Sanctuary Excerpt:
“No kidding,” Liza laughed, “Did I ever tell you about the time—oh my God!” Her eyes grew wide and she slowed down so quickly, Jennie’s seatbelt locked.
“What?” Jennie asked as she followed the train of Liza’s gaze. Just as they passed out of the treed area, it came into view. Silver, round, and glossy, just as they said it would be. It shifted in and out like a mirage. She blinked hard at it, while Liza pulled the car over to the shoulder.
“I can’t believe it.” Liza’s voice quivered.
Jennie nodded but didn’t say a thing. She remembered her reaction to seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time as they drove by on the highway for upstate New York. The distance was so great that the statue looked like a toy on the horizon, but it was real. Her heart leapt in her chest then, just as it did now. It’s one thing to be told about something, and even see pictures of it on TV, it was quite another to take it in with your own eyes.
She tore her gaze away from the strange, floating, metal disk and saw that Liza’s was the last in a long line of cars that had pulled over on the shoulder. Some people had even stepped out of their cars to take pictures with their camera phone. Liza hopped out, and Jennie gave a grumbled response to the closing door. Even though fear gripped her insides, she unbuckled her seatbelt and jumped out after her friend.
Liza clicked away with her camera phone, standing in awe with the others. Jennie didn’t feel safe. The look of the disk rotating in the sky, blocking out the half-lit sun, was enough to make her scream and hide under her bed covers. She could understand now why so many were running for the hills. Shivers ran up her spine and gooseflesh popped up her arms.
“Liza, what are you doing here?” the man who’d been in the car ahead of them asked as he approached. The sun glinted off the golden highlights in his brown hair, and Jennie thought he looked vaguely familiar.
“Mr. Harris.” Liza smiled and a blush rose to her cheeks.
Jenny blinked and looked at the man. Yep, Mr. Harris, the Bio teacher, every senior girl’s crush. Her friend, Terra took the class with him last year. Jennie shoved her hands into her pockets and did all she could to not stare at the thrumming metal disk over the base less than a half mile away.
“You girls shouldn’t be here, you know. It’s not safe, and I’m sure your parents wouldn’t approve.” He admonished, but gave them a half smile.
Was that a dimple? Jennie wondered if she’d ever seen him smile before. Ridiculous. Of course not. Her eyes returned to the disk, and its vibration continued in her chest. Panic rose up in her throat again.
“Do you think you could take a picture of us? Then we’ll leave, promise.” Liza handed Mr. Harris her phone and dragged Jennie toward the metal fence line.
She drug her feet, and shook her head. The last thing Jennie wanted to do was get closer.
Mr. Harris’s brows furrowed as he eyed her. “Did I teach you last year? No, wait—Terra’s friend, right?”
Jennie half nodded, and straightened as Liza adjusted her shoulders and wrapped her arm around them. Her body felt stiff. In the core of her stomach, she shivered and could hardly stand still. The thrumming of the machine her back was turned to was to great.
Mr. Harris frowned, his worried eyes fixed on Jennie’s.
“The picture, Mr. Harris?” Liza reminded him.
“Oh, yeah.” He lifted the camera phone up and snapped it.
The minute the flash ended, Jennie darted for the car. She began to hyperventilate and needed to get out of there as fast as she could.
“Are you okay?” Mr. Harris called after her.
“She’s fine, and thanks for the pict—”
Jennie slammed the car door and cut off the last word as well as the hum from the alien ship’s constant rotation. The pit of her stomach still quivered, and she felt she might faint. She closed her eyes; she didn’t want to see or hear it anymore.
A moment later, Liza jumped back in herself. “Wasn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?”
Jennie had broken out in a cold sweat. “Whatever, let’s just get home, okay?”
“Chicken.” Liza made a few bock-bocks and flapped her elbows like wings.
Jennie smacked the elbow that threatened to pop her in the chin. “Okay, whatever. Let’s just go.”
With a shrug, Liza pulled the beetle back out to the highway. She made her way to the next exit so they could turn around. “Well at least I’ve got a picture of the two of us for a keepsake.”
Jennie groaned.
“And we got to see ‘hot Mr. Harris,’” she giggled.
Jennie rolled her eyes. She hardly saw what everyone saw in him. He was so much older than they were even if he was only mid twenties.
As they passed the ship again, it was on Liza’s side, so Jennie turned her head away and looked out her window at the abandoned houses in those neighborhoods. If she didn’t look at it the ship, it was easier to deny its existence. She made a decision as they headed for the tunnel. As far as she was concerned, she had never seen it.
When a crippled young lord rescues a girl falling from a tree, it reveals a secret about himself and his mother’s side of the family that could put him at the center of a war with beings he thought only existed in fairy tales. Tristan Gareth Smyth lived his entire life stuck at home at Waverly Park and left behind while his Grandfather makes trips to London, all because of his blasted wheelchair. Then an American heiress falls in his lap, literally, and he must find a way to keep her at a distance to protect not only his secret, but everyone around him from an assassin sent to kill him.
Buy on Amazon
Darkness can be overcome…
Terminally ill Lynette Lamb is forced to reunite her wayward son and grandson. Her options are as limited as her strength and mobility. Through a fateful series of events, the rejoined pair will leave Earth to become part of a colony orbiting a new planet. Sam Austin and his wife mourn the loss of their only child and decide to make a fresh start at the space station. The same ship holds the one who will fulfill the dark planet’s prophecy, but a demonic force boards to stop the vessel. The demon’s obedient but unwilling servant is sent on a suicide mission to keep the ship from reaching its destination.
Buy on Amazon
Chira Kelly thought she didn’t need anyone…until she met Ben.
Because of one ugly rumor, Chira lives as an outcast at her school. Which is fine with her, because she works better alone. Always has, always will. And at least she has her one and only true friend, Tasha. When Tasha insists that they join a group to visit a possibly haunted abandoned old schoolhouse, she’s wary, but joins her friend. Because of that decision, their lives are in jeopardy as a malevolent spirit targets the group. Tragedies and accidents pick them off one by one, and Chira finds herself drawn to the one person who can see the truth. But can he protect her?
*A Young Adult Paranormal Romance – Urban Fantasy with a blend of Mystery*
Buy on Amazon
Left Behind for the Hunger Games generation
In a heart-racing thriller described as Falling Skies meet The Walking Dead, Jennie struggles to find a safe place for what’s left of her family. But it seems as though there is no place sacred, no place secure. First the aliens attacked the sun, making it dimmer, weaker, and half what it used to be. Then they attacked the water supply, killing one-third of Earth’s population with a bitter contaminate. And when they unleash a new terror on humankind, the victims will wish for death, but will not find it…
When the world shatters to pieces around her, will Jennie find the strength she needs to keep going?
Buy on Amazon
Pauline Creeden
Pauline Creeden is a horse trainer from Virginia, but writing is her therapy. In her fiction, she creates worlds that are both familiar and strange, often pulling the veil between dimensions. She becomes the main character in each of her stories, and because she has ADD, she will get bored if she pretends to be one person for too long.
Follow Pauline Creeden:
Website | Facebook | Twitter
Sign up for Pauline Creeden‘s newsletter you’ll find out when the serial comes out and on the day of release it’s FREE! http://eepurl.com/Oe2Fn
Enter to win one of three swag packs. Open to US only. Fill out the form to a Rafflecopter giveaway
