—an inconsistent, impossible mess.
This little volume was an entirely different story. It was printed; the old monospaced type left odd gaps between letters. Someone had carefully underlined a few sentences throughout, but overall, it looked nearly untouched. If it hadn’t been for the yellowed pages and the smell of rotting paper, she might have called it pristine.
Each page was laid out in the same way: a heading in large, capitalized type followed by an ingredient list and several paragraphs of instructions. To the left of each title were one to three small triangles. Some were colored in with solid black ink while others were empty. They were presented without explanation, but Alice felt sure they must be a scale of sorts: a rating to indicate how long a particular spell took to prepare or its difficulty or something like that. There were small sketches throughout. On one page, a tiny flower was drawn to the right of the ingredient list. On the bottom of another, a tiny frog, splayed out, cut open, its ink-drawn limbs hanging limply at its sides.
Her stomach turned; quickly, she shut the book. A shiver tickled her spine—the familiar sensation of being watched. Was it a coincidence that she had come across this book? Or could it be that the curse had left a magical stamp on her, a kind of otherworldly magnetism? Had she found the book, or had the book found her?
“I don’t believe it.”
Alice jumped, clutching the book to her.
“Hey—I found it!”
Tony was holding the book out for her to see, smiling widely. She took it from him with one hand; with the other, she slipped the leather book behind her back. The movement was instinctual. All she knew was that she didn’t want to return the book and leave so many questions unanswered. Nor did she want to explain to Tony why she had to know more.
“Thank God,” she said, grinning back. “You are a hero!” Maybe she could pass the book off as another ancient volume of literary criticism? Not a chance. Tony was too curious; he would want to look at it himself.
“See?” He helped her up and put his arm around her shoulders. “Told you it would be okay.”
“I guess you were right.”
He took the book back from her and examined it. Alice’s grip on the spellbook tightened. No, she definitely could not let Tony near this book if she didn’t want him to panic and light it on fire or something. “It’s kind of like finding buried treasure.”
“Except the treasure is a book and the only thing it was buried in was the library’s glitchy loan system.”
“Still—it feels good.”
“The library is closing. Please check out all books at the front desk,” the intercom blared.
Alice and Tony jogged past row after row of dimly lit bookshelves. As they did, Alice slipped the leather-bound book into her bag before she could talk herself out of it. It wasn’t stealing, she told herself. Not really. She would take it home, glance through it, and return it to the shelf within a few days. It was just a quick investigation—albeit a secret one. But really, it had to be secret. Ever since the hotel, Tony couldn’t even watch a card trick without freaking out. If she told him a spellbook might have found her … maybe magically … well, she was doing him a favor by not mentioning it.
She was just being responsible. Really.
***
Tony dropped her off at home half an hour later. Still immensely pleased with his book-finding success, he’d suggested a celebratory dinner, but Alice insisted that she really did need to work on her paper. This was true.
She didn’t mention that she was far more anxious to crack open the book she hadn’t checked out than read the one she had.
The house was so quiet when she walked in that for a second she thought she was the only one home. Usually, the ruckus of her brother’s video games in the living room would be drowned out by the drone of her dad listening to NPR in his office. But the living room was empty and her dad must have stayed late at work because the doors to his office were open and the room was dark. Just the light in the kitchen was on, and it was only on second glance that Alice saw her mother sitting on a barstool, staring blankly at the faucet. Someone hadn’t turned it off completely and water was leaking out one drop at a time.
“Mom?”
Her mom jumped up.
“Oh, hi, honey. I didn’t hear you come in.” She walked around the counter and turned off the faucet. “Were you with Tony tonight?”
“Yeah, we were at the library.”
“Good … that’s good … ” she said absently before lapsing into silence again.
“Um … how was your doctor’s appointment?” Alice asked to alleviate the uncomfortable quiet.
Her mother’s lips twitched upward, then tightened. She abruptly turned her back to Alice and opened the fridge.
“Fine, fine … ” she said, her voice drowned out by the crinkling of plastic bags.
Alice’s worries about her paper were immediately replaced by deeper, more insistent fears. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“I can’t hear you, sweetie.”
“What happened?” she repeated. “Is something wrong?”
Her mom emerged from the fridge, holding some celery sticks and a jar of almond butter—her “guilty” snack. Normally she wouldn’t have had the almond butter. (She liked to remind Alice that too many nuts would make a person chub up like a squirrel before hibernation.) Her eyes briefly met Alice’s as she turned to the sink and started to rinse off the celery.
“Oh, just a sad story in the news today.”
Alice’s heart immediately slowed. “See, this is why I never read the news.”
Her mom scrubbed the hollow of the celery stalk with one thin finger. “A single mom just moved into a new house with her two young girls. The girls went swimming unsupervised. The six-year-old drowned.”
