Excerpt From “The League Of Delphi” by Chris Everheart

Ten years after his father’s mysterious death, 17-year-old Zach secretly returns to his wealthy hometown in search of answers. Why did his mother move him away and change his name, then go into hiding to die alone? Why did she forbid him to ever reveal his true identity or return home? Desperate to reconnect with this seemingly ideal place, Zach is troubled when his grade school friend Sutton commits suicide and no one seems to care. Zach foolishly tries to rekindle his childhood crush with Katie but encounters an ambitious teen with secrets of her own. Meanwhile her sister Ashley, a teenager on the fringe, intrigues him with whispers of a secret committee that runs the town and pressures kids into dangerous overachievement. Zach and Ashley find a hidden passage into the committee’s impenetrable headquarters—the college’s monolithic library that no one is allowed to enter. Inside they discover a dark connection to Ancient Greece and the Oracle at Delphi. Their suspicions are confirmed, but the conspiracy is more terrifying and dangerous than they imagined, sending them running for their lives and praying to get out alive.

EXCERPT:

Katie sips her soda and looks around. Our connection is pretty weak now—maybe from seeing Brian, but probably because of something I said. This whole thing was a mistake. I should have let the bait float by and not asked Katie out. I feel abandoned and surrounded at the same time.

Ashley’s voice invades my thoughts again. I try to swat it away, but it won’t shoo. Damn it! The curiosity is eating at me. Well, nothing to lose now. I turn to Katie and ask, “Do you know anything about the government?”

Katie stops scanning and fixes me with a look that warns against straying away from small talk.

I squirm a little but I can’t let it go. “I mean the local government, how it works?”

She shrugs. “Pretty much what we learned in civics. There’s a mayor and a town council and they make the decisions. If our parents want something done they go to the council meetings and figure it out.”

End of story.

I frown. “I mean the other government, the one that
makes the people decisions.”

Katie’s stare turns icy. “The other government?”

I squirm some more. Forget about small talk. People in this town don’t talk about anything real.

“You’re starting to sound like Ashley,” she says.

I shrug. I don’t care.

“Don’t listen to her, Zach. She almost got kicked out of school for writing a paper about how the town is run by a secret group that tells everyone what to do and how to live.”

I didn’t know that. Katie sees the surprise in my face.

“Yeah, they’re trying to ‘control’ her,” she scratches quotation marks in the air. “She had a nervous breakdown after that and was locked up for a month.”

I didn’t know that either, but I should have guessed it.

“Did she tell you she’s been on medication and seeing psychiatrists since she was, like, five? She stops taking her meds because she doesn’t like how they make her feel, then she goes bat-shit. My parents even took her to Europe for some kind of evaluation because the psychiatrists here can’t figure her out.”

I slump in my seat, feeling small, stupid, defeated.

But Katie continues the barrage. “And after all that, she still didn’t want to go back to the psychiatrist, didn’t want to take medication. But they made her. She can’t get a date because she’s foaming at the mouth all the time and scares boys away. Then she blames me for it.”

Katie shakes her head in disgust and glances around, this time to make sure no one is listening. She lowers her voice and leans closer to me, eyes hardening. “She’s insane, Zach. Start thinking like that and you just go over the edge. That’s what happened to Sutton.”

The note of warning in her voice and the mention of Sutton send a shock through me. I open my mouth to ask another question, but Katie cuts me off with a wave of her hand. The theater lights dim and a bucket of popcorn goes dancing across the huge movie screen. She gives the cartoon her full attention. Conversation over.

I look up at the screen, knowing that we’re about to see a gory slasher movie. But I don’t think it can be as scary as what I’ve just heard from Katie.

***

Chris Everheart is an award-winning author of books and short stories for middle-graders, young adults, and adults and an occasional filmmaker. A lifelong reluctant reader, TV junkie, and movie lover, Chris infuses the pacing and thrills of visual storytelling into all his stories. When not writing, he can be found hiking in the mountains near home, watching television, or learning about history, science, and archaeology. He’s a Minnesota native living in East Tennessee with his family.

Book: THE LEAGUE OF DELPHI
Genre: Thriller; YA; Conspiracy
Formats: Paperback; e-book
Length: 300 pages
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/The-League-Delphi-Chris-Everheart/dp/0985912502/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1344010243&sr=1-1
Autographed copies available here: http://www.yellowrocketmedia.com/products/the-league-of-delphi-autographed-copy

Light Bringer by Pat Bertram

Becka Johnson had been abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Chalcedony, Colorado when she was a baby. Now, thirty-seven years later, she has returned to Chalcedony to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? Why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen? Who is Philip, and why does her body sing in harmony with his? And what do either of them have to do with a shadow corporation that once operated a secret underground installation in the area?

