Blurb:
Kaia disappeared for five years. Now
she’s back and her planet is on the brink of war.
The new “Numbers” program, created
by the Tueors’ leader, tracks and isolates demigods. Kaia’s friend, Catrina,
refuses to take part, and that makes her the most dangerous Number of all.
It’s Kaia’s duty to gather and
protect the treasures of the gods. But neither the treasures nor Catrina are
what they appear to be.
As the day a dire prophesy foresees
draws near, will Kaia reverse the gears of fate, or will everything she’s ever
loved be burned away by the flames of war?
Excerpt:
The demigoddess looked away from him, looking down at the
floor instead. “Kaia, I think it’s time to go. We’ve overstayed our welcome.”
“We just got here. Are we any bother to you?” She turned
toward their host, her eyes meeting his. In an instant, she became entranced,
captivated by them.
“Stay as long as you want,” he whispered in a seductive
tone. “You want to meet my wife, don’t you?”
She nodded sluggishly.
“Of course I want to meet your wife.” Her voice was slurred and slow as
she leaned slightly forward.
“Take off that hat. It’s hot in here,” Catrina said as she
stood up, keeping her eyes lowered to the floor.
The man turned his eyes upon her, standing up and towering
over her. “This is my house. I can keep the hat on if I so wish. Don’t worry
about the hat. Don’t even think about the—”
Catrina jumped, knocking it off and revealing a large
fin-like protrusion emitting from his head. For a moment, the two stood there:
the man staring at Catrina, willing her to look into his eyes and Catrina,
staring at his feet. His eyes continued to change colors as he bent down and
leaned in toward her, his nose nearly touching hers. She closed her eyes.
“You saw nothing,” he said slowly in a whisper. His breath
smelled like rotting fish.
Catrina winced. “Encantado,” she seethed. “Your mind tricks
won’t work on me. So let’s stop playing around and tell me what you’re doing
here in this village.”
The encantado stood up. “My mind tricks might not work on
you, but they seem to be working on your friend.” He pivoted toward Kaia. “Your
friend wants to harm me. Me, who has taken you in and provided you with food
and shelter. Protect me,” he pleaded.
Kaia stood up, unleashing the Tiruv. The encantado’s eyes
lit with surprise and he took a step back as she unleashed a ball of energy
without warning toward the demigoddess. Catrina let out a scream as she was slammed
through a wall and landed onto the kitchen table.
She rolled over and coughed, shaking the dust and dry wall
out of her hair. Kaia emerged into the kitchen, glowering at her friend.
“You should never harm the host,” Kaia seethed. She ran up,
transforming the Tiruv into a sword and raised it, ready to strike.
The demigoddess rolled, fumbling for her pouch. She kicked
Kaia’s legs out from beneath her, sending the Chosen to the ground. Running
across the room, the demigoddess searched the contents of her pouch, aimlessly
seeking for the right capsule. It didn’t take long for Kaia to get back up.
Once she locked onto Catrina, she transformed the Tiruv back to its original
form and shot off another energy blast from the Tiruv, but the demigoddess had
anticipated the attack and launched herself out of the way at the last moment.
She pressed the button on the capsule and threw it into the air just as it
expanded. Kaia paid no heed to the compartment that had materialized; she threw
herself at Catrina, but Catrina had much more experience with hand-to-hand
combat and pinned the Chosen down. The demigoddess knocked the Tiruv out her
friend’s hands and hurled herself at the compartment. She didn’t want to harm
Kaia in any way and feared that what she had done already would leave marks or
bruises on her friend.
The one thing Catrina prayed would work was getting rid of
the encantado. They were fresh water creatures that could transform into a
human at night (with the exception of its fin, hence the reason they wore the
red hats), but never would she have guessed that there would be one so close to
a merfolk community. Most of the water demons that did reside nearby a
community were usually weaker beings that enjoyed the safety and protection
that the merfolk gave to those who were loyal to them. She didn’t know much
about encantados as they preferred to keep to themselves and rarely associated
with people. Meeting one in a village was the furthest thing in her mind.
