Blurb:
It's been two years since the lion roared ... the eagle flew ... and the fated Celtic warrior embraced her destiny. Now, with an unknown darkness swirling and the body count rising, the world needs a hero more than ever. A new battle is brewing. Who will answer the call to war? The time has come. The stage is set. And the Garretts are back in a brand new novella. Descent; The Gryphon Series Resurrection, Coming in Spring 2016. It's hard to keep a bad pirate down...
RONE Award Winner for Best YA Paranormal Work of 2012 for Embrace, a Gryphon Series Novel
Young Adult and Teen Reader voted Author of the Year 2012
Turning Pages Magazine Winner for Best YA book of 2013 & Best Teen Book of 2013
Stacey Rourke is the author of the award winning YA Gryphon Series, the chillingly suspenseful Legends Saga, and the romantic comedy Adapted for Film. She lives in Michigan with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and two giant dogs. She loves to travel, has an unhealthy shoe addiction, and considers herself blessed to make a career out of talking to the imaginary people that live in her head.
Blurb:Walker Callaghan doesn't know what happened to her. One minute she was living her teenage life in suburban Chicago...and the next minute, she was in a strange place and in a brand new school with absolutely no homework, no rules, and no consequences. Walker Callaghan, 17, is dead. She doesn't go to heaven or hell. She lands at The Academy, a middle realm where teenagers have one thing in common: They were the morning announcement at their high schools because they died young.
These high school kids are now caught in a strange “in-between” zone where life hasn’t changed very much. In fact, this special teen limbo looks a lot like life in a quaint Michigan town complete with jocks, popular girls and cliques. "There are even cheerleaders in death," Walker observes. It's not a coincidence that the music teacher is a guy named Kurt who "used to have this band." The drama teacher, Heath, is crush worthy because back in his life, he starred in some superhero movie. Principal King explains the rules -- there are none. Why? You can't die twice. There is no homework. No tests. No SATS. You're just there to learn because the human brain isn't fully formed until you're 24.
By the way, you can't get hurt physically, so race your Harley off that hillside. But falling in love is the most dangerous thing you can do ...because no one knows how long you'll stay in this realm or what's next. "Losing someone you love would be like dying twice," Walker says.
* * * * * *
Walker Callaghan has just arrived at the Academy after a tragic car accident. “Is this heaven or is this high school?” she asks. She finds out her new life is a bit of both as she falls in love with tat-covered, bad boy Daniel Reid who is about to break the only sacred rule of this place. He's looking for a portal to return back to the living realm. He needs just one hour to retrieve his younger brother who strangely never arrived at The Academy. Bobby is an Earth Bound Spirit, stuck at a plane crash site that took both of their lives as their rich father piloted his private jet nose-first into a cornfield on Christmas Eve. Walker loves Daniel and risks it all to go with him. Have they learned enough to outsmart dangerous forces while transporting a young child with them? Can their love survive the fragmented evil parts of themselves that are now hunting them down as they try to find a way back to the middle? At the Academy, you learn the lessons of an after-lifetime.
CL GABER is the author of ASCENDERS, the first book in the ASCENDERS saga. She's also the co-author of the YA book JEX MALONE and the sequel due in 2016. Muggletnet.com, the world's largest Harry Potter site, did a rare review of a non-Potter book and called Ascenders, "a book we wish we could read over and over again." Book 2 in the Ascenders Saga will be published in spring, 2015. A trailer for the book series contains original music by Roger O'Donnell of the iconic rock band The Cure and was produced by Orian Williams ("Control," "Shadow of a Vampire.").
As Cindy Pearlman (her maiden name), Cindy is a well known senior entertainment journalist for the New York Times Syndicate, with stories appearing worldwide, and the Chicago Sun Times. A pop culture expert, her work has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, People, TV Guide, Elle and National Geographic, and many other publications. Cindy has co-written over 40 books for actors, musicians, athletes and wellness experts including several New York Times best sellers. She is the author of her own film anthology book "You Gotta See This." A native of Chicago, Cindy lives outside of Las Vegas. Author Links:Amazon * Facebook * Goodreads * Twitter * WebBuy Links:Amazon * Kindle * iTunes
INTRODUCTION
I was there. And then I was gone.
