Blog Tour- THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS by Joe M. Solomon With An Interview & 4 $20 Amazon GC Giveaway!

I am stoked to be hosting a stop on the blog tour for THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS by Joe M. Solomon! I have an excerpt to share with you today check it out and enter to win the giveaway below!

About The Book:

Title: THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS

Author: Joe M. Solomon

Pub. Date: June 11, 2019

Publisher: NES Publishing

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 538

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo

March Madness has begun and college basketball playoffs are heating up, not that Robert Walker—a graduate student from Texas—particularly cares. He has decided to skip classes for the day, sleep in, and get some rest. Unfortunately, a brief spat on the phone with his fiancée makes that impossible. Hoping to take his mind off of it, he scans through TV channels in search of entertainment and instead finds one news report after another that warns of violence erupting in the streets.

People are randomly and savagely attacking one another all along the East Coast from Maine to Florida. Some speculate it may be related to strange lights that have appeared in the sky above the outbreaks. Before any solid conclusions can be drawn, however, the brutality spreads, sweeping across the country until it hits Houston, then proceeds on to the West Coast. Robert, a handful of classmates, and a few others manage to survive the first wave and find themselves in the midst of civilization’s blackest hour, surrounded by pandemonium, bloodshed, and masses of people who have been stripped of their humanity. Hours later, as those strange lights continue to dominate the sky, the vicious horde undergoes a new transformation.

There is no escaping the horror. Unable to reach his fiancée by phone, Robert sets out to find her, joined by a small ensemble of fellow survivors. The thirty-five miles they must cover are fraught with danger, and their terror grows with each step they take as they witness the genesis of a new Earth. Can they find a way to stop it? Will they even survive it? 

Now on to the interview!

Hey Joe!! First I want to say welcome to Two Chicks on Books I’m glad you could stop by for a chat! THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS sounds AWESOME and I can’t wait for everyone to read it!

Thank you for the interview. I’m happy to be here celebrating the big release.

For the readers: can you tell us a little bit about the THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS and the characters? 

In The Light: Houston, Texas, a handful of college students find their worlds turned upside down when mysterious lights abruptly appear in the sky and dramatically change (for the worse) anyone who looks up at them. Chaos and violence erupt. But this is only the beginning. And these students, boasting a variety of personalities and backgrounds, will have to work together to survive.

What are you working on now? 

I am working on an anthology that will include sci-fi, suspense, and horror stories, some with humor mixed in. I am also working on my next novel, which will follow the anthology.

Were any of the characters in the book inspired by people from your real life? 

No. They are a combination of personalities I have rattling around in my imagination: What if you insert this attribute into this deranged person or vice versa?

Who was your favorite character to write? What about your least favorite? 

Anthony was my favorite character to write. I wanted him to be horrible, awful, just a terrible person no one could root for. At the same time, I didn’t want him to be too terrible since everybody has a little goodness in them. However, if something unfortunate happened to him, I wanted readers to cheer.

My least favorite character to write is one who presents one face when you meet the person, but secretly possesses a nefarious motive. I know it is a simple character. We’ve all met people like that, too. But I hate writing characters like that. In Anthony’s case, he at least proudly proclaims that he is a snake so you know exactly what you’re getting.

What is your favorite passages/scenes in THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS?

This is an early scene in which Robert and Alex (Alexandria) are trying to wrap their minds around the chaos that has erupted, chaos that spilled into Robert’s studio apartment in the grad house. They are just coming out of hiding. Robert had sought refuge in a closet while Alex hid in a bathtub with a torn shower curtain thrown over her.

* * *

“Not good,” Robert told her softly. He stood slowly, the movement inspiring a moan. 

“Are you okay?”

With an almost catlike grace, she hopped out of the tub. “Are you?” she asked.

Robert gaped.

“Four years of high school basketball,” she said. “But you know that.”

He nodded.

“You want to turn that off?” Alex pointed at his cell phone. “Might need the juice later.”

“Oh. Yeah… yeah,” Robert said almost as an afterthought, then nodded toward the next room. “I guess we should go out there, huh?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. I have to officially say this: I’m scared shitless. I know I’m the guy, but—”

“What, are you crazy?” Alex interjected. “This isn’t about opening a door or picking up a check on a first date. This is the end.”

Robert nodded and took another nervous deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah.” He expelled it. “The Doors.”

Her brow crinkled in confusion. “What doors?”

“The Doors. Jim Morrison. This is the end. You know.”

