by Megan Whitmer
Expected release date: July 29th, 2014
Published by: Spencer Hill Press
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Format: Paperback, eBook
SUMMARY
When a supernatural freak of nature forces her family to separate, seventeen-year-old Charlie Page must turn to her frustrating (yet gorgeous) neighbor, Seth, to help reunite them. Seth whisks Charlie to Ellauria—a magical world filled with the creatures of myths and legends—and tells her of the Fellowship, the group charged with protecting mystical beings from human discovery. (All except Bigfoot: that attention whore is a total lost cause.) But when Charlie learns that she's under the Fellowship's protection herself, well, "stressed" is an understatement.
Ellauria should be the safest place for Charlie while the Fellowship works to find her family, but things in the mystical realm aren't what they seem.
Magic is failing, creatures are dying, and the Fellowship insists Charlie holds the key to saving everyone. With her family still missing and the danger in Ellauria growing, Charlie doesn't know who she can trust. She's dealing with a power she never asked for, falling for a guy she can't have, and being forced to choose between her destiny and her heart. And if she chooses wrong, she could destroy magic forever.
Charlie may be in over her head.
EXCERPT
In
BETWEEN, Charlie has an unfortunate encounter with a supposedly mythical
creature and learns of the Fellowship, a secret society tasked with making sure
humans go on thinking that fairies, bigfoot, unicorns, and every other magical
creature don’t exist.
In this
scene, Seth shows Charlie an example of how the Fellowship does its job after a
young girl has a close encounter with a hodag, a terrifying urban legend from
Wisconsin.
Seth leads me to a wall covered in mirrors in various shapes
and sizes—ovals, rectangles, hand mirrors—all outlined in metallic frames. A
couple Apprentices are standing with their Aegises there, too. One Aegis is
standing with her nose so close to the mirror it almost touches, and her
Apprentice watches over her shoulder. He nods at me, and I smile.
Seth points to the wall. “These mirrors serve as windows
throughout the realms. When there is a problem to be addressed, it’s revealed
in the reflection. So,” he says, stepping up to a long, skinny mirror trimmed
in bronze, “I pick any mirror I want and wait.”
“It doesn't matter which mirror?” I ask.
“No. The mission is specific to the person who sees it. The
mirror makes no difference. You get the mission you're supposed to get.”
I stand to the side, watching.
Seth’s rugged features appear in the glass, his mouth
closed, his eyes alert. For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then the edges of
the mirror begin to quiver, and ripples dance across his reflection. The collar
of his black shirt swells upward. His brown hair melts into his skin; dark eyes
morph and blend together. The entire image swirls until a new one appears—the
enormous head of a black-haired beast crowned with horns. Black curls of smoke
drift from its nose, and I barely make out the tips of fangs slipping over its
bottom lip.
I shudder. I've never seen anything like it.
I look from Seth to the reflection and back. “Is that you?”
Seth snorts. “Of course. Doesn't it look like me?”
I have no idea if he’s joking. At this point, if he told me
he was the Tooth Fairy, I’d believe it.
“No, Charlie,” he keeps his eyes on the mirror, “it’s not
me. That’s a hodag, one of our more problematic creatures. They're pretty large
and not all that intelligent, so it’s hard to get them to stay on the down-low.”
I gaze at the hodag’s hideous face. “I've never heard of
them.”
“They live in the mortal realm, but there are so few of them they're not spotted very often,” he says.
“We did a pretty good job of
discrediting the only photograph that’s ever been taken of one. Made it look
like the guy had constructed the thing himself out of cow and ox parts and some
wire. No one believed it after that.”
I hold up my hand, palm facing him. “High five! Way to go,
Fellowship!”
He chuckles and half-heartedly slaps my hand. “Anyway, looks
like somebody spotted a hodag last night.”
Seth runs his forefinger across the surface of the glass and
the image distorts, pulling toward the edges of the mirror and splashing back
again. A young girl, six or seven years old, tiptoes across the top of a log,
her arms straight out from her sides for balance. The hodag appears at the edge
of the frame, moving slowly across the grass. As soon as it appears, I press my
hand to the base of my neck. My eyes dart from the hodag to the girl and I hold
my breath, waiting for her to see it.