Alice’s chest constricted, but she tried to brush it off. “They didn’t know how to swim? Why did they get in the pool?”
“Really, Alice.” Her mom’s voice went snappish. “You of all people should know—these things can happen to anyone.” She grabbed the celery stalks and the jar of almond butter and walked out of the room without another word. Alice heard the bedroom door close.
Alice sat still on the bar stool for a moment. A weak trickle of water was leaking from the faucet; she got up and turned it off.
You of all people.
A final drop of water hit the sink like the tiniest of hammers. Last summer, at the cursed hotel, she had nearly drowned in a swimming pool. Tony had pulled her out just in time.
She could remember all too clearly the press of water in her lungs. Not everyone knew the craving for air—the feeling that your head was being squeezed and squeezed until finally, in the last moments, when you thought you were going to explode … an arm around your waist pulling you up. A hand clapping you on the back, a voice telling you the coughing was okay, telling you to breathe when that was all you wanted to do until the end of time … just breathe.
Tony had saved her life. But the little girl would have felt the tightness, the void in her chest that nothing could fill, until the darkness came slowly in—not a stranger knocking down the door, but a cool-headed thief waiting for the window to fall open. Rushing into the opening, filling the lungs with cold black water … and then darker and darker until there was nothing—no space left.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Alice refused to turn into her mother, having panic attacks every time she heard a bit of disturbing news. She took a deep breath, shook her head, and walked slowly up the stairs to her room, pretending she was empty as a balloon floating higher and higher … out of her body, out of everything.
“I’m so sorry.”
Tony turned on his left blinker. “Didn’t your dad say something about getting you a car soon?”
Alice gave a single, grating laugh. “He’s been saying that ever since I got a license.” Tony knew this as well as she did; if he was teasing, she wasn’t in the mood. She slouched down in the passenger seat as they pulled into the library parking lot. It was almost empty; the library was closing in twenty-five minutes. She rapped her fingers against the car door, gripping a notebook and a pen tightly in her other hand.
“Hey.” Tony parked. He grabbed her arm before she could jump out of the car. “Everyone forgets an assignment sometimes.”
She tried to smile, but her mouth ended up in a lopsided grimace. “You’re right. I’ve just been so . . . you know.”
Concern flashed across Tony’s face, and his grip on her arm tightened for a second before he let go. Alice clicked her pen as they hurried into the library. She’d had this assignment for weeks—how could she have left it until now? This wasn’t like her. Tony grabbed her hand as they walked and she looked down at their entwined fingers, glad that this at least was surviving, despite her half-present brain.
It wasn’t sudden, this relationship, so it baffled her why it still felt fragile—why she was still relieved every time he wanted to spend time with her. They’d been officially dating for two months now, and they’d known each other for three. She was certain she had gotten the better end of the deal; Tony had been helping her keep her head above water ever since last summer. Meeting him had been one of the only good things to come out of that vacation from hell. He’d helped save her life when she had nearly died, the victim of a witch’s curse on a creepy old hotel.
Physically, her recovery had only taken a few weeks. But everything else … well, it was still an uphill battle. Daily life was mundane and mind-numbingly routine—more meaningless than it had ever seemed before. Alice zoned out on a regular basis. The world would fall away and she would stare into space, not thinking anything, not feeling anything but the empty space inside her where everything was quiet. That empty space had never been there before, and it was only with Tony that she felt it close up for a few precious hours at a time. Only with Tony was she herself again.
Tony noticed her looking at him and smiled.
“We’ll find something here. I know it.”
“We’d better.”
It was hard to be hopeful after spending three hours driving around to all the libraries in the area with no luck at all, courtesy of this supremely dumb assignment. They’d been talking about primary and secondary sources in English class and Mr. Segal was requiring them to find one primary source (not on the Internet either—at the library) to include in their research paper. Alice knew she shouldn’t have put it off. She just hadn’t known it would be this hard. Now, with the paper due tomorrow, she had absolutely nothing to show but a blank computer screen and mounting panic.
“I think I chose the wrong topic,” she said as they walked by the front desk. A librarian looked up and scowled at them.
“We’re closing in twenty minutes,” she said. Her expression made it clear that if they made her stay a moment later, they would regret it.
Alice squeezed Tony’s hand and spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m gonna fail this project. And the class. And I’ll become a high school dropout. And I’ll never get into college. Will you still like me when I’m living under an overpass?”
“Yes. But you’re not going to fail. And I wouldn’t let you be homeless.”
“My hero,” she grumbled and he laughed.
They hurried through the nonfiction sections, passing row after row of packed shelves. The farther into the library they went, the more overwhelming the smell of old paper became. Alice wasn’t sure if the musty library air was thanks to rotting books or the persistent mold problem that had shut the library down for months a while back. The city said everything was under control; Alice’s nose told her otherwise.
“Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to come here.” She ran her fingers along the book spines as they hurried down a row. “This place creeps me out.”
Tony looked up at the dim rectangles of fluorescent lights scattered across the ceiling. “Not exactly cozy, is it?”
Alice shook her head and then stopped, squinting at the books to her left. “804 . . . 804.01 . . . here we go.”
She traced the call numbers with her fingers. Tony knelt down next to her, scanning books as he spoke.
“Excellent. Let’s hope Mr. Librarian Number Two was right.”
They’d been hunting down a copy of Literary Criticism of the 1800s for three hours now. Alice had discovered it while digging through the online library catalog—it was the only thing she could find that fulfilled the “contemporary criticism” requirement for her paper. The only problem was that the full text wasn’t online and, thanks to an interlibrary loan snafu, the only copy had slipped under the radar almost completely. The librarian at the last library they’d visited had been ninety-nine percent sure it was at the downtown branch, and so they had braved the rush-hour traffic and hurried over.
“What a nightmare,” she groaned. “I don’t see it.”
Tony grabbed her notebook and squinted at the call number she’d written. “Are you sure that’s a four? Looks like it could be a nine to me.”
“Let’s hope it’s a nine, then.” She jumped to her feet and grabbed his hand, pulling him up as well. They hurried to the next aisle.
He squeezed her hand. “Hey—we’ll find it. Don’t worry.”
She squeezed back but said nothing. Don’t worry. If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, her blank moments didn’t bring Zen into the rest of her life. They were more like blackouts than meditations—moments when fatigue got the better of her. The rest of the time, she was sprinting to keep up with the mindless churn of to-do lists that filled her days. How did people live like this? Every day stuffed with pointless urgency. It was exhausting. Sometimes Alice found herself longing for just a taste of magic again. Magic was a glimmer of something beyond logic and reason and sunrise and sunset. Without it, life melted into a meaningless churn of waking and sleeping.
Tony was patient with her—in more ways than one. She wasn’t sure how he managed to put up with her frequent mental lapses and her total lack of girlfriend know-how. Frankly, she was mortified by her own awkwardness. In her more positive moments, she told herself it wasn’t her fault. He was her first boyfriend. No one had warned her about these things.
If only someone had warned her about these things. Holding hands, kissing, it all looked so easy when other people did it. At first, for her, it had been a humiliating disaster. She didn’t know what to do with her body, how to move. She would press her lips into Tony’s without aim or direction, as haphazardly as she kissed her dad’s cheek. For Tony, on the other hand, finesse seemed to come naturally. His kisses were caresses. He was artistic. When they held hands, while her arm went stiff as a board, he would stroke the back of her hand with his thumb, making little circles—or hearts. She liked to think of them as hearts.
Her heart was pounding from half-jogging to the end of a row.
“Do you see it?” Alice asked, trying to read the call numbers on both sides of the row simultaneously.
Tony shook his head. “Not yet.”
“I don’t believe this,” Alice grumbled, sinking to her knees. “It’s got to be here. I can’t rewrite this whole paper—I don’t have time!” She ran her hands across the books on the bottom shelf, vainly hoping that the right one would just jump out and grab her by the throat. Tony scratched his forehead. Alice was starting to recognize these things he did. She knew now that when he scratched his chin, he was thinking deeply; when he scratched right below his hairline, he was worried.
“Maybe it was just shelved wrong,” he suggested. He turned around and started scanning the bookshelf behind him.
Though Alice worried it was useless, she re-scanned the spines on the shelf in front of her. Maybe Tony was right—maybe they had missed something. But she had that sinking feeling in her gut and her eyes were burning; she was frustrated almost to tears. Her sight grew blurry as she stared at book after book.
“The library will be closing in five minutes,” said a voice over the intercom.
Five minutes.
She blinked very quickly, trying to clear her vision. Her eyes stopped on a particularly tattered old book without a visible call number, and she reached out to grab it, glancing behind her at Tony, who still had his back to her.
Her fingers touched the binding and she gasped. It was the strangest feeling—a tingling in her fingers, a warmth that traveled up her arm and into her shoulder. Alice pulled the book from the shelf and felt as if all the hair on her body were standing on end. She shivered and stroked the cover, which was brown leather and plain. It was blind-stamped with three concentric circles, like a rounded eye.
Peeling the cover back, she scanned through a few pages at random and knew immediately what she was holding. There was a sharp tug in her abdomen, and she almost put the book back then and there. It wasn’t the first spellbook she had seen. She had discovered several while fighting for her life in the hotel last summer. They’d belonged to the witch who set the curse. One of them had been covered in scrawls and notes—an inconsistent, impossible mess.