“The Doors.” Watching him with an eagle eye, she added, “Right. Right.”

What kind of research did you have to do for the story?

I had to research various aspects of NASA, learn about SOFIA (The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), nuclear submarines, military compounds, and detailed mapping of certain parts of Houston that Google Maps don’t really show, as well as surrounding areas.

Who is your ultimate book villain?

Pinhead from The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker.

What inspired you to write this story?

I always begin with, “What if. . . ?” From there I plug in different ideas, and this was the result of them.

Lightening Round Questions

What are you reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?

Cell by Stephen King. HG Wells’ Complete Short Stories.

What Hogwarts House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

I’ve never read Harry Potter, so I have no idea.

Twitter or Facebook?

Facebook

Favorite Superhero?

Man of Steel version of Superman

Favorite TV show?

On the air now: Modern Family.

Sweet or Salty?

Salty

Any Phobias?

No

Song you can’t get enough of right now?

“Duality” (Slipknot)

2019 Movie you’re most looking forward to?

Endgame on dvd

Thanks so much Joe for answering my questions! I can’t wait for everyone to read THE LIGHT: HOUSTON TEXAS!

Thanks again for the interview. I hope your readers will enjoy the story.

About Joe:

Joe Solomon earned both master’s and doctoral degrees from Rice University and is a writer, a director, an independent filmmaker, and a composer.  His first novel—a supernatural thriller entitled The Darkness: Giger, Texas—reached #2 on Amazon's Best Seller list and is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. His next novel—The Light: Houston, Texas—will release June 11, 2019. He has also completed a collection of short stories that arose from the macabre and will release next year.

  

An award-winning screenwriter, Joe has completed seventeen screenplays and nine stage plays. He has also been very active in the independent film industry, directing four short films, one feature film (post production), and six music videos. His screenplays have won Best Screenplay at the Mediterranean Film Festival (Cannes, France), been Official Selections at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, been a Finalist in the American Movie Awards, won the Final Draft Screenwriters Award, won the Screenwriting Showcase Award, reached the Second Round in The Sundance Feature Film Program, and been a Finalist in the Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competition. His music videos have won Best Music Video at the Honolulu Film Awards, the Silver Remi Award for Creative Excellence at the WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, won the Maple Leaf Award at the Canada International Film Festival, been an Official Selection of the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema—Milan, been an Official Selection of the Switzerland International Film Festival, won Best Director—Music Video in the Honolulu Film Awards, and been a Finalist in the American Movie Awards. They have also been Official Selections of many additional international film festivals.

Website | Twitter | Pinterest | Facebook | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

4 lucky winners will receive a $20 Amazon Gift Card, International.

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Tour Schedule:

Week One:

6/4/2019- BookHounds- Interview

6/5/2019- Book Sniffers Anonymous- Excerpt

6/6/2019- Simply Daniel Radcliffe- Review

6/7/2019- Tyto Forest- Excerpt

Week Two:

6/10/2019- fictitious.fox- Review

6/11/2019- Lifestyle of Me- Review

6/12/2019- The Tired Buyer- Interview

6/13/2019- Burgandy Ice- Excerpt

6/14/2019- Two Chicks on Books- Interview

Week Three:

6/17/2019- Pacific Northwest Bookworm- Review

6/18/2019- A Dream Within A Dream- Excerpt

6/19/2019- Owl Always Be Reading- Guest Post

6/20/2019- Adventures Thru Wonderland- Review

6/21/2019- Bookbriefs- Review

Week Four:

6/24/2019- Smada's Book Smack- Spotlight

6/25/2019- Don't Judge, Read- Interview

6/26/2019- KayBee's Bookshelf, A Literary Blog- Spotlight

6/27/2019- A Gingerly Review- Review

6/28/2019- PopTheButterfly Reads- Review

Week Five:

7/1/2019- Reads & Reviews- Review

7/2/2019- Jaime's World- Excerpt

THE 100 Book/TV Show Blitz & Giveaway!

I am so excited that THE 100 returns to TV tonight! And to help celebrate the show's return Little Brown Books For Young Readers and Rockstar Book Tours are giving away 5 Boxed Sets of the Complete series! So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

About The Book:

Title: THE 100 Box Set (Books 1-4)

Author: Kass Morgan

Pub. Date: January 3, 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 1360

Formats: Paperback

Find it: Amazon, Goodreads

All four thrilling novels in The 100 series, now available in a paperback boxed set! 