Seth groans and mutters, “Right in front of her.”
She freezes and draws her arms inward, keeping her wide eyes
on the monstrous creature. The hodag seems completely oblivious and lumbers on,
disappearing beneath a growth of bushes on the other side. The girl quietly slides
to the ground, putting the log between herself and the hodag. Even though I
know it’s coming, I still jump when she screams. The glass heaves, and Seth’s
chocolate eyes peer out from the mirror once more.
It’s only then that I realize how close I am to the mirror
now. I bob backward and blink. “That’s it?” I ask. “But what happened? Is she
okay?”
He steps away from the mirror. “If there were any more to
it, we’d see it. So no one else saw the hodag, and the girl must be fine.”
A couple Aegises pass behind us toward another mirror, and I
move out of their way. “As long as by ‘fine,’ you mean ‘terrified and scarred
for life,’” I say, and Seth smirks. “We’re not going to go talk to her?”
“No. We stay out of it as much as possible. Sightings by
children are the easiest to deal with. Her story will be dismissed as just that—a
story made up by a scared kid. But we’ll keep an eye on it.” Seth walks to a
small table in the corner scattered with cloth-covered books, spiral-bound
notebooks, and an assortment of pencils. He pulls his leafkey from his pocket
and taps it with his forefinger, logging the info into PRU. I imagine the tree
lighting up with each keystroke, twinkling with information. He slips it back
into his pocket and looks at me.
I lean against the table’s edge. “Shouldn't we make sure
she’s okay? Let her know there’s nothing to be afraid of?”
Even as I say them, I question the words. There’s plenty to
be afraid of. I’m learning that more and more by the minute. Chances are, this
girl isn’t the target of a homicidal shapeshifter with an inferiority complex,
though, so she might actually have a better shot at the whole “Happily Ever
After” thing.
He turns and leans against the table, too, his shoulder
touching mine. He crosses his arms and addresses the wooden floor when he
speaks. “I know it’s hard for you to see it this way, but what happens to her
only concerns us in regard to how it affects the safety of the mystical realm.”
I let that simmer for a moment. It’s probably the coldest
sentence I've ever heard him say. She’s not mystical, so she’s not worth the
Fellowship’s time? “So humans don't matter at all?”
“Our job is to protect the mystical realm. The more
involvement we have with humans, the riskier it is for us. Validating what she
saw might make her feel better, but it would also put our world in danger.”
He
pulls a worn pencil from beneath a stack of papers and writes something in one
of his notebooks.
I think of all the stories I used to trade on the playground
about monsters under beds and boogeymen in closets.
I wonder how many were real.
GIVEAWAY
Must be 13 or older to enter. Open only to U.S. mailing addresses. Giveaway ends Friday, August 8, 2014.
(Bumbles and Fairy-Tales will not be held liable for any lost, stolen, damaged, etc. prizes)
There are two prizes:
BETWEEN Prize Pack #1
- BETWEEN by Megan Whitmer ARC (signed)
- SING SWEET NIGHTINGALE by Erica Cameron (signed)
- EVER by Jessa Russo (signed)
- RECLAIMED by Sarah Guillory (signed)
- TRAGIC TALES OF STRANGE GIRLS ebook by Suzy G
- THE ART OF FALLING ebook by Jenny Kaczorowski
- OF SCARS AND STARDUST postcard with download code for eARC by Andee Hannah
- BETWEEN by Megan Whitmer ARC (signed)
- DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME by Erica Cameron (signed)
- DIVIDE by Jessa Russo (signed)
- RECLAIMED by Sarah Guillory (signed)
- Preorder of BLACKFIN SKY by Kat Ellis
- ULTRAVIOLET CATASTROPHE by Jamie Grey
BOTH prize packs will also include various swag from authors: Jessa Russo, Dahlia Adler, Tonya Kuper, Lynne Matson, and Kat Ellis.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR - Megan Whitmer
Megan Whitmer loves all things Southern, and has a soft spot for football, kissing scenes, and things that sparkle.
She lives in Kentucky with her family.
Also, she writes books and talks a lot.