This little volume was an entirely different story. It was printed; the old monospaced type left odd gaps between letters. Someone had carefully underlined a few sentences throughout, but overall, it looked nearly untouched. If it hadn’t been for the yellowed pages and the smell of rotting paper, she might have called it pristine.
Each page was laid out in the same way: a heading in large, capitalized type followed by an ingredient list and several paragraphs of instructions. To the left of each title were one to three small triangles. Some were colored in with solid black ink while others were empty. They were presented without explanation, but Alice felt sure they must be a scale of sorts: a rating to indicate how long a particular spell took to prepare or its difficulty or something like that. There were small sketches throughout. On one page, a tiny flower was drawn to the right of the ingredient list. On the bottom of another, a tiny frog, splayed out, cut open, its ink-drawn limbs hanging limply at its sides.
Her stomach turned; quickly, she shut the book. A shiver tickled her spine—the familiar sensation of being watched. Was it a coincidence that she had come across this book? Or could it be that the curse had left a magical stamp on her, a kind of otherworldly magnetism? Had she found the book, or had the book found her?
“I don’t believe it.”
Alice jumped, clutching the book to her.
“Hey—I found it!”
Tony was holding the book out for her to see, smiling widely. She took it from him with one hand; with the other, she slipped the leather book behind her back. The movement was instinctual. All she knew was that she didn’t want to return the book and leave so many questions unanswered. Nor did she want to explain to Tony why she had to know more.
“Thank God,” she said, grinning back. “You are a hero!” Maybe she could pass the book off as another ancient volume of literary criticism? Not a chance. Tony was too curious; he would want to look at it himself.
“See?” He helped her up and put his arm around her shoulders. “Told you it would be okay.”
“I guess you were right.”
He took the book back from her and examined it. Alice’s grip on the spellbook tightened. No, she definitely could not let Tony near this book if she didn’t want him to panic and light it on fire or something. “It’s kind of like finding buried treasure.”
“Except the treasure is a book and the only thing it was buried in was the library’s glitchy loan system.”
“Still—it feels good.”
“The library is closing. Please check out all books at the front desk,” the intercom blared.
Alice and Tony jogged past row after row of dimly lit bookshelves. As they did, Alice slipped the leather-bound book into her bag before she could talk herself out of it. It wasn’t stealing, she told herself. Not really. She would take it home, glance through it, and return it to the shelf within a few days. It was just a quick investigation—albeit a secret one. But really, it had to be secret. Ever since the hotel, Tony couldn’t even watch a card trick without freaking out. If she told him a spellbook might have found her … maybe magically … well, she was doing him a favor by not mentioning it.
She was just being responsible. Really.
***
Tony dropped her off at home half an hour later. Still immensely pleased with his book-finding success, he’d suggested a celebratory dinner, but Alice insisted that she really did need to work on her paper. This was true.
She didn’t mention that she was far more anxious to crack open the book she hadn’t checked out than read the one she had.
The house was so quiet when she walked in that for a second she thought she was the only one home. Usually, the ruckus of her brother’s video games in the living room would be drowned out by the drone of her dad listening to NPR in his office. But the living room was empty and her dad must have stayed late at work because the doors to his office were open and the room was dark. Just the light in the kitchen was on, and it was only on second glance that Alice saw her mother sitting on a barstool, staring blankly at the faucet. Someone hadn’t turned it off completely and water was leaking out one drop at a time.
“Mom?”
Her mom jumped up.
“Oh, hi, honey. I didn’t hear you come in.” She walked around the counter and turned off the faucet. “Were you with Tony tonight?”
“Yeah, we were at the library.”
“Good … that’s good … ” she said absently before lapsing into silence again.
“Um … how was your doctor’s appointment?” Alice asked to alleviate the uncomfortable quiet.
Her mother’s lips twitched upward, then tightened. She abruptly turned her back to Alice and opened the fridge.
“Fine, fine … ” she said, her voice drowned out by the crinkling of plastic bags.
Alice’s worries about her paper were immediately replaced by deeper, more insistent fears. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“I can’t hear you, sweetie.”
“What happened?” she repeated. “Is something wrong?”
Her mom emerged from the fridge, holding some celery sticks and a jar of almond butter—her “guilty” snack. Normally she wouldn’t have had the almond butter. (She liked to remind Alice that too many nuts would make a person chub up like a squirrel before hibernation.) Her eyes briefly met Alice’s as she turned to the sink and started to rinse off the celery.
“Oh, just a sad story in the news today.”
Alice’s heart immediately slowed. “See, this is why I never read the news.”
Her mom scrubbed the hollow of the celery stalk with one thin finger. “A single mom just moved into a new house with her two young girls. The girls went swimming unsupervised. The six-year-old drowned.”
