Last year I read Mary Lindsey's debut YA novel, Shattered Souls, and was blown away! Mary Lindsey is one author I will be keeping a close eye on! Mary is sharing with us today an excerpt from Shattered Souls, where Lenzi literally meets the boy of her dreams...
The first time Alden and Lenzi meet in this lifetime.
I knelt in the grass in front of Dad’s tombstone, my reflection in the shiny surface blue and ghostly, and placed my paper flower on his grave. “I’m going nuts, Dad.” I ran my fingers over the carved letters of his name. He’d only been forty-five when he parked his car on the train track. And he had started hearing voices when he was in college. It was happening to me much younger. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to end up like you.”
I placed my palm flat against the slick blank space where Mom’s name would be carved when she died, and the chill of the stone seeped into my hand.
Another face appeared next to mine in the reflective surface of the tombstone. The face of the guy I’d seen in the car when my eyes were closed. Crap. Now I was hallucinating with my eyes open.
I ran my fingertips over his reflection.
“You’ve kept me waiting forever, Rose,” he said in a smooth, rich voice.
I sat back and stared at the vivid image my mind had conjured in that reflection. He was tall and thin, with longish hair. Well, if I was going to hear bogeymen, I supposed it was better that I could see them too, especially if they looked like this one. But why would I conjure one that called me by my middle name?
I’d had enough weird for one day. It was time to relegate him to my imagination where he belonged.
“Okay, you can just take off now.” I waved my hand toward the entrance, shooing him away like a child.
“I can understand if you want me reassigned.”
I covered his reflection with my hands. “Back you go. Back to my brain. This isn’t really happening.”
“Rose, look at me,” he said. The grass crunched behind me as if someone were really there.
Oh, God. My hallucinations were taking corporeal form.
I covered my face with my hands and shuddered. No wonder Dad had been terrified. How much of this could I take before I ended up just like him? My heart pounded in my ears.
There was a gentle touch on my shoulder. “Look at me.”
I jerked away. “No. This isn’t real.” I pressed my palms tight to my eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re going to go away now,” I ordered. Shouldn’t a figment of my imagination do what I wanted it to do? “I’m going to open my eyes, and you’re going to be gone. Got it? Opening on three. One, two, three.”
I opened my eyes and looked straight into the eyes of the guy squatting right next to me.
“Shit!” I jumped up and backed away.
“Rose—”
“Stop calling me that! My name isn’t Rose. I told you to go away.” I held up my hands to ward him off.
His brow furrowed. “Your name isn’t Rose?”
Well, technically it was. Sort of. My mom dreamed she had a daughter named Rose the night before I was born. She thought it was some sort of message, but she and my dad had already agreed on Lenzi, so she stuck it in the middle. But I wasn’t telling that to some freaky hallucination. Besides, I’d never told a living soul my middle name. I hated it.
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I've been wondering about this book for a while, after the excerpt I'm going to have to give it a try. Thanks for the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThough I have never heard of this book before, I Loved the excerpt so I can't wait to read it. Thanks so much for the giveaway. Yaaay.
ReplyDeleteShattered Souls is really interesting - it took a bit to get into but it is one of those that you won't regret reading :)
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