EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY
Where the Moths Dance
by Kristah Price
Where the Moths Dance is currently on tour with Enchanted Book Promotions. The tour stops here today for an excerpt and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
Sixteen-year-old Jessie Hale lives in the caretaker’s cottage at the bottom of Gum Tree Hill Cemetery. She feels more comfortable surrounded by the dead than the living, and the graveyard is her sanctuary, a place to escape from her troubled home life and from her mother’s despicable boyfriend, Conrad.
Elliott Rossi has found a way to come back from the dead. He needs to warn Jessie about a demon who can also access the living world and has his new prey firmly in his grasp.
When Jessie learns who has become the demon’s latest victim, she must enlist the help of her friends to battle the evil that has invaded her sanctuary, turning her life upside down and threatening to destroy everything she cares about.
Then there is the small matter of falling in love with a dead boy.
Excerpt
It was drizzling at lunchtime, which meant that I was confined indoors. Usually I preferred to sit outside and eat my lunch. I hated the rowdy, claustrophobic atmosphere of the cafeteria. Braving the crowds, I slid into a seat next to Violet Parslow.
“Hey,” I said, smiling.
“Hey. Did you see the fireworks on Saturday night?” Violet took a big slurp from her coke. “What was that all about? There were skyrockets exploding all over the beach.” She spoke in a lazy drawl. Some of the other kids thought it meant she was slow, but to me it just sounded as though every word was well thought out and planned.
“It was a memorial for Elliott Rossi,” I said, staring at her. I had noticed a glint of silver when she talked. “Hey, you’ve had your tongue pierced!”
“Uh-huh.” Violet grinned, then stuck her tongue out and waggled it in the air.
I screwed my nose up at her. “Just when I was getting used to the whole nose piercing thing.” It was what I loved about Violet—her individuality. She had a dyed, purple streak down the side of her short, black hair and an impressive row of piercings down each ear. Her dress style also reflected her uniqueness; miniskirts, in shades of purple and blue and emerald green, worn over black leggings, and accompanied by Doc Marten boots. Around her neck, a silver pentacle hung from a thin, black, leather cord; a symbol of her Wiccan beliefs.
I guess you could say that Violet and I were friends, although we never socialized outside of school.
“The science club sent Elliott’s ashes up in the sky rockets,” I said, unwrapping my packed lunch.
“Really? Wicked!” Violet’s black-rimmed eyes widened in delight. “I hope they give me a sendoff like that after I die. Maybe I should join the science club.”
I laughed. “Hopefully this school will be a distant memory by the time you die.”
Violet nodded agreement. “Besides, when I die, I don’t want to be cremated. I want to be buried in a black cardboard coffin that will perish so my body can decay back into the earth; somewhere with atmosphere, like that really old cemetery at the top of Gum Tree Hill where you live.”
“Why is that?” I looked at Violet curiously.
“Because there’s so much history at the top of that hill. People have been buried there for centuries.”
“Since 1874, to be exact,” I said.
Violet nodded. “And the old gravestones are so awesome. The modern cemeteries are unbelievably boring in comparison. Nobody ever goes up to Gum Tree Hill Cemetery, and nothing ever changes. It’s like time stands still. What a great place to end your time here on Earth.”
“They don’t bury people up there anymore,” I told her.
“Okay, well, I still want to be buried though. I want to know what it feels like to have worms crawling through my fingers and toes. Do you think it would tickle? And I want my skeleton to still be here in a thousand years, as evidence of my life here on earth.”
Violet liked to say things she thought would shock people. I was tempted to tell her what was really in the graveyard, but I wasn’t ready yet to share my secret with anyone.
“Besides,” Violet said matter-of-factly. “Being cremated is so final.”
Featured Review
By starysky
Jess is like every girl in high school that isn’t popular. She goes to school, hangs out with her friend Violet at lunch and comes home and does homework. But Jess lives on the outskirts of town in the Caretakers cottage which is at the bottom of the Gum Tree Hill cemetery. One night Jess is up in the grave yard watching the rockets go up with a classmate’s ashes in them and finds herself in a bad situation. Luckily she was saved, but by a ghost. This ghost is Elliot, the classmate whose ashes went up in the rocket and he is here to give her bad news. Her mother has been possessed by a demon who escaped through the vortex that Elliot opened to let his friends and family know he’s ok. Luckily she brings Brodie, Elliot’s best friend, into the picture and they help Elliot develop his manifestation more and also find peace for his family. Well Jess and Elliot find a way to rid her mom of the demon? Will Elliot’s family and friends who he came back for understand or will the think Jess is nuts? Read it!
I absolutely love Jess and Violet. Being a non-popular girl in high school I was happy to just blend in. Unfortunately Jess had to have a traumatic experience to find that people did notice her. Jess is a very strong and smart girl and the book described her perfect! My favorite scene is when Elliot and Jess are in the shed. Great scene and very well described!
If you like ghost, paranormal, demons, or a simple love story this is great. Teen and up is what I would advise for readers.
About the Author
Kristah Price has always loved books and dreamed of being a writer since she was a teenager. After much dreaming, and writing in her spare time, she eventually took a year off work to write a novel. Although that novel remains hidden away in a box on the top shelf of a wardrobe, she went on to have several novellas published in magazines in Scotland, and her first full-length novel, Scrappy Cupcake Angels, was published in 2012. Where the Moths Dance is her first novel for young adults.
When she is not reading or writing, she enjoys scrapbooking, quilting, mixed-media art, and organic gardening. She lives with her partner, Nick, and their puppy, Finn, in the Art Deco city of Napier, New Zealand.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a paperback copy of Where the Moths Dance by Kristah Price.
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