Alice’s chest constricted, but she tried to brush it off. “They didn’t know how to swim? Why did they get in the pool?”
“Really, Alice.” Her mom’s voice went snappish. “You of all people should know—these things can happen to anyone.” She grabbed the celery stalks and the jar of almond butter and walked out of the room without another word. Alice heard the bedroom door close.
Alice sat still on the bar stool for a moment. A weak trickle of water was leaking from the faucet; she got up and turned it off.
You of all people.
A final drop of water hit the sink like the tiniest of hammers. Last summer, at the cursed hotel, she had nearly drowned in a swimming pool. Tony had pulled her out just in time.
She could remember all too clearly the press of water in her lungs. Not everyone knew the craving for air—the feeling that your head was being squeezed and squeezed until finally, in the last moments, when you thought you were going to explode … an arm around your waist pulling you up. A hand clapping you on the back, a voice telling you the coughing was okay, telling you to breathe when that was all you wanted to do until the end of time … just breathe.
Tony had saved her life. But the little girl would have felt the tightness, the void in her chest that nothing could fill, until the darkness came slowly in—not a stranger knocking down the door, but a cool-headed thief waiting for the window to fall open. Rushing into the opening, filling the lungs with cold black water … and then darker and darker until there was nothing—no space left.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Alice refused to turn into her mother, having panic attacks every time she heard a bit of disturbing news. She took a deep breath, shook her head, and walked slowly up the stairs to her room, pretending she was empty as a balloon floating higher and higher … out of her body, out of everything.
About Jessica:
Jessica Arnold lives (in an apartment)
and works (in a cubicle) in Boston, Massachusetts. She has a master‘s degree in
publishing and writing from Emerson College.
Giveaway Details:
1 winner will receive an eBook of THE
LOOKING GLASS & an eGalley of THE LINGERING GRACE. International.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Book Spotlight: NEIL FLAMBE AND THE DUEL IN THE DESERT by Kevin Sylvester
Today we're spotlighting Kevin Sylvester and his Neil Flambe, middle grade series.
Neil, “the flamboyant, irrepressible chef” (Kirkus Reviews), hits the road in his food truck and drives right into a new case in the sixth book in The Neil Flambé Capers, the culinary mystery series celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey calls “good fun.”
Hardcover, 304 pages
Expected publication: February 23rd 2016 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Neil has lost his beloved restaurant. Though he misses it dearly, he and his friend Larry are headed on a new adventure. They are travelling to the Salsa Verde ranch in Arizona with their new food truck to participate in the legendary food truck gathering, the Broiling Man Festival. Once he arrives, Neil discovers that the Verde ranch is in danger of foreclosure, at the mercy of a developer who wants to turn it into housing and a factory farm. The only hope for the ranch is a treasure map left behind by the very first Verde, a chef who discovered a mine while escaping from a murderous army colonel. Neil and Larry are on a quest to find the treasure, but each time they think they’re close to finding something, they come up with nothing. Will the boys find the mine—and the treasure—in time to save Salsa Verde ranch?
Check out Neil's very own website here!
KEVIN SYLVESTER is an award
winning illustrator, writer and broadcaster. His new sci-fi series MiNRs is now out from Simon and Schuster. His series The Neil Flambé Capers is already a bestseller and critical
success. Students across Ontario picked 'Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo
Murders' as the Silver Birch winner for fiction in 2011! There are 5 books in the series so far, Neil Flambé and the Bard's Banquet
is the latest, and the 6th book is due in Spring 2016.
Super-chef Gordon Ramsay calls the series “Good Fun”.
He now splits his time between his attic studio in Toronto and the radio.
Super-chef Gordon Ramsay calls the series “Good Fun”.
He now splits his time between his attic studio in Toronto and the radio.
And the greatkidsreadspodcast at greatkidsreads.com
Thursday, 18 February 2016
#T4T The Reaper's Rite series by Dorothy Dreyer PLUS Giveaway
Welcome to this week’s Two for Thursday! #T4T presented
by Month9books/Tantrum Books!
by Month9books/Tantrum Books!
Today, we will be showcasing two titles that will tickle
your fancy, and we’ll share what readers have to say about these titles! You
just might find your next read!
This week, #T4T presents to you:
Title: My Sister’s Reaper (Reapers Rite #1)
Author: Dorothy Dreyer
Pub. Date: May 29, 2013
Publisher: Month9Books
Pages: 275
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Sixteen-year-old Zadie’s first mistake was telling the boy she liked she could bring her dead sister back to life. Her second mistake was actually doing it.
When Zadie accidentally messes with the Reaper’s Rite that should have claimed her sister Mara, things go horribly wrong. Mara isn’t the same anymore—Zadie isn’t even sure she’s completely human, and to top it off, a Reaper is determined to collect Mara’s soul no matter what. Now Zadie must figure out how to defeat her
sister’s Reaper, or let Mara die … this time for good.
sister’s Reaper, or let Mara die … this time for good.