My mother gave me no notice that we were relocating.
Suddenly, we had just moved without all that annoying planning and packing. Somehow my clothes were thrown into boxes with shoes that were missing mates. Someone had packed my books and CDs, and had even reached under my bed into that secret hiding place I counted on to protect my treasures; like the iPod loaded with the best and worst of everything from Nirvana to the Stones, plus my lucky green rabbit’s foot—because you just never knew when you would need a little extra luck.
My mother must have remembered the family photo album because there it was on our brand-new living room coffee table that I passed on the way to my very own bedroom and a bed I had never slept in a day in my life.
It was strange because we could barely afford to pay the rent each month, let alone buy something as nice as a hand-carved oak table imported from someplace far, far away. When I had looked, the tag didn’t say from where. It was just imported.
It was one of those times when you go from A to Z so fast that you hardly remember any of the in-between. Or as I—Walker Callaghan—senior at Kennedy High School in suburban Chicago and news editor of the school paper the Charger liked to say, “Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.”
Flopping onto my new, handsome, four-poster bed with lovely little tulips carved into the wood, I thought it was so unlike my mother, the master planner, to do something this off-the-cuff. My mother was a woman who made a battle plan to go to the local 7-Eleven for almost-expiration-date milk. Even weirder was the fact that we had moved farther away than anyone imagined. A lot farther.
“So run this by me one more time, Mom,” I shouted. “I must have been heavily medicated or feeling really sorry for myself. We moved? You pulled the trigger. Bang-bang—relocation?”
I didn’t give her time to answer.
“A new school in my senior year of high school?” I called out to her on a murky, cold winter morning on Burning Tree Court.
Even though I was letting the heat escape and Mom had always said we didn’t live to “support Commonwealth Edison,” our old electric company, I still opened my bedroom window wide and found that the air drifting in was stun-your-senses Arctic cold. It smelled green and fresh outside and those dense marshmallow patches of white fluff in the sky could only mean serious snow because they were roasted dark on the bottom.
I tried to shiver, but couldn’t. I was perfectly warm despite the window and the fact that I was wearing faded jeans and a well- washed blue cotton tank that read: Normal People Scare Me.
In true dramatic fashion, I couldn’t resist needling the one 12
person responsible for our fate, our new house, and everything in it that was unknown and strange. “Mom, new school. Senior year. I’ll have no friends here. Are you trying to kill me?”
Without knowing how or why, I was now enrolled in this elite- sounding new school called the Academy, which sounded quite upscale and serious to a girl whose educational pursuits consisted of a generic public-school education outside of a big melting-pot city, where you were either rich (if you were lucky) or you were normal (if you were like everybody else). Our family worked hard at being desperately normal.
“Great, it will be a bunch of rich, stuck-up snobs who will hate me—and cheerleaders. There are always cheerleaders. They’re like cockroaches. You can’t get rid of them,” I concluded, yelling from my new room to hers, which was somewhere down a hallway that I had never really navigated before.
“I hear it’s quite fancy,” Mom called from her room. “A Callaghan going to a private school. Imagine.”
I didn’t have to imagine it as I was living it. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but when I had asked that question, Madeleine Callaghan, my mom, the mover and shaker in my life, had cringed and then cried hard into a brand-new washcloth she didn’t recognize—the thick kind we could never afford. The weeper was the one who had given me the odd-for-a-girl first name, which was her maiden name before she married my father, steel worker Sam Callaghan. We weren’t just blue-collar, but faded blue-collar from clothes that had far too many seasons of washings. In our family, the rule was “Don’t throw it out unless it’s dead-dead.”
Running my finger along the smooth wood of my expensive new dresser with the intoxicating just-cut-tree smell, I ducked down on the ground to read the label on the bottom. Imported from R-19877. Really? Did we win the lottery? And what was with the secret spy code?
“Honey, please, I’m begging you,” Mom answered after appearing in my doorway. “For once, let’s not do the Diane Sawyer investigation act. I can’t do twenty rounds of questions. Not today.” Her voice sounded thick like she had a cold, so I closed the window.
“There is no need to insult Diane who probably doesn’t even have a dresser this nice,” I replied.
