Category: Teasers

I’m currently going through my second draft and changing all the sections that were originally in 1st person POV to limited 3rd. The process of changing a story from 1st to 3rd is a lot of work! And I’m betting it’s a lot harder than it sounds. I still have 19 more chapters to change. But it gives me a good chance to see how things feel. Anyway, I’ll probably still be altering sections on later drafts that I only gleaned for verbs and pronouns on this round of revisions. So fun!

But I’m revising this section right now, and so I’m offering it as a teaser. It’s one of my favorite parts of the book. I hope you enjoy it!

 

She opened her eyes and was in darkness. A fire whipped and crackled a few feet in front of her. The smell of burning pine bit at her nose and a light breeze brought the odor of disturbed sand and incense rippling by. She sat on a large cold rock, watching the fire. Through the flames, on the other side of the fire, the bluest eyes she’d ever seen caught her gaze, staring at her. A slight smile tugged at the corners of their owner’s mouth. A dimple formed in his right cheek.

There were others around. Kate glanced at them. Their olive-complected faces were illuminated by the firelight. The flames flickered in the prisms of their eyes and cast shadows in the folds of their brightly colored robes. Strangers. Maybe Bedouins or some sort of desert dwellers. There were large tents surrounding the fire, but her eyes kept coming back to the set of sapphire eyes straight across from her. Who was he?

His gaze warmed her. He wore no headdress or flourish, just his dark cap of short hair and clean, shaven face. A tingle danced up her spine, hot like the touch of a summer breeze, though her back was cold. Overhead, the Milky Way was a white gash across the night sky—a sky so dusted with stars she felt like she may be one of them, fallen into darkness and lost in a desert.

She lowered her eyes and he was still staring at her. He winked. She glanced around to see if she was confused about who he was looking at. When their eyes met again, he tilted his head at her and grinned. Her hearts thudded at the sight of that smile. There was something familiar about it.

He stood and moved around the fire. He was wearing a white linen shirt and black linen pants. His bare feet brushed against the edge of the soft red coals of the fire, but he paid them no attention. Cinders shot up around him at being disturbed, dancing around him in the jetties of air his passing created. He seemed to glow in the firelight as though he too were made of stardust. He was in front of her, taking her hand and lifting her to stand beside him.

He pulled her past the fire, through the ring of people around it, and to the opening of one of the tents. He pulled the flap back and guided her inside. A lantern glowed in one corner, shedding muted light on a lush, Persian rug and piles of red and golden pillows. He moved close to her and kissed her. Kate’s heart drummed a thunderous, galloping beat which echoed across the desert plain outside their tent.

He paused long enough to whisper, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

 

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“I’m not just being dramatic, Kate. I was. I was awful. I never let anyone get close to me. I kept everyone at a distance. And I used people for my own ends.” He’s staring at a dresser vanity pushed up against the wall about eight feet from us. There’s a silver hair brush laying on its back upon it and a jewelry box. And the dragonfly ring. I let go of his hand, stand, and retrieve the ring.

“Am I close to you?” I ask, inspecting the ring and putting it on.

He sniffs and rubs his temple. “Yes. You know almost everything there is to know about me.”

This makes me warm inside. “Then it doesn’t matter that at one time, you didn’t let anyone close to you. Because you’ve changed.”

“What about you, Kate. Am I close to you? Do I know everything about you?”

I shift, staring at the dragonfly ring, feeling caught. “Um, no. Not everything.”

“What don’t I know?”

“Don’t forget, Will, that I’m actually alive. And things change constantly.”

“How does that change what we’re talking about now?”

“I don’t know.”

“So are you saying that you’re hiding from me?”

I think of Ty and my mouth goes dry. I don’t want to bring real-life into this, it doesn’t fit here, in the logic of the dream world. It will only upset the balance, I think, and it might scare Will away. I suddenly feel like I’m two-timing him. His eyes are narrow and staring hard at me, so I look away, aware at once of the aura of the room.

“Let’s get out of here, Will. Unless there’s something you want to show me.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

I shrug and wait for him to decide we can leave. With a sigh he stands up and takes my hand. He scans the room, his eyes focusing on the bed, then the mirrors, the dresser, and then, without warning, he lets go of my hand and charges the bed. In one motion, he tears the bedspread off and the sheets and tries to claw through the mattress, which is this very old, striped design. I avert my eyes when I begin to notice all the stains on it. I don’t want to know and I back up until I bump into the wall. Will upends the mattress and it falls against the wall on the opposite side, and then he rushes the dresser and yanks the drawers out, scattering the contents—lingerie, fishnet tights, lace nightgowns and bottles of cheap perfume—and then knocks the dresser over. All the while he yells and grunts, and screams as though exorcising the demons of the past inside him.

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I’m excited to share this with you guys! It’s a teaser from A Boat Made of Bone, my next book and the book that this Kickstarter campaign is for. If you enjoy this teaser, please take a moment and go pledge to help get the book published. Just $1 gets you a copy of one of my books. More pledge gets you more reward, of course–paperback copies, hardback copies, original artwork, and other cool shiz!

Thank you so much to friends, fans, and family who have already pledged! I’m truly humbled and awed by your generosity. I love you!

Onward:

We take two lifts to the top of the tower, transferring halfway up. When we step out onto the balcony of the top level, I gasp in stunned amazement. The city of Paris stretches to the horizon, a dark river of stars, an arm of the Milky Way, flowing away from us like a black lake filled with incandescent pebbles. The contrast of light and darkness is stark and humbling. I’ve never seen a more beautiful city. We walk to the nearest railing and Will wraps his arm around me, standing at my side, quiet and reverent like the moment seems to ask for.

Humans have created a lot of beautiful things and a lot of miserable things. While I’ve only seen a small bit of the ugly, I’ve witnessed a good share of the wondrous. I know as I stand there absorbing the experience that this—Paris at night at the top of the Eiffel tower—is one of the best. And maybe it’s just because I’m here with Will. Maybe it’s that I can smell his musk, and around it, the fragrance of summer in a city. Or perhaps it’s the imperfect mirror image of the city of light beneath us and the star speckled sky above us. Together the endless city and the eternal night sky make me feel so small and insignificant. The only thing that saves me is Will—his breath against my neck, his arm wrapped around me so that I realize I am known and perhaps even loved, that I am not just some unknown speck on a huge, seething planet of human life.

Being in such a place, we could be laughing, acting drunk with elation that we’re together at the top of the world, but instead we’re a bit somber. I feel stunned at the sight—I honestly didn’t anticipate being so prompted into silence.

“Want to see the other side?” Will whispers. His lips brush my ear and chills flash across my neck…

I should mention that while this teaser is in first person point-of-view, the finished product will be in third person POV. I began the first draft in third person, and about five or six scenes in, I switched it to first. And then, when I was almost done with the first draft, I decided third person would be a better vehicle for this story.

On the Kickstarter page, there’s a link to the first chapter, which is in third person. I haven’t finished making the POV switch in the entire thing yet. So you will notice some inconsistencies in POV. If you have an opinion or insight into this change, feel free to speak up. It’s been a difficult debate for me and I love getting input, even if I shoot it down and don’t follow it. Bwah ha ha ha!

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