Title: My Tethered Soul (Reaper’s Rite#2)
Author: Dorothy Dreyer
Pub. Date: August 19, 2014
Publisher: Month9Books
Pages: 250
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Months have passed since Zadie faced her sister’s Reaper, during which time she's been under her mentor's magical protection. But now that she's turning 17, that protection is about to run out. When dark forces lure Zadie to wander at night, she's manipulated into committing unspeakable acts. With her friends and family at risk, Zadie must try to use her powers to break free from the Reaper's grasp, or surrender to the Reaper's Rite, which can only lead to death.
WHAT READER’S ARE SAYING ABOUT BOTH BOOKS:
"Man, this book... SO AWESOME! The magic, the myths, the romance... I loved it all! I highly recommend this book, especially if you're wanting something different in a supernatural read that also has a splash of romance.” ~ Lili Lost in A Book
“This was a really original and zany novel that was a really fun read. The writing was well done, and it had a great flow and fast pace that had me flying through the pages. I highly recommend it to those who love YA paranormal fiction with a weird and funny twist on things.” ~ A Dream Within A Dream
"The story moves fast, and the character development was great. The author had a way of giving you information about reapers without an overload. I am looking forward to reading the second book.” ~ Fantasy/Paranormal Books
“I highly recommend these books for those of you who enjoy young adult paranormal books. They are exciting and definitely worth adding to your TBR lists!” ~ Christy's Cozy Corners
Dorothy Dreyer has always believed in magic. Born in Angeles City, Philippines, to a Filipino mother and American Father, Dorothy grew up a military brat, living in Massachusetts, South Dakota, Guam, New Jersey, and New York. She now lives in Frankfurt, Germany, with her husband, two teens, and two Siberian huskies. Dorothy not only writes books with some element of magic in
them, but has a fondness for reading those kinds of books as well. She also enjoys movies, chocolate, take-out, and spending time with family and friends. She’s known to make a pretty sweet cupcake when she has the time. She also tends to sing sometimes, so keep her away from your Karaoke bars.
them, but has a fondness for reading those kinds of books as well. She also enjoys movies, chocolate, take-out, and spending time with family and friends. She’s known to make a pretty sweet cupcake when she has the time. She also tends to sing sometimes, so keep her away from your Karaoke bars.
Find Dorothy: Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Tumblr | Pinterest |YouTube
|Goodreads
Complete the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win!
Giveaway Details:
3 winners will receive an eBook of MY SISTER’S REAPER & MY TETHERED SOUL. International!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Book Feature: King of Bad by Kai Strand
Love a Bad Boy? Jeff Mean is the King of Bad
Jeff is a pyromaniac who has a way with the girls at school…and their mothers. He’s completely comfortable with his bad boy reputation. When he’s caught in the act of starting a fire by what he assumes is a well-meaning adult, Jeff takes off. Fast.
We soon learn, along with Jeff, that the reason he’s a bad boy is because he’s a super villain. When he’s recruited to Super Villain Academy – where you learn to be good at being bad – suddenly he isn’t anywhere close to being the baddest boy at school. And after years of Mother harping on him about saying please and thank you, his good manners choose that unfortunate setting to make an appearance. Not exactly the way to make friends at a villain academy. Oh, that’s right, villains don’t make friends.
The making of a main character is a tricky business. With many novels based in academies and private schools, I wanted mine to be different. So I focused on the bad guy. Who trains him? What makes him bad? What is it like to be bad? Is he the baddest of them all? And most importantly - why should we care?
It is said there are no new ideas, only new ways of addressing old ideas. I think Jeff’s story fits well within that adage. I hope you pick up your own copy and decide for yourself if Jeff Mean is the King
of Bad.
of Bad.
Exciting news: The Amazon bestseller just got better. The 2nd edition of King of Bad is available with bonus scenes.
About the book:
Jeff Mean would rather set fires than follow rules or observe curfew. He wears his bad boy image like a favorite old hoodie; that is until he learns he has superpowers and is recruited by Super Villain Academy – where you learn to be good at being bad. In a school where one kid can evaporate all the water from your body and the girl you hang around with can perform psychic sex in your head, bad takes on a whole new meaning. Jeff wonders if he’s bad enough for SVA.
He may never find out. Classmates vilify him when he develops good manners. Then he’s kidnapped by those closest to him and left to wonder who is good and who is bad. His rescue is the climactic episode that balances good and evil in the super world. The catalyst – the girl he’s crushing on. A girlfriend and balancing the Supers is good, right? Or is it…bad?
