Spotlight: One Was Lost

 

 Check out the first excerpt of One Was Lost by Natalie Richards!

No one said anything about rain in the brochures. Not that there were brochures. There was a handwritten sign-up sheet in the cafeteria, followed by permission slips recycled from ghosts of field trips past. I'm not really sure why I was expecting a world-class production. Must be the director in me. I stumble under the weight of my pack, sloshing through a puddle. Cold water oozes through my boots and socks. So much for Mr. Walker's plastic ponchos keeping us dry. I guess after six straight hours of rain, dry is relative anyway. "I hope you packed your dirty clothes in the plastic bags I handed out last night." Mr. Walker booms from the front of the line. "They might stink, but they'll be dry." The other girls cringe a little at the idea- all except Ms. Brighton, our younger, cooler teacher guide. She's very Zen about these things, nodding along in her crystal earrings and mud-dyed Gaia Mother T-shirt. I'm in the last half of the group, behind Jude with his ever-present earbuds and imperious gaze. Since I'm five-two, the back of his poncho is about all I can see, but it's better than looking at Lucas. Anything's better than looking at Lucas.

Even behind me, I can feel him. Looming. Everyone's tall measured against me, but Lucas is ridiculous. He towers. If there were actually a sun to be found in this Appalachian monsoon, his shoulders would cast a shadow you could hide two of me in. I have no idea what you have to eat to grow like that. Corn? Eggs? Small children?

I trudge onward, slowing to shift my backpack. The right strap is digging a painful trench into my shoulder, and I can't find a way to move it. My poncho slips with the effort, and a river of icy water slithers down my back.

"Holy crap!" I say, arching in a futile effort to escape.

"Keep moving, Spielberg," Lucas says behind me.

I grit my teeth and walk on. If I respond, I might have to look at him, and I've worked very hard not to do that. I've not looked for sixty-two days. It's a pretty good track record. I'm not going to wreck it just because he ended up on my Senior Life Experience Mission. At the last possible minute, no less.

"Is this really top speed for you?" he asks, sounding like he's on the verge of a laugh.

I stare at the line of backpacks and ponchos ahead of me, resisting the urge to snap back at him. I need to be the bigger person here. It's not like I don't know why ge's picking at me.

"Still sticking with the silent treatment?" he asks. "Gotta give it to you, you're committed. Slow-moving as shit but committed."

OK, I'm bigger personed out.

I whirl around. I shouldn't- I know I shouldn't-but the words blurt out. "Newsflash, Lucas! I'm moving as fast as  I can. Not all of us are loping around with giraffe legs like you, so if you're in such a rush, feel free to move ahead.:

He steps closer, and it happens. I see him. Really see him.

Fricking crap.

He tilts his head until his face is visible inside his plastic hood. How does he do it? He's just as wet and miserable as the rest of us, but somehow, he's owning the hell out of a poncho that makes me look like I need a zip tie and a trip to the curb.

I should walk away, at least look away. Lucas is all sharp lines and hooded eyes, and I should have learned my lesson. Because standing here brings me right back to that night on the porch. My ears go buzzy with the memory of crickets singing and the backdrop of the cast party inside. My face tingles because I remember other things too- his scratchy jaw and soft mouth and my heart beating faster than it ever should.

My gaze drifts to his smirk and leads pools into my stomach. That's what I'm really mad about. It's not his teasing of the rain or anything else. It's the fact that he turns me into the same fluttery mess  I was all summer. He still turns me into my mother, and I hate it.

I try to move away, but he catches the edge of my poncho- keeps me facing him.

"Huh."

I cross my arms. "Huh, what?"

"Look who suddenly remembers me," he says softly.

"Don't."

"I won't," he says, though his grin needs a parental advisory label. "I didn't then, did-"

Lightning flashes, bright enough that we both jerk.

One Mississippi.

