Maggie is a teenager with a secret. The strangest part of her life isn’t that she works in a graveyard—it’s the fact that her best friend is an Angel named Dina. They have lived thousands of years together, but as a mortal, Maggie must die, leaving Dina to find her in each new life and start again.
Someone has been setting fires, and the town is ablaze—literally. Someone or something is fueling the flames, and one of the suspects is the devilishly handsome Justin. With the memories of past lives coming back to her and Justin vying for her attention, Maggie may get more than she bargained for.
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About the author:
Amaris lives in Canberra, Australia. Since a young age she has written Young adult fiction in order to give her characters a voice and ensure her stories end with a bang.
Currently working as a Librarian she enjoys reading fiction about strong heroines with kickass attitudes who don't laydown and surrender in the face of a fight.
Excerpt:
I felt as weightless as if I were made of light. I gasped and felt us drifting, and then the cool salty smell of ocean air washed over me. I looked down. We were sitting on the rail of a lighthouse overlooking the small dots of light, which marked a town nestled in the hills. Then I looked up and gasped. Stretched out above us was a vast expanse of glowing sky, each star as bright as a lamp sweeping across a great black expanse. My mouth fell open as I gazed in wonder at the universe stretching out above me. How was this possible? The sky felt unlimited.
“Where are we?” I asked still gripping her hand and holding on to the rail as tightly as I could with the other my face turned up to the pale moon above us.
“We used to live here. This is the tower you were talking about.”
I looked back at the twinkling lights, which ran from the water’s edge and up what looked to be, in the dark, a hill surrounded by mountain terrain.
“This is the town from the fire painting you are making.” I could make out the main street, which snaked through the hills. The line of lights at the bottom must mark the dock and jetty, which had doubled in size from the time that Dina remembered it in her painting.
“But this is in another country. We came here, my family and I, when I was little. It took us a day to get here by plane.” I looked at her in awe. Knowing she was an angel was one thing; I had even seen the ghostly shape of her wings. But to be at home one minute then, as fast as I could think it, be in another country almost sitting in a sky that seemed to just envelope us was unbelievable.
“I’m light, remember?” she said, her strong voice hushed by the wind that raced up from the waves. “I travel as light and air.”
“But I’m not, how did…no, I don’t care. This is incredible.” My voice trailed off as I took in the true magic of where I was. No lights obscured the sky, and the stars stretched out in a blanket of white light above us. Dina closed my mouth with a finger under my chin. I laughed but didn’t take my eyes from the sky. In all my life I had never seen anything so beautiful. My blocked head and fever forgotten, I sat surrounded by the sounds of the ocean and air crashing together. It was as I shivered that I remembered I was ill.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Dina said.
Before I could ask what she was doing she had launched herself from the railing. I rocked forwards to catch her in a reflex and almost fell from the narrow rail. As I watched, the light shape of her body rose, the ghostly outline of her wings bright in the night sky. Her light darted to the town so fast she looked like nothing more than a reflection in the lighthouse’s turning lamp. I watched until the town's lights swallowed hers then gazed out over the sea.
From my seat, I could hardly make out the white of the waves breaking on the rocks at the base of the small island the lighthouse stood on.
A wave of fear swelled in my chest as I looked down. My blood left my face and rushed to my heart. I took a deep breath to calm myself, telling my body that it was being silly and that Dina wouldn’t have brought me here if I could have fallen. My body rebelled; my pulse quickened, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I fought to keep breathing, taking deep breaths to try to calm myself. I knew I should just look up or close my eyes, but I was too scared that if I looked away it might somehow make me fall. My hands tightened on the rail, the cold metal biting into my palms. In my head I called out to Dina to hurry up and get back. I couldn’t bring myself to look up and see where she was. My body was rigid, even the cool wind that had been soothing just moments before now threatened to knock me from my perch. My thoughts scrambled, as I imagined myself falling and smashing like porcelain on the rocks. I could see my body lying broken below, the waves knocking me off into the sea.
Guest Post:
The face of a book.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could order a book like a burger. I’ll have a suspense with extra romance and a side of tears thanks. Sadly I don’t believe this will ever happen. But as an author we still need to deliver a menu to our readers. We have to be able to let them know what is in the book before they read it.
Some aspects of this are under the authors control and some are not. You may be surprised to know that we actually have little say in how our cover turns out. We are given the opportunity when the book is contracted to give a paragraph on what we envision for it. Then often we don’t see it until a week before the book is released. As for changes those are only done under extreme circumstances. I had an author friend who was so unhappy with her cover that she begged the publisher to delay her release so it could be re done. The reason for this lack of control? Publishers pay artists to make the covers, any changes or extra time costs extra. That’s money out of their and our pocket. Many authors wait with held breath for that email titled, Cover art. Because aside from minor font changes that’s what will be representing our hard worked stories!
There are areas that we can control though. Websites and blogs are out of our own pocket there for are under the authors control. Marketing material, or swag, is also usually out of our own pocket so we can go for gold in the design (within reason). Thankfully for me my cover looks amazing (phew). The one area the publisher does lets us authors control is the blurb. Or the back cover teaser. This, for many people, is why they will buy a book off the shelf after the cover. I’m in a Facebook group with other authors and I can tell you the most asked question on there is for help writing their blurb. Because we know that this is our menu, this is what we have to hook the reader, just 300words. I know that the old saying is not to judge a book by its cover but let’s face it, if it didn’t matter, why aren’t all covers identical?
You be the judge, how did I do?
Maggie is a teenager with a secret. The strangest part of her life isn’t that she works in a graveyard—it’s the fact that her best friend is an Angel named Dina. They have lived thousands of years together, but as a mortal, Maggie must die, leaving Dina to find her in each new life and start again.
Someone has been setting fires, and the town is ablaze—literally. Someone or something is fueling the flames, and one of the suspects is the devilishly handsome Justin. With the memories of past lives coming back to her and Justin vying for her attention, Maggie may get more than she bargained for.
Someone has been setting fires, and the town is ablaze—literally. Someone or something is fueling the flames, and one of the suspects is the devilishly handsome Justin. With the memories of past lives coming back to her and Justin vying for her attention, Maggie may get more than she bargained for.
Twitter: @Amarischapman
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