BUT in honor of my book trailer-ness anniversary CONTEST I am opening up this post for authors who want to win a book shoot.
Like this:
or this
Rules are you have to send a teaser in comments (or privately via email: vandsmedia[at]gmail.com). Must be at least agented.
Teasers must be descriptive, teasing, and visual or pertinent to the book. Nothing too abstract. I should be able to read and visualize a scene or character.
+ 1 ENTRY if you get a friend to follow my blog.
+1 ENTRY if you tweet/blog/shout it out somewhere.
Someone whistles from the water behind me. I turn away from Ms. Delaney's mansion and that's when I see him, sitting on a rock with a piece of seaweed hanging out of his mouth.
ReplyDeleteHe's only about twenty feet from me. And before I notice anything else about him, I realize he's about my age.
And then the rest of him hits me: the webbed fingers, the torso patched with silver scales that ends at the waist, and a twisted fish tail where his hips should be, curling into a dirty fin. A fish. A boy. The ugliest thing I have ever seen.
Can't be real.
Ohh this is an awesome contest!
ReplyDeleteI leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, but at the last minute, she moved her face and my lips met hers. I stiffened at first, shocked at this sudden movement.
Oh shit. I couldn’t pull away this time.
Her hands moved from my neck to my hair. She leaned against the door, so I pushed my body against hers.
A soft moan escaped her lips.
That was so fucking hot.
My lips parted. I needed air, but she slipped her tongue in my mouth.
Maybe I was falling for her all over again.
I didn’t want this to ever end.
She tasted so good, like strawberries and fruit punch.
Our lips were locked in an endless kiss. Neither of us wanted to pull away. But when I clutched her waist even tighter with my hands, that’s the moment she pushed my chest away from her. I nearly tripped backward.
GREAT TEASERS!!!! *sigh*
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ReplyDelete"Delirious," the nurse would say when she heard it. "It's her fever. It's getting higher than it should be"
ReplyDeleteI put my hands to my face, watching her breath become slow and methodic. I grabbed her hand. It was ice cold in mine. She turned to look at me and opened her eyes for just a moment.
"I'm going," I thought I heard her say, licking her cracked lips.
"What did you say?" I asked her to repeat herself, poised on the balls of my feet. My toes were pinched in the shoes the nuns had given me, donated by a church member and at least a size too small for me.
But she didn't respond. Instead, her breath became a rattle in the back of her throat before it stopped altogether. I shook her small, thin shoulders, as if doing so would bring her back to life. Her body was limp. A stinging sensation pierced through my chest, and then again, harder and heavier this time. My throat tensed and it felt like someone had reached into my mouth and ripped out my voice.
I wanted to scream, to cry out, to tell someone to come help my sister. But nothing came out but a dry croak. Nurses and doctors shuffled to and fro, helping the various patients, soldiers and concentration camp survivors alike. They took their patients' pulse, listened to their hearts and looked down their throats like nothing had happened, like my entire world hadn't just been shattered.
I curled up into a ball next to her.
Hajna and my voice were gone. I didn't exist any longer.
I see Luke’s blue car outside the glass doors to the elevator area. My lips feel dry again so I reach into my coat pocket to reapply my Chapstick.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I’m in a dream as I walk towards the car, my heart thudding against the wall of my chest. I can see the outline of Luke’s profile. He’s wearing the Red Sox hat, just like he said he would. One of the songs from his “Sexy” music mix is playing on the car stereo.
I open the car door. I can hear Samantha babbling behind me.
“Hey beautiful,” Luke says, smiling at me. There are a few more lines on his face than I noticed on the computer screen, but other than that, he’s the same Luke. The car smells faintly of cigarette smoke. He pats the seat next to him.
I’m about to get in when someone calls, “Hold on! Wait!”
I turn around. It’s Samantha’s mom.
“Is this your glove?” she asks, holding up one of my blue wool gloves from Old Navy. “I think it fell out of your pocket.”
“Oh thanks!” I tell her. Samantha is giving me a big grin showing off her three teeth. I touch her waving hand and for an instant feel her warm, velvety soft skin.
“Bye, bye, cutie pie!” Her mom smiles at me, and glances at the car, briefly, before pushing the stroller away.
I look back in the car. Luke’s hunched down, his hat further over his face than it was before.