Kaia heaved herself up and retrieved the Tiruv only to slam
it into her friend’s back once Catrina turned to open the container. Her breath
escaped her as she collapsed, her hands on the compartment. With all the
strength Catrina could muster, she swept her leg up and kicked the Tiruv out of
Kaia’s hands and lifted herself up. Her eyes locked onto her daggers within the
open container and she grabbed them, twirling them once before setting her
sights on the encantado.
“Messing with my friend was a bad mistake.” Catrina flung
herself toward the demon.
Focusing all her attention on the creature, she had
forgotten about Kaia’s orders momentarily and was caught by surprise when her
friend threw her body into Catrina. The demigoddess let out a piercing scream
as one of her own daggers lodged itself into her palm. The demon sneered as he
stepped on her other palm, but Catrina refused to let him hear her cry out in
pain again. She looked up at him as high as she dared, avoiding his ever
changing colored eyes and spat on his foot.
“You’ll regret that,” he muttered.
The front door burst open and a thick stake of ice was
thrust into the encantado without question. “You’ll regret causing her pain,”
Derek growled. “Before you die, tell me what you’re doing here.”
The water demon gave a deep chuckle. “Dead men tell no
secrets,” he whispered before slumping over.
Author Links:
Author Website: http://sheenahfreitas.com
Twitter: @SheenahFreitas (http://twitter.com/SheenahFreitas)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheenah-Freitas/215673018511943
Twitter: @SheenahFreitas (http://twitter.com/SheenahFreitas)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheenah-Freitas/215673018511943
May
6: Close Encounters with the Night Kind [closeencounterswiththenightkind.blogspot.com]
Spotlight,Excerpt, and Giveaway
May
7: Book Whales [bookwhales.blogspot.com] Giveaway |
Rockee Musik Reads [rockeemusickreads.blogspot.com]
Tens List
May
8: Mireille Chester [mireillechester.blogspot.com]
Review + Character Interview
May
9: Dan Wright [pandadragon.co.uk] Guest
Post
May
10: Tony Graff [tonygraff.com] Interview + Guest
Post
May
11: Starry Night Book Reviews [starrynightbookreviews.blogspot.com]
Review + Giveaway
May
12: Lena Hillbrand [lenahillbrand.blogpost.com] Guest
Post
May
13: Tony Graff [tonygraff.com] Review + Giveaway
May
14: Read 2 Review [read2review.com] Review
May
15: The Teen Book Guru [teenbookguru.com] Interview + Giveaway
May
16: My World [stephsgrn.blogspot.com] Guest
Post/Interview + Review?
May
17: Read 2 Review [read2review.com] Spotlight | Hopelessly
Devoted Bibliophile [hopelessbibliophile.com] Guest
Post
May
18: Read 2 Review [read2review.com] Guest Post
May
19: Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile [hopelessbibliophile.com]
Review
May
20: Sheenah Freitas [sheenahfreitas.com] Giveaway
So what do you have to do to win here? Just fill out the rafflecopter!!! Good luck and have fun!!
24 comments:
How long have you been writing?
kathyross75@yahoo.com
Which time do you prefer writing, morning or night?
I Was Wondering What Is Your Views For First Time Writers And How Did You Come Up With The Characters For This Book.
How you get idea to write this story?
Book sounds like a good read :)
Something I've never read before, original that's for sure!
Did you come up with the idea for the cover & who is the artist?
~Ava~
Are you characters fashioned after anyone or fantasy in particular?
Yvette
yratpatrol@aol.com
I always wonder where writers who write fantasy & SF get their ideas from. It's so amazing to create a totally different world, with different societies, cultures. I'ts mind boggling. Where does your inspiration come from?
What an interesting premise! Fantasy and SF stories are very intriguing as anything can be done. Where do your ideas come from for names of places and characters? Do you draw from your own experiences?