Ever since nuclear war destroyed our planet, humanity has been living on city-like spaceships hovering above the toxic surface. As far as anyone knows, no one has stepped foot on Earth in centuries--that is, until one hundred juvenile delinquents are sentenced to return and recolonize the hostile land. The future of the human race rests in their hands, but nothing can prepare the 100 for what they find on this strange and savage planet. 

Read the series that inspired the hit TV show. The 100, Day 21, Homecoming, and Rebellion are gathered together for the first time in this striking box set, perfect for fans and series newcomers alike.

About Kass Morgan

Kass Morgan studied literature at Brown and Oxford, and now resides in Brooklyn, where she lives in constant fear of her Ikea bookcase collapsing and burying her under a mound of science fiction and Victorian novels. Kass is currently working on the sequel to The 100, which she’ll finish as soon as she finds a coffee shop that allows laptops on the weekend.

Twitter | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

5 winners will receive the complete boxed set of THE 100 Series, US Only.

Ends on February 8th at Midnight EST!

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EMPIRE OF DUST Pre-Order Campaign With a Massive Giveaway!

Ok y'all my love for this series knows no bounds so I have to share this awesome pre-order giveaway with you all! This is being sponsored by Eleanor Herman, Harlequin Teen, & Paper Lantern Lit!

Check out all the goodness! This all from Eleanor's Pre-Order Site!

To celebrate the upcoming release of the second book in the Blood of Gods and Royals series, I am hosting a pre-order game with 4 levels of prizes. Here are the rules: Everyone who pre-orders (within the US) before 6/28 gets a prize!! Everyone. All you have to do to claim your prize is email empireofdustgame@gmail.com with proof of your pre-order. (This can be a screencap of the online purchase, a photo of a receipt, etc.) Once a certain number of pre-orders have been unlocked, the game will move from prize level 1 to prize level 2. The more pre-orders we get, the quicker we’ll get to prize levels 3 and 4, and then the grand prize!

Prize Levels 1. Signed Bookplates – Limited-edition bookplates for LEGACY OF KINGS!

2. EMPIRE OF DUST Bookmarks

3. Legacy of Kings + Empire of Dust Character Cards

– I’ve created some exclusive, limited-edition character cards for LEGACY OF KINGS and EMPIRE OF DUST. Each card contains a clue for what might happen in EMPIRE OF DUST!

4. QUEEN OF ASHES, the 2nd Blood of Gods and Royals novella (100+) Once we hit the pre-order goal for this prize, anyone who pre-orders will receive QUEEN OF ASHES, the second novella in the Blood of Gods and Royals series. This won’t be published until August, so you’ll be reading it 3 months in advance, AND it will cost money then, whereas if you pre-order EMPIRE OF DUST and send in your receipt, you’ll get it for free! 5. GRAND PRIZE: One random person who submits proof of pre-order will be selected to win a prize-pack of my favorite fantasy reads, including: A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC by VE Schwab WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER by Rae Carson TRUTHWITCH by Susan Dennard THE WINNER’S CURSE by Marie Rutkoski AN EMBER IN THE ASHES by Sabaa Tahir PLUS all of the other previous prizes!

Eleanor will be updating her page when they hit each pre-order goal, signaling that the next prize is available when you pre-order. Again, all you need to do to win your gift is email proof of purchase of EMPIRE OF DUST to empireofdustgame@gmail.com. Make sure you include your name and the best address to send your prize.

Pre-Order Links Amazon iBooks Barnes and Noble Indie Bound

The Paladins (The Artisans #2) by Julie Reece Release Day Celebration & Giveaway!

 

Happy Release Day to

The Paladins (The Artisans #2) by Julie Reece!

Join us in celebrating this new release from Month9Books!

Enter the giveaway found at the end of the post.

Happy Book Birthday, Julie!

 

 

The Artisan curse is broken. Souls trapped in a mysterious otherworld called The Void are finally released. Now, Raven Weathersby, Gideon Maddox, and Cole Wynter can finally move on with their lives...or so they thought. If the ancient magic is truly dead, then why are mystical fires plaguing Gideon at every turn? What accounts for Raven’s frightening visions of her dead mother? And who is the beautiful, tortured girl haunting Cole’s dreams?

Last year, a group of lonely teens sacrificed secrets, battled the supernatural, and faced their own demons to set one another free. Yet six months later, the heart of evil still beats within The Void. And the trio is forced to face the horrific truth: that their only way out is to go back in.