Excerpt:
An alarm blasted, startling the occupants of the room into silence. The double doors burst open, slamming against the walls with an alarming crack. A swarm of people, clad in black from head to toe, poured through the door. Blue flames erupted from those on the outer edge of the group. The flames weren’t directed at the kids in the room, but acted more like a battering ram to clear the way.
“Blue flame?” Oceanus whispered.
Jeff stepped between her and the melee. He saw a panicked look on Source’s face and wished the intruders didn’t separate them. Jeff knew Source’s lack of skill left him vulnerable.
Oceanus stepped around Jeff. “What do you think you’re doing?”
With her eyes sparking, Oceanus didn’t look as helpless as Jeff would like to think she was. Regardless, the need to protect her was strong and he again stepped in front of her. Hoping to distract her, he said, “Uh…you’re more experienced than me and you can help me fight if we need to. Stay back.”
Oceanus glared at him.
“Uh…for now.” He nodded to give his feeble statement strength.
“But I want to see.” Oceanus stepped sideways. “I’ve never seen blue fire before, Polar. What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it looks like they have more tricks up their sleeve.”
The tight knot advanced militarily to the center of the room. Then they unfurled like a flower bud, revealing a deadly stamen. A small woman, with ebony skin and violet eyes, stood in the center, seeming seven feet tall with the importance she emanated.
She spoke in a smoky, low voice to a ferret-like kid. “¿Dónde está, el?”
The ferret pointed and she raised her long nailed hands above her head. Nets, conjured from thin air, shot up and sailed across the room landing over her surprised target.
“No!” Jeff yelled. He lunged forward, his hands instantly aflame, but when he tried to shoot his fire it balled back on him, burning his own hands. He blew ice onto his hands to squelch the burn. Seeing the frost gave him a thought. “Oci, water!”
He pointed to the floor and indicated that he wanted it to snake across the room.
Oceanus pulled water from the overhead sprinklers and dropped it onto the floor. Jeff drew a deep, deep breath and breathed across the surface of the water. It iced over, immediately sending half the blue flame people to the floor. Jeff blew again, refreezing the water over their hands and trapping them.
“It won’t last forever, let’s move.” He grabbed Oceanus’ arm and they ran. They were halfway across the room when roots burst through the floor and wrapped around their ankles. They sprawled face first on the floor. Another kid fell, knee first, onto Jeff’s back, knocking the wind out of him. Jeff squirmed around until he sat up and grew a small controlled fire in his palm. He showered sparks onto the roots that had snaked up around his calves. The roots shrank away from the fire, loosening their hold and Jeff tore free of their viney grip. He did the same for Oceanus and they scrambled to their feet again.
The intruders hefted their squirming captive toward the door.
Jeff anchored his feet firmly on the ground and gathered all the gravity he could feel around him. As quickly as he could, he bound the feet of those carrying the hostage.
“See if water will work on that blue fire, Oci. Before they get to us.”
Oceanus swung around and saw four of the blue flames approaching. She pulled water from the drinking fountains and doused the flames. But instead of putting it out it seemed to increase it.
“No good. I think it’s feeding on it!”
“No good. I think it’s feeding on it!”
Jeff felt light headed from having to split the gravity in so many directions. He imagined his feet were buried in the ground, giving him a deeper contact with the source, and his head cleared a bit.
“Can you smother it somehow?” Jeff yelled.
“No, I don’t have anything. And the others are getting free.”
Sure enough the blue flamers who’d been temporarily frozen were up and re-igniting their fire.
One of the intruders with the blue fire yelled, “¡Detenganlo!” and pointed toward Jeff.
Teachers had joined the fight. In the midst of pelting milk cartons, lightning strikes, and lashing ropes, Jeff was struck by one strange fact. His fellow students seemed to be fighting for the sake of fighting. No one appeared intent on retrieving the hostage. As a matter of fact, Jeff watched a kid blast one of the captors and turn away from the hostage.
Jeff roared. He had to get over there, but if he moved, he’d release the gravitational hold he had on the captors. Experimentally, he slid a foot forward without lifting it from the ground. He felt the hold weaken, but it didn’t break. Concentrating all his efforts on maintaining control, Jeff slid his feet across the floor. The going was agonizingly slow. He felt some of the captors struggle against the gravity that locked them in place, hoping to break free. Someone’s psych ability nudged around his head looking for a way in. With all his efforts focused, he continued to slide across the room.
A blast of steam and heat hit Jeff, knocking him sideways.
He slid a couple of feet across the ground and came to a rest in a heap. Dazed, he shook his head and sat up. Then he remembered what he’d been doing. He leapt to his feet and searched the room for the group of captors. Too late. The doors swung closed behind them. Source was gone.