Two Mississ-

The sound that follows is like the sky being torn in two. It ends with a bone-deep rumble that rattles the ground and bunches my spine. I close my eyes and take a breath, yoga-slow. It doesn't cleanse anything, so I try another.

Across from me, Lucas is searching the sky. I take the opportunity to turn and bolt ahead on the trail. Not that there's anywhere to go. Away from his is good enough.

 I plow into Jude's back in my eagerness to escape. He spares me one millisecond of irritation, and then he's back to pretending we're all part of the scenery.

The trail widens here, or maybe the forest is less dense. Who knows? It gives me enough room to move past Jude until I'm next to Emily, my tent mate for the last two nights.

Emily looks back at me- a sparkle of dark eyes under her poncho- and her mouth twitches. Is she smiling at me? That's new.

"Some trip, right?" I ask.

She ducks her head. And that's as close to a conversation as we've gotten. I sigh. We have three more days of awkwardness in the woods. Three. More. Days.

"Hold up." Mr. Walker is ultra-alert. "Everybody stay right here. Don't move." 

I finally read One Was Lost and you can check out my review here!!!

Brown Girl Dreaming

After picking this book up several times, I finally decided to read it. And I am so glad I did.

Brown Girl Dreaming is an autobiographical telling of Jacqueline Woodson growing up as an African American girl in the South. It delves into so many social issues from the 1960's and 1970's but even the issues we're having in the world today. Jacqueline was raised the same way as everyone else and deserved to be treated that way. She watched Angela Davis on television every day and held her fist high. She wrote about what she wanted, needed, loved, and missed. She wrote about what she knew, and what she didn't know she made up along the way. This little girl didn't realize she had a hard life. But she knew what she had shaped who she was. With family dying, incarcerated, or just gone, she had to continue with her life. Jacqueline Woodson definitely created a perfect little world for her childhood past. 

Brown Girl Dreaming may be a children's book, but it truly is a book for all ages. 

Written in poetry form, the words literally fly off the page. 

The words form little melodies that will stick with readers for long after they close the book.

Grab a copy and read her life.

Might as well add her newest book, Another Brooklyn, to your "to-read" list too! I know I will be. :)

Spotlight: Labyrinth Lost

Check out an exclusive first chapter of Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova!!

The second time I saw my dead aunt Rosaria, she was dancing.

Earlier that day, my mom had warned me, pressing a long, red fingernail on the tip of my nose, "Alejandra, don't go downstairs when the Circle arrives."

But  I was seven and asked too many questions. Every Sunday, cars piled up in our driveway, down the street, around the corner of our old, narrow house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Mom's Circle usually brought cellophane-wrapped dishes and jars of dirt and tubs of brackish water that made the Hudson River look clean. This time, they carried something more.

When my sisters started snoring I threw off my covers and crept down the stairs. The floorboards were uneven and creaky, but  I was good at not being seen. Fuzzy, yellow streetlight shone through our attic window and followed me down every flight until I reached the basement.

A soft hum made its way through the thin walls. I remember thinking I should listen to my mom's warning and go back upstairs. But our house had been restless all week, and Lula, Rose, and I were shoved into the attic, out of the way while the grown-ups prepared for the funeral. I wanted out. I wanted to see. 

The night was moonless and cold one week after the Witch's New Year, when Aunt Rosaria died of a sickness that made her skin yellow like hundred-year-old paper and her nails turn black as coal. We tried to make her beautiful again. My sisters and I spent all day weaving good luck charms from peonies, corn husks, and string- one loop over, under, two loops over, under. Not even the morticians, the Magos de Muerte, could fix her once-lovely face.

Aunt Rosaria was dead. I was there when we mourned her. I was there when we buried her. Then, I watched my father and two others shoulder a dirty cloth bundle into the house, and I knew I couldn't stay in bed, no matter what my mother said.

So I opened the basement door.

Red light bathed the steep stairs. I leaned my head toward the light, toward the beating sound of drums and sharp plucks of fat, nylon guitar strings.