“Walker, let me make you some breakfast,” Mom said. “Everything is always better after a little oatmeal and orange juice. You’ll see.”
2.
Back home in suburban Chicago, Principal Amanda Stevens was toying with the loudspeaker at Kennedy High School. It was time to make an announcement that drifted across her desk once or twice a year (every year)—and it always pulled her heart right out of her chest. She couldn’t dwell on herself, but had to think of her students. Many of them knew this girl from her work on the school newspaper. What would she say about her? Principal Stevens went through the usual lines in her head: It was a terrible shame. A waste. A tragedy. It was all those sentiments that meant nothing really because they were just words.
This was a heart ripper—dead at seventeen. Good night, Irene.
Ms. S knew that she better just do it. So she clicked the on button on the PA system, took a deep breath, and said what needed to be said. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“I regret to tell the student body that we lost one of our own last night. Walker Callaghan, a well-respected senior and news editor of the Charger, has died.”
She released the on button and grabbed for a bottle of extra- strength aspirin, wishing there was something stronger. Then she clicked the PA back on again. “Of course, counselors are available,” she added.
What
if the best night of your life was also your last?
On
the eve of a much-anticipated proposal, Meg is happier than she could
have ever imagined. The future she sees for herself on that magical
night is bright, one that’s full of love and laughter and dreams
finally realized.
That
is, until one random act of violence changes everything…
Consumed
by fate and forces she can’t comprehend, Meg finds herself at the
center of a spectral conflict that transcends life and death.
Her
very soul is up for grabs in this war, and what’s worse… she’s
not the only one.
Now,
she’s fighting not just for the love she lost, but the daughter she
would have called her own. She must fight the battle of her life, for
the sake of her friends and family, and find out for herself if love
can indeed be stronger than death.
Intertwined
with true-ghost stories, some heart-warming, some heart-breaking,
this love-note to San Antonio combines history, myth, and vivid
description.
This
is the full story of Meg & Amelinda's quest-journey, what author
Laura Metzger calls "A beautifully written story with compelling
characters that reach between the universe of the living and the dead
to embrace their mutual destiny" and author Elena E. Giorgi
calls "A beautiful tale of love and redemption."
On
the day I died, I was wearing a great outfit. This is important to
know because it turns out that your default look for eternity as a
ghost is what you’re wearing when you die. I mean, seriously. Who
knew? If I’d have known that, I wouldn’t have risked any days in
mediocre clothes. In that respect, I was lucky I was on a date when I
was killed, but of course, if I hadn’t been on a date, on that
date, maybe things would have turned out differently.
Not
everyone gets to be a ghost. In fact, some people disappear
immediately, and I don’t know what happens. But they just wink
right out of existence, only out of their bodies for a few seconds.
Maybe it has something to do with intent, or their last actions, or
their own belief systems. I hope the good people go somewhere good,
no matter what they did in the last moments of life, that there is a
way for them to make up for those Big Mistakes.
Some
people, people who haven’t Figured Things Out, people like me,
linger for a while. We hang around those we love and sometimes try to
influence their choices, trying to keep loved ones from making Big
Mistakes.
My
grandmother had been my ghost–I was not surprised when it came
right down to it. Back when I was alive, I used to smell her perfume
in the apartment we shared, vanilla and lavender. I could never
figure out what actual perfume brand she wore to get that scent, and
believe me, I tried. I loved it and wanted that for my signature
perfume. I haunted the local drugstores, especially the old ones, and
vintage stores, looking for an old- fashioned perfume that featured
those fragrance notes, but never found anything that smelled even
remotely like hers.
I
guess it was just her individual magic that combined the scents that
way. It seemed to linger in our apartment, long after she had been
gone. Especially at certain important moments. I wouldn’t know
those moments were important ‘til later, but looking back, it’s
obvious.
I’m
getting ahead of myself, moving way too fast for normal people.
First, you probably want to know more about me, right? You can’t
just start in the middle of the story; you have to work up to these
big deals. I made it 23 years on the planet before checking out. I
guess you’d say I was pretty, although I was never very stylish or
together. I thought that would come with maturity, but I never got to
find that out. When I died, I had shoulder length wavy copper colored
hair, cut in a bob that was always tickling my chin and sometimes
made me want to cut it all off. I certainly never had the patience to
grow it all out. It was “in between” hair, lack of decision hair.