“Brilliant!” —Suzanne Francis, author of the Song of the Arkafina series

“Pat Bertram has a marvelous ability to write the longest parables in all of literature. She unglues the world as it is perceived and rebuilds it in a wiser and more beautiful way.” —Lazarus Barnhill, author of The Medicine People and Lacey Took a Holiday

“Light Bringer is TYPICAL BERTRAM: plots within plots, multiple characters with multiple agendas, fast moving, more than enough mystery and intrigue for everyone, satisfying conclusion. Great book!” —Malcolm Campbell, author of The Sun Singer and Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire

“Light Bringer is one of the most unique novels I have had the pleasure to read in a long time. Ms. Bertram’s fascinating characters and original subplots make this a page-turner I simply could not put down.” —Deborah J Ledford, author of Staccato and Snare

Excerpt:

No wonder she felt tired—it was still night. She was about to climb back into bed when she remembered what Luke had said about the setting moon illuminating the outlines of the houses where the white tribe had lived. Afraid of missing the phenomenon, she didn’t even take time to snatch a robe to throw over the long T-shirt she wore, but dashed to the front door, yanked it open, and stepped out onto the porch.

She gaped at the town. By outlines, she’d thought Luke meant a faint tracing on the ground where the foundations had been, but this . . . this was a complete village, each exquisite stone house solidly visible. Though the stones weren’t uniform, they fit together snugly, like a miniature version of the megalithic ruins she’d seen in pictures of Cuzco. The roofs seemed to be made of rough wooden shingles, and the windows were covered with what appeared to be mats woven of dried grasses.

Seeing the door of the nearest house open a crack, she froze.

The door opened wider, and a sleek, hairless white cat with outsize ears and large slanted eyes sneaked outside. It looked around as though proud of its accomplishment, then sat back on its haunches and washed its face.

A ghost cat?

Becka felt a giggle percolate to her throat. She tried to swallow her amusement, but a tiny gurgle escaped.

The cat swiveled its head in her direction and focused its luminescent eyes on her.

She gazed at the hairless creature, unable to look away. What is it they say about staring too long into the abyss? Make sure it isn’t staring back at you?

She shivered, but still couldn’t avert her eyes.

Suddenly, with one liquid motion, the cat sprang to its feet and streaked toward her.

Click here to read the first chapter of: Light Bringer

Click here to buy: Light Bringer

—

Touching the Starfish by Ashley Stokes

Touching the Starfish by Ashley Stokes

 

ISBN 978 -0-9564223-0-9:

 Unthank Books, 2010.

www.unthankbooks,com.

 

 

TOUCHING THE STARFISH

 

Ashley Stokes’s Touching the Starfish stars Nathan Flack, a writer exiled in a backwater teaching creative writing to a group of high-maintenance cranks and fantasists. When a very literary ghost by the name of James O’Mailer starts to haunt Flack, he has to ask himself: is he sinking into a nether world of delusion, or is he actually O’Mailer’s instrument?

 

In this comic novel, a Chosen One has great responsibility forced upon him, an age-old institutional conspiracy underpins Western Civilization and, crucially, an apocalyptic medieval battle decides all at the climax. 

 

“Crisp, witty and scalpel-sharp, Touching the Starfish doesn’t miss a trick in its arch depiction of the orthodoxies and absurdities of Creative Writing Programmes and the many varieties of pond-life to be found therein. It’s deadly accurate too on the often hilarious miseries of the writing life.” Lindsay Clarke

 

“The plot is remarkable, twisting in ways that surprise {. . .} highly poignant.” Concrete.

 

“Comic writing doesn’t get better than this.” essentialwriters.com

 

“The work of an anarchic imagination stuffed with incident and mordantly humorous observations.” Eastern Daily Press.

 

Extract:

 

Read the first chapter for free at:

 

http://www.unthankbooks.com/Resources/TTS%20Free%20Sample%20Chapter.pdf

 

 

Biography

 

Ashley Stokes is an editor, novelist and short story writer based in Norwich, England. His stories have appeared in Pretext, EM, Hard and Other Stories (UEA Texts), Take 20 (UEA), Signals 3, Spiked, England Calling, Unthology, Bonfire, Staple and The Creative Writing Coursebook. He won a 2002 Bridport Short Story Award for The Suspicion of Bones. His first novel,Touching the Starfish was published in 2010 by Unthank Books. A short story collection, The Syllabus of Errors will appear in 2011 and he is the author of the blog-novel SubGrubStreet. (http://ashleystokes.wordpress.com)