A soft mew followed by whiskers against my arm made my heart jump to the back of my rib cage. I bit my tongue to stop the scream. It was just my cat, Miluna. She stared at me with her white, glowing eyes and hissed a warning, as if telling me to turn back. But Aunt Rosaria was my godmother, my family, my friend. And I wanted to see her again.

"Sh!" I brushed the cat's head back.

Miluna nudged my leg, then ran away as the singing started.

I took my first step down, into the warm, red light. Raspy voices called out to our gods, the Deos, asking for blessings beyond the veil of our worlds. Their melody pulled me step by step until I was crouched at the bottom of the landing.

They were dancing.

Brujas and brujos were dressed in mourning white, their faces painted in the aspects of the dead, white clay and black coal to trace the bones. They danced in two circles- the outer ring going clockwise, the inner counterclockwise- hands clasped tight, voices vibrating to the pulsing drums.

And in the middle was Aunt Rosaria.

  Her body jerked upward. Her black hair pooled in the air like she was suspended in water. There was still dirt on her skin. The white shirt we buried her in billowed around her slender legs. Black smoke slithered out of her open mouth. It weaved in and out of the circle- one loop over, under, two loops over, under. It tugged Aunt Rosaria higher and higher, matching the rhythm of the canto.

The the black smoke perked up and changed its target. It could smell me. I tried to backpedal, but the tiles were slick and I slid toward the circle. My head smacked the tiles. Pain splintered my skull and a broken scream lodged in my throat.

The music stopped. Heavy, tired breaths filled the silence of the pulsing red dark. The enchantment was broken. Aunt Rosaria's reanimated corpse turned to me. Her body purged black smoke, lowering her back to the ground. Her angles cracked where the bone was brittle, but still she took a step. Her dead eyes gaped at me. Her wrinkled mouth growled my name: Alejandra. 

She took another step. Her ankle turned and broke at the joint, sending her flying foward. She landed on top of me. The rot of her skin filled my nose, and grave dirt fell into my eyes.

Tongues clucked against crooked teeth. The voices of the circle hissed, "What's the girl doing out of bed?"

There was a scent of extinguished candles and melting wax. Decay and perfume oil smothered me until they pulled the body away. 

My mother jerked me up by the ear, pulling me up two flights of stairs until I was back in my bed, the scream stuck in my throat like a stone.

"Never," she said. "You hear me, Alejandra? Never break a Circle."

I lay still. So still that after a while, she brushed my hair, thinking I  had fallen asleep.

I wasn't. How could I ever sleep again? Blood and rot and smoke and whispers filled my head.

"One day you'll learn," she whispered.

Then she went back down the street-lit stairs, down into the warm red light and to Aunt Rosaria's body. My mother clapped her hands, drums beat, strings plucked, and she said, "Again."

This is Where it Ends Celebratory Giveaway!

 

So guys, remember when I raved about This is Where it Ends? 

Looks like I had good reason to, because it is now a #1 New York Times Bestseller! 

Not to mention it's been on the bestseller list for 25 WEEKS! 

To celebrate, Sourcebooks Fire is offering a HUGE GIVEAWAY of 25 book bundles, with ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER receiving a $25 Barnes & Noble giftcard AND a book bundle! 

Giveaway starts today, September 2 at 2pm (ET) and will run until September 9 at 12pm (ET)!!

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!

Good luck everyone!!

I'm Thinking of Ending Things

I don't even know how to begin reviewing this book. That's how much I hated it. So please beware that this review will be incredibly biased. Apologies in advance.

 For starters, when I started reading this book I was reading the point of view as a man. Surprise, main character is actually a very dull girl.The story starts with her thinking of ending things with her boyfriend Jake. BUT for some reason, she has agreed to go on a road trip to meet his parents and see his childhood home. 

The first third of the story is told in the truck on the way to Jake's parents house. Everything they talk about is SO philosophical if you will. Jake knows oodles of annoying science facts and randomly shares them with her. Whereas she spends a lot of time in her head wondering why she agreed to this trip, knowing that she wants to end things (which let me tell you that exact phrase is used in the book at least 600 times). 