My eyes were basic gray, nothing exciting, although I desperately
wanted the “limpid blue” or “decisive green” eyes of a
romance heroine. A light plague of freckles scattered across the
bridge of my nose showed my Irish- Scottish mutt background, and I
had fair redhead’s skin that burned, rather than tanned, which kept
me indoors most of the time or slathered in sunscreen. 5’8’,
skinny without being too skinny. I did have my family’s big butt,
which we will not discuss.
Why
I have to go through eternity with that butt is beyond me. I tended
to prefer jeans and a comfortable cotton shirt, paired with flat old-
fashioned Converse tennis shoes as my daily outfit, but I could clean
up pretty nice when I had to.
About
the Author:
Kim
wrote her first critically acclaimed (if you call her fourth grade
teacher a critic, and she does) short story when she was 9 years old.
It was about Christmas in a Cave, and it featured such topical,
ground-breaking subjects as homelessness & cave dwelling. She's
been writing ever since. The state of publication depends on who you
ask.
She
has a Ph.D. in Literature, with specialties in American Lit, Women
Writers, Feminism, Sci-Fi/Fantasy & Film Studies but please don't
hold any of that against her. She teaches academic writing and how to
read literature at a university in her hometown and tries to convince
college students that it really is cool to like poetry.
She
lives in the South, has twin children (one girl, one boy) and a
husband who is the model for all her best romantic heroes. She also
has two cats-- one black and sassy, one stripey and fat, and also
kinda sassy.
Cover
Artist: Omnific with art by Robin Lynne Schwind
Book
Description:
Being
a ParaScience freshman is a nightmare come true
Hailey’s
dreams have always been, well...vivid. As in monsters from her
nightmares follow her into her waking life vivid. When her big sister
goes missing, eighteen-year-old Hailey finds the only thing keeping
her safe from a murderous 3,000-year old beast is an equally
terrifying creature who’s fallen “madly” in love with her.
Competing
to win her affection, the Dream Creature, Asher, lures her to the one
place that offers safety—a ParaScience university in Alaska he
calls home. There, she studies the science of the supernatural and
must learn to live with a roommate from Hell, survive a tunneling
earworm, extract a carnivorous splinter, evade the campus
poltergeists, and hope the only creature who can save her from an
evil immortal doesn’t decide to kill her himself.
“Judge
of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.”
-
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hailey
plunked her head on the desk and groaned. Why, why…why couldn’t
she just tell Asher that she wanted out, that she was afraid—afraid
of the others, afraid of dying, and even afraid of…of him. After
all, he was planning to kill her. Only temporarily, but still.
She
couldn’t believe she was even considering it, but she had no
choice. If Asher didn’t kill her, one of the others would.
Permanently.
And
Asher protected her. He cared about her. He loved her, right?
Asher—an emotionless creature. Hailey wasn’t sure if he was even
capable of love.
Oh,
this made absolutely no sense. Kill her to save her? Was that love?
Freshman
year at her dream college was turning into nightmare, and as she
rolled her forehead on the desk, the library’s impossibly large
ceiling clock echoed a thump with her heart. She simply had to pull
on her big girl pants and tell Asher she was done.
That’s
all.
She
squeezed her eyes shut as a swarm of butterflies took flight in her
stomach.
Lately,
she felt an awful lot like Jekyll and Hyde: logical, rational
ParaScience student by day—emotional monstrosity at night. Come to
think of it, this was more like The Phantom of the Opera, and she was
the naïve student who didn’t realize the secret and strange angel
she’d come to know was actually a homicidal maniac…
“I’m
not a maniac.”
Hailey
jumped up. She didn’t mean to say that out loud.
Asher
slid behind her, putting his lips next to her ear. “But I suppose I
am homicidal,” he whispered, his breath on her skin sending goose
bumps down her arms and legs.
She
leaned into him and sighed.
So
much for steadfast resolve.
Wrapping
his arms around her waist, he pulled her closer.
“How
did you know I was here?” she whispered.
