Janet B. Taylor's Blog, page 3
October 30, 2014
Spooktacular Blog Hop + Prizes Galore
Happy Thursday!
Today, I’m participating in the Spooktacular Blog Hop with a superfantubulous group of HisFic, YA, SciFi and all kinds of other AMAZING Authors. {{And there are goodies to be had…I’m giving away a $15.00 Amazon gift card AND some delish Halloween treats. Check out the deets below. Oh yeah!}}
The challenge was to post an excerpt from your novel, that is creepy, scary, gory, bloody, entrail-y, or otherwise all shivery and whatnot.
If you’d like to join in, the rules are as easy as running away from one of those slow, shambling, face-rotting zombies.
(Now, if you’re unlucky enough to have FAST zombies in your apocalypse, well.. SEEYA)
To be entered, all you have to do is read the following excerpt from my upcoming YA Time Travel novel, THE DIM (coming spring 2016-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt-woohoo!!).
Then, check out the deets at the bottom on how to enter!
And make sure and visit all the other wonderful participating author blogs below and see what fab gifts they’re giving away!!
For a little heads-up on what’s happening in the snippet below: Here is the news from Pub Weekly:
Sarah Landis at HMH has acquired at auction Janet Taylor’s debut The Dim and a sequel, pitched as Outlander for teens, about a 16-year-old girl who must travel back in time to 12th-century England to rescue her mother. Along the way, she becomes entangled with a secret society of time travelers and a mysterious boy who may be the key to setting her mother free. The book is scheduled for summer 2016; Mollie Glick at Foundry Literary + Media did the deal for North American rights.
And now… an excerpt from THE DIM
A sound like the cracking of the earth’s crust screamed in my head. I clamped my hands over my ears, trying to block it out, and felt the warm trickle of blood as it ran from my nose. “Oh God!”
“Don’t fight it,” Collum called over the noise. “Makes it worse. Relax and let it take you.”
Phoebe’s freckles stood out in 3-D. She pulled me close to yell in my ear. “Don’t worry. Gram claims it reminds her of childbirth. Afterward, you barely remember the pain.”
Sweat slicked the back of my neck. Childbirth? Oh sweet Moses. I want out. I can’t do this. No way. No freaking way. Let me…
Out…
I was wrenched upward and into a darkness so dense it seemed to leech the blood from my veins and peel the skin from my flesh. Tumbling, falling, endlessly falling through a living entity of black. It surrounded me. Choked me. The nightmare tree rose up before me. Black spiky branches reached down to stab at me. They picked me up, hoisting me high into an inky sky. I was crashing through the branches, the icy wood slamming into my back as it stuffed me into its mouth. I was back inside. Things crawled in my hair and down the back of my dress. I screamed. I screamed and sobbed and fought. But no one could hear me.
Then, my descent sickeningly halted. Before I could orient myself, I was hurtling backwards. Faster and faster. My hair lashed at my face. My stomach heaved as colors and spears of light surrounded me. Shades of plum and green and yellow flashed. Decay. Death.
Faces appeared and disappeared. Fat-cheeked babies morphed into crumbling skulls in an instant. Millions of faces. An unending stream of shrieking mouths on either side. I closed my eyes, or thought I did. But I could still see them.
A familiar, burning odor. Fire blazed in an endless space around me. Limbs—not made of wood—writhed inside them. The fatty scent of cooking meat. A small boy’s face appeared. That one didn’t dissolve into a flaking skull, but stayed whole before me. Black hair hung down on each side of hollow cheeks that were smudged with dirt.
Horror shot through me as he slowly opened his eyes. His blue and green eyes.
No…
As the face vanished, the darkness consumed me again. I scrabbled for something…Anything…To hold on to. But there was nothing. I was nothing. A microbe. A grain of sand on a beach surrounded by a dry ocean.
On and on and on it went. For seconds. Years. A thousand lifetimes.
If you like what you read, please put THE DIM on your to-be-read list on Goodreads!
For a chance to WIN!! Either like or share this post on FB, Share on Tumblr, Tweet it, then shoot me a quick comment letting me know you’ve done it! Or you can just Comment below. Either way, you’ll be entered into the drawing for a $15.00 gift card from Amazon AND some delish Halloween treats. (And I totally promise not to put a spell on any of it!! Mwahahaaaa)
And please click over to more spooooookkktacular blog participants below, and see what kind of goodies they’re giving away….
IF YOU DARE!
*Giveaway ends on October 31, 2014 at 11:59pm EDT. Prize mailed only to North American addresses. Entrants must be 18 years old or older to win.