SO, they finally make it to Jake's parents house. Jake makes a show of touring the outside of the home, where the barn is, the horse, oh and the dead pigs that just hangout in the pig pen. Once they go inside, she wanders around (I don't know about you but being in someone house for the first time does not grant you access to every single room in the house for you to peep your nose into). His parents keep telling her how great it is that he's found someone like her; how she keeps him grounded. Then randomly at dinner, his mother says she hears the voices too. At the end of the visit, his mother seems genuinely scared for them to leave. 

Last third of the book we are back in the truck and headed home when Jake decides to stop for ice cream in the middle of a snowstorm. Ya, okay good idea.

When their lemonades start melting he decides to drive down a very deserted road to throw the cups away at a school he remembers. When they decide to just make-out in the truck a little, Jake supposedly sees the janitor watching them from inside the school, freaks out, and takes off to show him who's boss. 

Once Jake doesn't come back, she decides maybe she should go in and find him. This sends her on a massive hunt to find Jake, but she's not going to find him because there was no janitor, it was just Jake trying to trap her in the school so that he can hunt her...

**BEWARE SPOILERS BELOW:**

The ending of the book was so terrible. So inaccurate. So absurd. So confusing. So ridiculous. At literally the turn of a page, she begins acting as if she and Jake are together hiding from the janitor. Except she and Jake are not together. When she finds him, he says that he needs her help ending things. Then he hands her a metal wire and she stabs herself in the neck and makes the decision to end things right then and there. BUT Jake is actually the one that stabs himself in the neck. The girl was never real. Jake was never real. The only person that died is the janitor in the school. Who SUPPOSEDLY when he spent hours bleeding out from his neck wound, he began writing this story and Jake and the girl were the main characters.

THIS BOOK HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL. But it was awful. I think I should have ended this book before I even started it. So read at your own risk, but I highly recommend not wasting your time.

Can You Survive the Cabin?

Can you survive The Cabin?

Starting on August 30, Sourcebooks Fire will be releasing a series of questions every Tuesday and Thursday at different locations.

Here's how you can play:

1. Take a look at the schedule above.

2. Go to the location on the specified date.

3.Find The Cabin graphic with the question.

4. Solve the question.

5. Head here to submit your answer for that day's question.

6.Complete all 8 questions and be entered to win a $500 Visa gift card!! Sourcebooks Fire will also be drawing a winner each week who will win a Sourcebooks Fire book bundle!!

7. Make sure to submit all answers by September 25!

CAN YOU SURVIVE THE CABIN? IS NOW FINISHED.

I have also been provided with yet another excerpt from The Cabin to get you guys stoked about it's release!! 

Check out the first excerpt here!!

Straightening his back, Blake walked around the double bed and gripped my arms. "Well, that sounds like a plan. I definitely don't want you feeling horrendous all day so...." He slid a hand down the bare skin of my arm until he reached my hand. With a little tug, he towed me out of the room and downstairs.

We stopped at the bottom of the wooden stairs to assess the damage. Bottles, shot glasses, and snack wrappers littered the coffee table and floor around it. There were most empty bottles of alcohol than I remembered. No wonder we felt rough.

Blake stood beside me, his chest pressed right up against my back and a hand on my hip. I liked the contact a lot.

"This explains the drilling in my head," he murmured, leaning down to nip my neck. Spinning around, I slapped his arm playfully, laughing. Bad move. My head throbbed with the quick movement, but Blake's boyish grin made my heart swell.

Another bad move. Don't get too involved with him. When we went home, Blake would be back off to his dad's, and who knew when I'd see him again. If ever.

 A door upstairs opened and closed. I stepped around Blake to watch Megan hobble down. She looked as good as I felt. "Kenzie?" she whispered. "I think I'm dying."

Laughing quietly, I replied, "You too, huh?"