“I bought you a cookie,” I tell him. I feel like a total dork the minute the words leave my mouth.
“Well, isn’t that sweet? And you’re even more gorgeous in person,” he says. “Why don’t you hop in and we can get to know each other better?”
I want to say that we already know each other, we love other, but I guess he just means in real life. I throw my backpack in the back seat and take my place in the front. Then I shut the door and he drives away.
Wish I could enter - this is an awesome contest!
ReplyDeleteMy gaze travels behind her, to the Shaka Shack standing lonely across the sand, illuminated by the moon.
ReplyDeleteDublin glances over her shoulder. “Will you have to sell it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want my mom to sell it. My Dad and I always talked about me reopening it someday, but─”
“Do you miss him?”
Man, how do females always hone in on the crux of things. I don’t want to answer. I hate that everyone knows about my dad.
“Sorry…that was…it’s none of my business. My mouth sometimes jumps way ahead of my brain,” she says, tucking her braid behind her left ear.
My mind feels thick and I can’t tell if it’s the beer or the broad. Geezer is watching me from across the fire like a tired old pelican. I try to forget about all the eyes around me and focus on the pair that are looking sweetly at me now. I sigh. “Every day. I miss him every day.”
“If you ever need a friend to talk to…” Suddenly, Dublin reaches up and swishes some hair out of my eyes in that tender, maternal way that girls do. I grab her wrist. I don’t want another mom right now, or a friend. I want to pull her to me. I want to kiss her on that full, puffy spot in the middle of her bottom lip. There is a freckle there, and I want to taste it.
Instead, I drop her hand and walk away.
But right then I thought that maybe I could see him better than before. And I realized that everything seemed to brighten a little just ahead of us—not light up, really. It was more like a haze of lightness. It might have been eerie, if I’d had a chance to really look.
ReplyDelete“Quick, before it fades,” he said, upping our pace until he was pulling me along behind him again. The sound of bubbling water met us as we walked through a thick mass of soft foliage.
“Oh wow.” The words escaped with my exhale as I took in the beauty of the alcove.
A small waterfall, maybe as tall as Liam, sprayed down into a pool that glowed in soft greens and blues. Giant moths and fireflies danced all around the light, bringing even more life to the space. It was magical—like a living painting. But even as we stood there, the glow faded ever so slightly.
“How?” I whispered, not daring to take my eyes off the water.
“Phosphorous in the rocks soak in the sun. It only glows for a few minutes after dark.”
We stood together, fingers entwined, enraptured by the miracle at our feet, and watching it fade. But before the light was gone completely, I felt Liam’s whispered breath at my ear.
“They say a kiss brings luck, if I do it before the stones go dark.”
My heart raced so quickly, I could barely find my breath to answer him in more than a whispered squeak. “Really?”
He was quiet for a moment, and I could feel his smile without looking.
“May I?”
“Um, sure.” More breathy squeaks than actual words, I was still impressed with myself for spitting them out.
The scent of spice and pine was even stronger as he leaned in, one hand holding my hand, the other pressing softly at the small of my back to pull me closer. And then his lips touched to my cheek. My heart leapt up into my throat and he pulled back just far enough to meet my eyes in the very last light of the stones. I thought for a minute that he was going to kiss me again, but he stepped back instead and cleared his throat.
I emailed my teaser.
ReplyDelete+1 - I tweeted about your contest. :)
Oh, I tweeted too!
ReplyDeleteOh, I tweeted too. I guess I get a plus 1.
ReplyDeleteI also tweeted!
ReplyDelete*sigh* AMAZING teasers. Can't wait to see the photo shoot for the winner!
ReplyDeleteWe take a couple of furtive steps along the main path, past the red-striped ticket boxes.
ReplyDeleteI draw a long, deep breath. The air is heavy with the scent of cotton candy and funnel cakes. The rides, like great metal monsters stirring in restless sleep, creak and groan.
“This is creepy,” I whisper.
Hesston smiles and shrugs his shoulders. “I think it’s kind of cool.”
He’s right, in a way that sends shiver skittering up my spine, in which every little noise is something slinking just out of view, a bit of movement in the corner of my eye that is probably only a crumpled bulletin left over from the day’s festivities.
(And I'm so tweeting this contest.)
*is quietly stalking this thread to see if a winner has been chosen* Oh, hi, Vania!
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