Friday, April 18, 2014

The Uncovering




Title: The Uncovering
Author: Jes Young
Genre: Paranormal Romance / Urban Fantasy
“Tab Bennett is normal — unusually, excessively normal. Her job as a bank teller is safe and secure, her grandfather finally let her move out of the house (at least to the cottage at the end of the driveway), and her fiancé fiercely guards her chastity, whether she wants him to or not. 
It's something of a shock, then, when Tab learns that she is the elvish queen of the fabled kingdom of the Inbetween. Also shocking is the appearance of the staggeringly confident and gorgeous elvish warrior who claims to be Tab's true betrothed. Even amidst a steamy love triangle, Tab must tell friend from foe in an unknown world of danger, deceit, magic, and sex.
The first in the Underneath and Inbetween trilogy, The Uncovering sparkles with wit and unadulterated fun.”



Author Bio
Jes Young holds a BFA in creative writing from Emerson College.  She writes Urban Fantasy and Paranormal romance because, in spite of a complete lack of supporting evidence, Jes still believes in fairy tales, happy endings, and true love.



Links

Purchase links:
Print copy ISBN 978-1-84982-239-8:

Ebook copy ISBN 978-1-84982-289-3:
MPPublishingusa.com link: http://mppublishingusa.com/node/219
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-uncovering

Book Excerpts
Book Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE



While my sister Rivers was dying, I was planting crocus bulbs in my front yard.
While she was fighting for life, I was thinking about how pretty the purple and yellow flowers would look poking up through the snow when the spring came. While she was gasping for air, I was singing along with the radio to some stupid Top Forty song I’d be embarrassed to admit I knew. I was tired and achy. I saw the dirt under my nails and then I knew. There was dirt under her nails too.
I could see her struggling in a small dark place. I could feel her panic as the air ran out. Her fingernailssnagged and broke on rocks and roots as she clawed at the soil settling above her.
The earth closed in all around until there was no light and no air and no sound. There was nothing but the quiet, airy emptiness you hear inside a seashell.

Rivers was gone and I was kneeling in the cold, wet grass with a pounding headache and a bloody knee. The vision ended as abruptly as it had begun.
Some black birds lifted from their roost in the trees just as Francis came running from the other side of the house.
“What is it? Are you hurt?” he yelled as he ran toward me. “Are you hurt?”
I struggled to my feet, took one lurching step, and passed out before I hit the dirt.

* * * * *

It was dark and quiet when I woke up.
I didn’t have to lift my head or open my eyes to know where I was. I recognized the lumps in the cushions and the smell of the afghan draped over me. I heard the comforting rumble of men’s voices in a nearby room and knew that I was home, safe and cared for on the couch in the downstairs sitting room at
Witchwood Manor. The tapping of a size twelve work boot against the floor told me that my fiancé Robbin was there waiting for me to wake up, watching over me until I did. For the first time ever I found his restless, relentless tap, tap, tapping comforting. It told my heart what to do. Beat, beat, beat, it said. It reminded my lungs to fill and empty and fill again.
He was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. He was leaning against the doorframe, still in his work clothes, looking angry and sad and, of course, beautiful. He just couldn’t help that—even when tragedy really called for him to be less sensational-looking. He was tall and muscular with a strong chin and a soft, sweet mouth. His eyes were the color of the ocean on a sunny day and his short hair was a sandy blond. I sighed, wishing I were waking up with him under happier circumstances.

Extra Book Excerpt
That night I had a dream that Rivers and I were walking in the deep forest. I wasn’t afraid. She was like a beam of sunlight in the darkness, glowing, leading me by the hand the way she did when we were little. She pointed out rocks that might trip me and held back branches that would otherwise have tangled in my long, dark hair.
“I always protected you,” she said, looking back at me, her eyes big and black. “But you didn’t protect me.”
“I didn’t know how.”
With a shrug, she continued leading me deeper and deeper into the woods. The further we went, the less careful she became about the rocks and the branches. I stumbled and the trees lashed out and pulled at my hair and cheeks. She didn’t seem to care.

“Maybe we should go back.”
“We can only go forward from here.” Her hand was very cold in mine. Icy cold. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll protect you from the monsters in this forest. Even though you didn’t protect me.”
Rivers wasn’t glowing with sunshine anymore. She was pale as the moon. She was growing dimmer by the second.
“I want to go home.”
“I’m never going home,” she said.
The trees blocked out the sky. The branches twisted together above us, seeking something that would always be out of their reach. There were birds perched on the limbs, shiny black birds that called to each other with human voices.
home, never going home
“Hush, you silly birds,” she said. “You’ll frighten the queen.”
frighten the queen, frighten the queen. Their call echoed from bird to bird and branch to branch.
“The starlings like you,” she said, looking up into the sea of glossy red eyes above us. “They don’t want the monsters to get you.”

They didn’t look friendly. Rivers didn’t look friendly either.
“Will you let the monsters to get me?” I asked.
She shrugged. “You let them get me.”
frighten the queen, frighten the queen
“I didn’t know about them. I would have protected you if I knew.”
never going home
“That’s a great excuse,” she said, “but I’m still dead.”
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry.”
She started backing away from me. She spoke in a whisper that grew louder and louder which each word. “There are monsters in these woods. Some of They eat princesses for supper, but most of They prefer to make them suffer.”
The birds took to the sky, flying around us, feathers brushing against my cheek and throat and hands.
suffer, make them suffer
“I’m not a princess,” she whispered, “so what do you think They did to me?”
suffer
never coming home
“I’m sorry, Rivers. I’m so sorry.”
The starlings twisted around her, swirling as one, a mass of black wings and ruby eyes.
“Make them suffer,” she said. Her eyes were like the starlings’, glossy and glassy and empty, the deep color of bad blood. The birds drew close around her and then shot off, like a hundred thousand feathered arrows, into the sky.
I woke up in my bed, alone and scared, with tears streaming down my face.
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