“You
were dreaming, Hailey,” he murmured. “I’ll always find you when
you’re dreaming.”
About
the Author:
C.M.
McCoy is an Irish dancer and former military officer living in the
Great White North. Though B.S.'d in chemical engineering and German,
she's far happier writing stories involving Alaska and a body bag
(with an awkward kiss in the mix.) While working 911 dispatch for
Alaska State Troopers, she learned to speak in 10-codes, which she
still does...but only to annoy her family. In the writerly world,
she's the PR Manager at Inklings Literary Agency. Her debut novel,
EERIE, is a paranormal adventure with romance and released 15 Dec
2015 through Omnific Publishing/Simon and Schuster.
A
global pandemic has killed most of the world’s population. Alone,
Monarch Winslow struggles to survive. An empty house, gas station
food and the hope of reaching a refugee camp in Austin, Texas keep
her alive. Then one night an injured man breaks into her house. A
dangerously sexy man.
Monarch
is wary but intrigued. Corbin claims he’s a mechanic and she can’t
reach the camp without a working car. She needs his help. But he
needs hers, too. As the days pass, they work together and a tenuous
relationship turns to turbulent desire. But Corbin refuses to discuss
his past and his secrets lie between them. Falling for a man she
knows nothing about could endanger her life, as well as her heart.
Meantime,
a hundred miles away, is safety, perhaps even surviving family. She
hopes. But Monarch is no more sure of that than she is of Corbin...?
“What the hell do
you think? You can’t treat the wound through my jeans.”
Feeling like a
complete idiot, Monarch just stood there. He was right of course, it
just hadn’t occurred to her. Last night she accessed the wound
easily through the rip in his jumpsuit. Tonight he was wearing
clothes and would have to strip down in order for her to see it. Her
mouth went dry as she watched him pull his jeans down over his hips.
“Well…of-of course I knew that. I just thought you might be a bit
more modest about it. I mean you could lay down under a blanket and
just stick your leg out or something. I don’t want to see—”
His jeans fell to
his ankles. “I’m wearing boxer shorts for Christ’s sake. What
are you, a nun?”
Monarch stared at
his bare legs. They were thick and muscular and covered with crisp
light hair. His boxers covered everything important. But it was
just…it was just so intimate. Personal. They were alone, a man and
a woman, and he was in his underwear.
He lay down on the
couch and lifted the leg of the boxers so that the entire wound was
accessible. Monarch knelt in front of him, seeing that the bandages
were lightly stained with blood. She undid the bandages as delicately
as possible, trying not to pull hair or skin. Her fingers shook badly
and she cursed herself.
Corbin reached over
and gripped one of her hands with his own, startling her. “You
don’t need to be nervous. If I was gonna attack you don’t you
think I would have by now?”
Monarch blanched. Of
course he would bring up the elephant in the room, mannerless oaf
that he was. “Why would I know that? I know absolutely nothing
about you or what you are capable of. I know I don’t trust
strangers.”
“Especially
strangers who are convicts, huh?” Corbin said softly, and for a
moment Monarch thought she detected hurt in his voice. But then his
tone shifted, becoming aggressive, raspy. “I might as well be a
caveman or an ape, is that it? A male with no scruples or impulse
control. One who acts on his basest sexual urges whenever he feels
like it, right?”
About
the Author:
Trish
read her first romance novel as a teenager and was immediately hooked
(it was Hearts Aflame by Johanna Lindsey). An avid reader of romance
fiction ever since, she nursed a long-time dream to write it as well.
One day she realized there was only one thing stopping her from
making that dream a reality: HERSELF. She sat down and vowed to
actually finish a manuscript. After finishing her first book,
Darkness Embraced, she has never looked back. She completed her
second book, Breakout, and is currently working on a third.
A
native Texan, Trish lives just outside Austin with her incredibly
supportive husband and their two incredibly spoiled dogs. Aside from
romance fiction, her other loves include wine, warm weather, playing
trivia, social media, and supporting dog rescue.
1
prize pack - Bag of goodies including an autographed copy of Breakout
and my first book Darkness Embraced as well as bookmarks, a wild rose
press pen, chapstick, notepad, and screen cleaner.