Mel
bournmelissa at hotmail dot com
Hello everyone! First off: Huge thanks to Nikki for being part of this tour. Secondly: You guys all have great questions and I'm going to try to tackle them as they come in.
@mysons: I have been writing off and on since I was about 8. I started writing more seriously when I was about 15/16.
@maly: I like to write when it's quietest. So during the weekends that would be during the evenings and during the week it becomes in the mornings.
@AprilAlvey: First time writers are awesome! I mean, we've all been there, you know? And there's just so much talent that keeps getting unveiled with each new debut. A lot of the characters just came naturally to me. Sometimes if I have trouble figuring out a character, I'll sketch out how I see them in my head to get a better grasp of who they are as a person.
@Filia Oktarina: This is the second novel of my series, so it just sort of naturally evolved from the ending of the first book. But the initial idea of the first book originated from a dream.
@ReneAva: Yes, I did come up with the idea for the cover. The amazing Melanie Herring took my terrible sketch and made it gorgeous.
@Yvette: My characters aren't based off of anyone, but I think there are bits of me in the main character, Kaia. They were initially based off stereotypical characters in anime (magical girl, lone wolf, ladies' man, smart girl/best friend) and really evolved from there. They all wanted to be taken more seriously, but I think you can still see their origins at their core.
@Linda: Epic mythological tales. I asked myself how cool it would be to recreate a mythological tale and initially I was going to use gods from Earth, but I decided it would be neat to take that idea and move it to another planet and time with my own unique gods that parallel the Greek/Roman gods in a lot of ways.
@Mel Bourn: Honestly, I have a TERRIBLE time coming up with names for places. I never know what to name a place so I kind of just take bits and pieces of words I like and try to smoosh them together in some instances. In other instances, I'll look up the meaning of one word I want to describe and look at foreign languages to help me come up with the names of places. I do that with some characters too: I'll take one word that describes them (like, short) and find a huge list of names that mean the word and whichever fits my sketch of the character is the one that I go with. Other times, the names just come to me. I think every writer draws from their own experiences often or whenever they can; it becomes easy to write about something you've been through because you know how it should feel. But since I haven't been through half of what my characters go through, I depend on my imagination and amazing actors/actresses in movies.
I didnt see it in the comments but might have missed it. This is the first time I have seen this book. How many are there planned in the series? It looks good. I will have to read the first one.
rachel at thejeepdiva dot com
@Rachel: This is a planned trilogy. I'm doing research for the last book before I begin the outline. Thanks!
Well I think it's GREAT that you were even able to come up with a sketch! AWESOME :)
@ReneAva: If you were ever curious, this is the rough sketch I sent to Melanie. http://sta.sh/01ccc48j66sa
Where do you find the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Wow I got the goosebumps. Some scary stuff happening, did you get any ideas from the book of Revelation? End times creepy, I love it!
@Marybelle: Greatest inspiration? For this series, probably part anime, part mythological tales. Inspiration varies depending on the project, but I do get a lot of inspiration from every day life.
@Lexi H: Actually, I haven't read Revelations yet. The only book from the Bible I've read has been Genesis. I do want to read Revelations, though, and plan on tackling it this year. I did read some of Ragnarok for some of the end of times ideas.
Hi! Great excerpt. :)
Which do you think is more difficult...writing the story or editing it for the final time?
(The cover is really beautiful!)
Love the artwork!
@Nora Weston: For me, I find writing the initial story the most difficult. I know a lot of authors have a hard time with edits though.
@Emmameade: Thanks! I just can't get over what an amazing job Melanie, the cover artist, did!
What's your all time favorite genre to read?
@divavixenqueen: Hm... That's a tough question. I like to read a little bit of everything, but if I had to choose, maybe contemporary. Children's/YA fantasy would be a close second.
how do you come up with the name for the characters in your books
@Gale Nelson: Sometimes the name just comes to me naturally. Other times, I'm going through my baby name book or my favorite baby name website.
Post a Comment