Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Teaser Tuesday - 2/26/13


Photo credit: Dan Wells's website

Woo-hoo, new Partials book! Also, this marks the beginning of a busy reading period for me. A bunch of my favorite authors have new books coming out in March, so I'll be busy going broke while I try to keep up with them. Because who knows what will happen if I don't read them the very second they come out.

I put the blurb from Partials because the one for Fragments is full of spoilers.

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

The rules for Teaser Tuesday are:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
  • Then hit up Should Be Reading to add your link.

And the teaser:

Another day of research turned up nothing she could use, and in a fit of petulance she snarled and threw the last folder out the broken window; as soon as she threw it she berated herself for doing something to attract the attention of anyone else who might be prowling the city. The odds were against it, of course, but that didn't make it smart to tempt fate.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Teaser Tuesday - 2/19/13


Photo credit: Tahereh Mafi's blog

Yeah, I know. I'm like the last person in the world to read this book. I have no excuse, since it's been sitting on to to-read shelf for almost a year. I only started it this morning, but I'm loving it so far.

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war-- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

The rules for Teaser Tuesday are:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
  • Then hit up Should Be Reading to add your link.

And the teaser:

There are 15,000 feelings of disbelief hole-punched in my heart. I'm tempted by recklessness, aching aching aching, desperate forever for what I can never have.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Teaser Tuesday - 2/12/13

Sorry about the hiatus. I truly intended to post something about how I was going to be on vacation for two weeks, but I got swamped trying to get everything done with work and packing and general chaos, so that never happened. But I'm back now, and hopefully I can settle into some sort of real posting schedule. And real writing schedule. And real... life schedule (schedules have not been my friend lately).

While I was gone, I read Jennifer Lynn Barnes' Nobody, and I started Susan Kaye Quinn's Mindjacker trilogy. I enjoyed book one quite a bit, and I started book two, Closed Hearts, yesterday. I decided to put the series blurb instead of the specific book because it was just too spoilery.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

The rules for Teaser Tuesday are:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
  • Then hit up Should Be Reading to add your link.

And the teaser:

Even if I could pump the gas out of my brain to go back for Raf and my dad, the butterflies would get me.

I had no choice but to leave them behind.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Overcoming Adversity

Hey, guys, I'm on vacation until February 7, but I wanted to make sure I got this post in, since it's for such a good cause.  If you haven't heard of Nick Wilford's Overcoming Adversity bloghop, you should go check it out!

I decided flash fiction was the way to go for this one, since I'm considerably better at writing about others than myself.  So this is a super short story from my Capitoline Hill world.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

No, I thought emphatically, but I only nodded to my brother.  Not that he couldn't tell.  He was my twin and my partner; he could basically read my mind.

"Don't worry so loud," he said with a laugh.  "We'll be fine."

He stretched his arms out, then cracked his back.  "I'm not worried," I muttered.

"'Course not."

I didn't dignify that with an answer.  Ben glanced over at me when the expected retort didn't come, and he raised his eyebrow.  "Damn, you really are worried."

"I--"

"Look, it's totally normal, man.  It's your first mission.  It happens to all of us."

I sighed and tried not to get frustrated with him.  "Ben, you've been a Guardian for all of two months.  You've barely had more than one mission."

He glared at me, but there wasn't any heat behind it.  "I hear things."

"Yeah."

We were both quiet for awhile, though I could feel his eyes on me.  "Cut it out."

"Then stop being a pansy.  You knew what the job was when you signed up for it."

Ah, there was the rub.  Of course I'd known what the job was.  Every Pack werewolf knew what the job of a Guardian was.  Every Pack werewolf grew up hearing about the mighty Guardians and how important their job was and how special they were for doing it and how grateful we should all be that they protected us.

With that kind of build-up, who wouldn't want to be a Guardian?

But now, faced with the task of tracking down a rogue werewolf who might be going insane, I was starting to have my doubts.  Sure, I'd passed my tests.  Sure, I knew I was tough.  I could fight.  But hunting someone?  Maybe killing them?  Could I... could I kill someone, even to protect the Pack?

"Think about it this way," Ben suggested softly.  "If he's sick, you're doing him a favor.  I wouldn't want to live with Moon Sickness, would you?"

"No..."

"I'd want someone to put me out of my misery before I hurt anyone, especially someone I cared about.  And Jon Harton was Pack for a long time.  He knows us.  He'd never want to hurt us or risk exposing us.  You know that."

He was right.  He really was, and the part of my mind that was willing to be logical understood that.  Just like it understood that, even if this wasn't what a rogue wolf would have wanted, we couldn't take the risk that he would do something we couldn't undo.  But there was another part of my mind that was screaming like a 12-year-old girl who'd seen a spider, complete with jumping on the table and stomping my feet.

"If you can't do it, you need to tell Geoffrey now, so he can replace you," Ben continued, his voice suddenly hard.  "You can't go out there if you're not sure.  I have to be able to count on you to have my back."

"I know," I said.  I took a breath and sorted out my thoughts.  "I can handle it."

Ben studied my face, checking for weaknesses.  Whatever expression I was showing must have passed muster because he nodded, a grin breaking out.  "Then let's go do this, bro."

He held out his open palm and I slapped it.  "Let's go," I agreed, and I swallowed my doubts and followed him off to do my job.