He slid a couple of feet across the ground and came to a rest in a heap. Dazed, he shook his head and sat up. Then he remembered what he’d been doing. He leapt to his feet and searched the room for the group of captors. Too late. The doors swung closed behind them. Source was gone.
About the author:
When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died. The end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers Kai entertains children of all ages, and their adults. Learn more about Kai and her books on her website, www.kaistrand.com.
Tuesday, 16 February 2016
Cover Reveal: Quanta Reset by Lola Dodge
Quanta Reset
Lola Dodge
(The Shadow Ravens #3)
Published by: Ink Monster LLC
Publication date: October 4th 2016
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Quanta has escaped her laboratory prison, but that’s where the good news ends.
Life at the Shadow Ravens’ compound is a disaster. She’s drowning in visions of the dark pasts and darker futures of her fellow Ravens and is plagued by her own panic-inducing memories, but Lady Eva still expects her to “train” and “participate in missions.” Plus, the food tastes like burnt plastic.
The only bright spot is her genetic pairing to the brilliant Altair Orpheus. As their relationship grows, she’s positive that chemicals aren’t the only things drawing them together—although chemistry is definitely involved.
While they test the limits of her game-changing new ability to reset time, word arrives from Eva’s agents: Doctor Nagi is still experimenting with her DNA. If he succeeds in duplicating her power…
Forget the Shadow Ravens. The whole world is toast.
Author Bio:
Lola Dodge is a compulsive traveler, baker, and procrastinator. She earned her BA in English from Stonehill College and MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University--and hasn't stopped moving since. When she's not on the road, Lola spends her time indoors where the sunlight can't melt her, writing or bingeing on anime and cherry soda. She can be summoned in a ritual involving curry, Hello Kitty idols, and a solid chocolate pentagram.
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Monday, 15 February 2016
Shadow of Deception Blog Tour: Interview with Sophia L Johnson @AuthorSLJ
Today we're taking part in the SHADOW OF DECEPTION blog tour by chatting with author Sophia L. Johnson. Come get to know all about Sophia and her book, and don't forget to enter the rafflecopter at the bottom of the post.
Hi, Sophia! Welcome to We Do Write. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Hello We Do Write readers, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm a Chinese Canadian living in Toronto. I have a young daughter and about to have a baby boy :) I've only began writing professionally about six years ago and I'm loving it. I do however have another job that keeps food on the table because I'm not J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins yet. I'm a Registered Massage Therapist and I teach Massage Therapy at a college.
Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook
Tell our readers a bit about SHADOW OF DECEPTION.
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
How did the idea of the story come to you?
Kazumi the main character came to my mind first. I knew that she'd be flawed and a little evil. So I created a world around her and obstacles for her to overcome. I also wanted to highlight in the book the notion of nature versus nurture. Would you choose the same path or action if you don't have past experiences and teachings to guide you and you only have your basic instinct?
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I'm a bit of both. I start off as a plotter by having at least the frame of the novel thought out and who the main character is. From there I become a pantser where I'd just let my instinct guide me.
What’s the hardest part of writing for you?
Grammar! And I think this stems from the fact that English is not my first language. I didn't grow up learning all the various slangs and different ways of saying one thing. So I'm constantly learning.
What do you absolutely have to have nearby when writing?
Nothing but silence. I can't stand even a whisper when I'm trying to concentrate. So definitely no music for me.
I'm a silence girl as well, so I can relate. If you could have any super power, what would it be?
Invisibility for sure! I'd like to snoop on people. I'm very nosy.
What's the weirdest thing you've googled?
I'd have to say it'd be a Chinese name that brought up some unexpected images. I'm currently working on a YA fantasy novel set in imperial China so naturally I was trying to come up with some Chinese names. I had narrowed down to one which was Yulin. My husband googled its meaning because he's Canadian and doesn't read Chinese. What came up was unexpectedly horrific. I had no idea that “Yulin”, which is a legitimate Chinese name meaning “Jade Forest”, was a slang for dog eating festivals in China. So there! Oh and please do yourself a favor and don't look it up.
Finish this sentence: If I'm not writing, I'm probably ... on my phone playing Candy Crush.
Here’s the part where you thank the people who are supporting you. Let's hear your shout outs.
My husband is the first person I need to thank because I practically ignored him for the four years I spent writing this book. Not to mention he gave me a lot of creative ideas. And he was the first person to tell me I can make this happen no matter how discouraged I was feeling at the time. So thank you my love!
Next I'd like to thank everyone who endured reading through my first draft. You guys know who you are so I won't list all their names here.
Lastly I need to thank everyone who has purchased a copy. Your support means that the thousands of hours I spent typing away was not a waste. It is the most heart-warming validation for a new author. And to those who gave nice reviews, your words are my driving force. Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart!
Thanks for stopping by the blog, Sophia!
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