Sixteen-year-old Allie isn’t like other girls. Instead of spending her summer
break sitting around on the beach, she takes the epic vacation of a lifetime.
Tornado chasing.
And she’s not disappointed. Just a few miles from the town of Evansburg,
Nebraska, Allie meets her dream of seeing a tornado. In person. She can’t wait
to tell her friends back home. Never mind that her parents are going to kill
her.
But her dream soon turns into a nightmare, and a strange event leaves her
shocked. Confused. When she returns home to Wisconsin, something’s…different.
Allie now bears a curse so awful, it could destroy everyone and everything
she’s ever known.
With her best friend, Tommy, Allie must return to the plains to find a way to
reverse it. She enters a world that she had never imagined, where she becomes a
pawn in a fight to save the people of Evansburg from her fate…or to destroy
them.
Excerpt:
Chapter One
My very first tornado shreds the grass of the plains.
I stand next to the van, mouth dropping open, heart pounding. It's the moment I've been waiting for. I’ve saved the money for years and begged my uncle to book us for the Wild Weather Storm Chasing Tours.
Uncle Cassius gasps next to me, equally in awe. It barely cuts over the wind rushing towards the distant funnel. Waves of grass bow down to the twister, whipped down by the surrounding air flying in to feed it. The perfect white cone stands out against the coal sky, slim and graceful. A skirt of dust spins around its base, signaling its dance through a field a few miles away. The wind snaps against my jeans, pulling at my new Wild Weather Tours T-shirt.
"Beautiful!" Kyle, our storm chaser guide, snaps a photo for his website. He steals a glance at me and smiles. The wind ruffles his ash-blond hair. Wrinkles form around his eyes. He's all enthusiasm, joy that we've found our prey. "Don't worry. We're safe. It's heading to the east. It'll pass no closer than a couple of miles to our north."
I want his job someday.
"I'm not scared," I said, but my shaky voice betrays me. Who am I kidding? Kyle's an experienced chaser--twenty years--but this is a real tornado. In person. Live. I never realized it would be this intense, this breathtaking. A hollow feeling fills my stomach like I'm plunging down the first hill of a roller coaster. It is scary...but fun.
My parents would murder me and Uncle Cassius both for sneaking away on this trip. If they find out we’re not really in Disney World being bored to death by Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, well, it’ll be way scarier than this storm.
The tornado curves, almost like it's leaning to the side for a better look at something. At us? It's a weird thought, one that makes me laugh. The thunderstorm spins slowly above it, low and menacing. Thunder claps. It's enough to remind me that the storm in front of me isn't just beautiful. It's a predator, entrancing like a cobra and ready to strike.
Good thing there's no houses or buildings in its way. Only farmland stretches from horizon to horizon.
"Allie. Forget your camera?" Uncle Cassius points to my pocket and smiles. It’s a tense smile. So I'm not the only one with some nerves going.
Camera.
Yes. Duh.
I pull it out of my pocket and fumble with the slim case, fingers hunting for the button. The camera zings to life. Behind it, the tornado looms a bit larger, gaining strength and racing across the ground. More dust kicks up around the perfect white of the twister.
books about teens who are walking disasters...literally. She is also the author
of the Rita Morse series, a young adult fantasy series still in progress, and
After These Messages, a short ya comedy. Currently she is writing Twisted, a
spin-off of the Destroyers Series due out in December. When not writing, she
enjoys reading books for teens, especially ya fantasy and paranormal series
with a unique twist.
Author Links:
GIVEAWAY:
0 comments:
Post a Comment