"Bloody hell. How much did we drink? she muttered, leaning heavily on the banister as she made the final steps downstairs. She hadn't drunk much, but it was still more than she usually did.

"We're getting old," I joked. "We can't handle it anymore."

Kyle was sprawled out on the floor with his mouth wide open, breathing deeply, his jet-black hair stuck out in all directions like a bird's nest. Aaron was curled up beside him, sleeping in the fetal position. They clearly couldn't handle the amount of alcohol either. They were both in the same place Blake and I had left them last night.

Blake watched us with a curiosity I didn't quite understand. I had a feeling he didn't have many close friends, which was a shame, because beyond that I-don't-care attitude, he was a great guy. I thought- from what I'd seen, anyway.

"Where're Josh and Courtney?" Megan asked.

I shrugged. "I don't hear anyone else up, so maybe they're asleep still. God, Megan, I need asprin."

Kyle's eyes flicked open and widened as he saw how close Aaron was to him. I felt so rough I couldn't even laugh when he shoved him away, making Aaron wake with a gasp.

Aaron looked up, dazed. "What?" He rubbed his eyes and winced. "Christ!"

"I'm making tea. Everyone in?" I asked, receiving grunts in replace of a yes and a look of disgust from Blake. I smiled, remember what he's wanted before. "Coffee for you, Blake."

I walked into the kitchen; my head was swimming, and everything looked a little fuzzy. A sea of red flashed in front of my eyes. I blinked hard.

You're losing it.

Opening my eyes again, I stared at the floor. It took me a few moments to register what  I was seeing. Bright, thick blood stretched from the middle of the kitchen to what looked like behind the island.

I gasped. There was so much blood. My heart raced and the ends of my fingertips tingled. The metallic smell filled my lungs and made me gag. My body turned cold and started to shake. What....?

"Courtney?" I whispered, not even hearing my own voice over the ringing in my ears. 

Oh God, don't pass out Mackenzie.

Someone came up behind me. "What the..." Kyle whispered, stepping around me. "Shit. Stay back, Kenz."

Blake was right behind Kyle. "What's going on?" he asked,

Against Kyle's orders, I stepped around the kitchen island and my stomach lurched. "No," I cried, pressing my hand over my mouth as bile rose in my throat. Courtney and Josh lay on the floor in a pool of crimson blood.

Once in a Town Called Moth

Anneli and her father flee to Canada from a tiny community in Bolivia. Anneli becomes Ana and starts her new life, one without her mother. Lena went awol 10 years before, leaving Ana and Miloh to fend for themselves, leaving Miloh with a crime he needed to outrun.

Leaving Colony Felicidad was hard for Ana. Canada made her feel like an outcast. Toronto was not as pretty as everyone made it out to be. She didn't have a phone, computer, car, or friends. She couldn't even leave the house for the first few months. Life was hard in Toronto. Once enrolling in school, she realizes how much more there is to life outside of their small Mennonite community back home. She has opportunities here. She has friends. She has a mother to find. 

Lena ran when the going got tough for Miloh. She couldn't bear having to live in the community she no longer associated herself with. She needed a fresh start, even if that meant leaving her child behind. When Ani and Lena finally rekindle, it's tough for both of them to accept each others new lives. 

There's so much Ana doesn't know about her mother. Yet she finds things that she didn't know about her father as well. BUT I'm not sure Trilby Kent actually knew how to tie their story together. Towards the end, we find out what Miloh did. We find out why he and Ana needed to run. But what we don't ever find out is why Lena ran from them. We also never find out why Miloh was looking for Lena... This was by far one of the most annoying parts of this book. 

B U T keep in mind, I was sent an advanced reader's copy of Once in a Town Called Moth. I'm hoping that in the finalized version we have a few more answers than we have right now. 

Big shout out to Penguin Random House and Tundra Books for sending me this arc!

Mark your calendars, Once in a Town Called Moth hits shelves September 6th!