I'm thrilled to be a part of the blog tour for Alight, second book in the Pyxis series, by K.C. Neal. Thanks to K.C.Neal and Ashely @ Bookish Brunette Book Tours for organizing this! I've a guest post/excerpt for you guys followed by a giveaway :)
You can follow the rest of the tour here!
Audience/Genre : Young Adult/Paranormal.
Publication : September 21st 2012 by StoneHouse Ink.
When Corinne learns who the second Guardian is, she must find a way to make peace with the last person in the world she wants to deal with. As she struggles, her nemesis unleashes an otherworldly evil, and a mysterious illness strikes Corinne's friends. Faltering under the weight of her destiny, Corinne escapes to the dream world. There, she meets Zane, an Australian guy with a hot accent and a revelation that binds them together and alters the path of Corinne's life. She throws herself into fighting for everything she loves, but just as she s certain she will prevail, she's robbed of the two people she needs most.
Pyxis and Dreams
Did you ever have a dream that seemed so real you’d almost swear it was a glimpse into another universe? Corinne, the main character in the Pyxis Series, learns that there is a whole other world, called the hypercosmic realm, that our minds enter when we sleep. In Pyxis (Book 1), she first realizes things are not what they seem when she discovers that she and her friend Mason are having the same haunting nightmares of a dark, consuming force. In this excerpt, Corinne encounters this force for the first time.
When my tired eyes finally closed, the cove materialized before me. The bonfire blazed high into the night, but I stood alone on the beach. Twilight rainbows of every color raced across the sky, one after the other. The effect was dizzying.
A low rumbling echoed off the mountains, and trying to locate the source of the sound, I turned toward the lake. My breath caught at the sight of a dense, dirty-looking wall of fog billowing over the water toward me at an alarming speed. Panic surged through my veins as I imagined the fog overtaking me, filling my nose and ears, creeping into my lungs, soaking into my blood, and eating me from the inside out.
My heart pounding in my ears, I whipped around, desperate for some way to protect myself. I turned to the bonfire, thinking the heat of the flames might stave off the fog. But the fire ring was dark, and Mason stood in the center of it.
“Mason? When did you get back to—” I started to ask, but he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me behind him, shielding me with his body.
He held me with one arm and lifted the other arm, palm out. A burst of blue-white light swelled out from Mason’s hand, and for a second, I could make out the silhouette of a person in the fog before I squeezed my eyes shut against the painful intensity of the light. When I opened them, after-images bounced around in my vision. Both the fog and Mason were gone.
I tried to sit up in bed, groggy and struggling against the sheets twisted around me. I untangled myself and groped around for my pillow, which I’d pushed onto the floor. Nestled back in bed, I took a deep breath, and blew out slowly.
I knew it was just a dream, but it clung to me. My mouth felt gritty, as if I’d tasted the sooty fog, and the smell of Mason’s shampoo filled my nose.
I reached for my jacket, which was hanging on the back of my desk chair next to the bed, and pulled out the pinecone I’d picked up at the cove. I cupped it in my palms and inhaled its woody, resinous smell, and some of the tension melted from my body. Curled into a ball, with my blankets pulled tight around me, I stared at the window and waited for the gray light of daybreak.
Corinne learns she is destined to protect the fragile gateway between the waking world and theyhypercosmic realm, but her grandmother, who was to teach her everything she needed to know, is dead. Corinne must find out who her grandmother really was. In her quest to unravel her family’s history, she races to find the answers she seeks before her nightmares break free.
Giveaway Terms and Conditions :
- As listed in the Rafflecopter.
Most of K.C. Neal's days are filled with some combination of writing, reading, gardening, working, and watching stuff on Netflix with her husband and their maltipoo, Oscar. She has an irrational fixation with L.A., and during occasional trips there she pretends her life is more glamorous than it really is ("Entourage" is her guilty pleasure). She likes to surf and hang out on sandy beaches, especially where drinks are served adorned with tiny umbrellas.
I got book 1 of this for free at Amazon. Great guest post.
ReplyDeleteHappy weekend!
Braine