The Paladins completes this eerie YA Southern Gothic where loyalties are tested, love is challenged, and evil seeks them on the ultimate battlegrounds—in their minds, their souls, and their hearts.

The Paladins (The Artisans #2) by Julie Reece 

Publication Date: May 3, 2016 

Publisher: Month9Books

Google Play | BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | TBD | iBooks

Excerpt two:
Gideon’s arms slide around my waist as I stand at the kitchen sink with my snack. I’m trying to work up the courage to tell him what happened in my room this morning. All day I’ve avoided delivering the news that may derail our careful plans for fall semester.

Warm breath lingers on the back of my head sending delicious chills though my body. His fingers gently brush the skin on my stomach beneath my blouse, and I fight the urge to turn and leap into his arms. The guy emits more dangerous energy than a leaky power plant. Still, I hold back.

I was the one who wanted to go slowly. Like, first gear slow. Maybe just idle. Call me old fashioned, but I always dreamed that my first time sleeping with a guy would be with my husband on our honeymoon. I still want that, and him, but I just turned eighteen.

The muscles under his golden skin flex as his arms tighten around me. How does he make me feel safe and nervous at the same time? His nose parts the hair above my ear. Steady breaths, finally drive me to place my cookie on the counter and face him. My hands slide around his neck, fingers playing with the silky curls at his nape. I love the spicy scent of black licorice that’s distinctly his.

He lowers his head, nose rubbing mine before he lets his lips drift over my mouth. Whisper soft, his hesitant touch is an excruciating tease. Always, there’s curiosity and the promise of more to come.

My fingers untangle at his neck and drop to the bulge in his biceps. I can’t help enjoying the way they bunch when he holds me. My legs lose strength, knees weaken. There’s every possibility the boy will kiss me into unconsciousness. Can that happen? He must know because he holds me so close I hardly have the air to speak.


 

OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES:

 

 

They say death can be beautiful. But after the death of her mother, seventeen-year-old Raven Weathersby gives up her dream of becoming a fashion designer, barely surviving life in the South Carolina lowlands.

To make ends meet, Raven works after school as a seamstress creating stunning works of fashion that often rival the great names of the day.

Instead of making things easier on the high school senior, her stepdad's drinking leads to a run in with the highly reclusive heir to the Maddox family fortune, Gideon Maddox.

But Raven's stepdad's drying out and in no condition to attend the meeting with Maddox. So Raven volunteers to take his place and offers to repay the debt in order to keep the only father she's ever known out of jail, or worse.

Gideon Maddox agrees, outlining an outrageous demand: Raven must live in his home for a year while she designs for Maddox Industries' clothing line, signing over her creative rights.

Her handsome young captor is arrogant and infuriating to the nth degree, and Raven can't imagine working for him, let alone sharing the same space for more than five minutes.

But nothing is ever as it seems. Is Gideon Maddox the monster the world believes him to be? And can he stand to let the young seamstress see him as he really is?

Google Play | BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | TBD | iBooks

 

 

Born in Ohio, I lived next to my grandfather’s horse farm until the fourth grade. Summers were about riding, fishing and make-believe, while winter brought sledding and ice-skating on frozen ponds. Most of life was magical, but not all.

I struggled with multiple learning disabilities, did not excel in school. I spent much of my time looking out windows and daydreaming. In the fourth grade (with the help of one very nice teacher) I fought dyslexia for my right to read, like a prince fights a dragon in order to free the princess locked in a tower, and I won.

Afterwards, I read like a fiend. I invented stories where I could be the princess… or a gifted heroine from another world who kicked bad guy butt to win the heart of a charismatic hero. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

Later, I moved to Florida where I continued to fantasize about superpowers and monsters, fabricating stories (my mother called it lying) and sharing them with my friends.

 

Then I thought I’d write one down…

Hooked, I’ve been writing ever since. I write historical, contemporary, urban fantasy, adventure, and young adult romances. I love strong heroines, sweeping tales of mystery and epic adventure… which must include a really hot guy. My writing is proof you can work hard to overcome any obstacle. Don’t give up. I say, if you write, write on!

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest |Tumbr | Instagram | Goodreads

 

Complete the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win!

 

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M9B Friday Reveal- THE LINGERING GRACE by Jessica Arnold Cover & Chapter 1 Reveal And A Giveaway!

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

Find it: Amazon | Goodreads

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.

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.

Where you can find Jessica: Website | Twitter | Facebook |  Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive an eBook of THE LOOKING GLASS & an eGalley of THE LINGERING GRACE. International.

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