Title: Ashes & Ice
Author: Rochelle Maya Callen
Release Day: February 4th, 2013
Genre: Young Adult
Blitz Host: LadyAmber's Tours
Synopsis:
She is desperate to remember.
He is aching to forget.
Together, they are not broken.
But together, one may not survive.
Jade wakes up with no memory of her past and blood on her hands.
Plagued by wicked thoughts, she searches for answers. Instead, she finds a boywho doesn't offer her answers, but hope. But sometimes, when nightmares turninto reality and death follows you everywhere, hope is not enough.
LUST. LOVE. LOSS. Sometimes, all that is left are Ashes and Ice
He is aching to forget.
Together, they are not broken.
But together, one may not survive.
Jade wakes up with no memory of her past and blood on her hands.
Plagued by wicked thoughts, she searches for answers. Instead, she finds a boywho doesn't offer her answers, but hope. But sometimes, when nightmares turninto reality and death follows you everywhere, hope is not enough.
LUST. LOVE. LOSS. Sometimes, all that is left are Ashes and Ice
Autrhor Bio:
Rochelle grew up dreaming up stories. When she entered highschool, she tucked away her creative side and jumped head-first into academics,work, and service projects. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree inPolitical Science and Communication when she was twenty years old. After yearsaway from her writing, Rochelle picked up a pen and started fleshing out acharacter sketch that she outlined when she was twelve. That sketch was thestart of the Ashes and Ice story. Rochelle lives in the DC metro area with herhusband and daughter. By day she works as a behavioral therapist. By night, sheis a dreamer and is busy tapping out new stories on her keyboard.
Links:
twitter: rockyiswriting
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rochelle-Maya-Callen-Author/478176392210312
link to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Ashes-
link to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Ashes-
Excerpt #1
Jade
The girl’s glassy, dead eyes stare into me, through me, pierce me with a fierceurgency, with a wicked accusation. The blood is still on my hands.
Red hair, blue eyes, a constellation of freckles on pale skin. She was fragileand innocent, a lovely thing. That is what I think until I see the gashes onher wrists and throat. With her blood spilling out, she looks delicious. She’smine. Possessiveness shocks me, stabs into me. I run, tearing away from a cravingI don't understand.
Breathless, I grit my teeth and run harder, faster.
My feet pound against the earth, away from the lifeless body and toward thelights of the city lingering on the horizon. Rot and death linger in mynostrils. Unscarred skin stretches taut over my freezing bones. Echoes of anempty memory reverberate in my mind, taunting me. The ice chases me, clutchesme, and bites at my heels, sending shivers up my spine. The ice wants me back,but I run forward, toward the lights, toward the heat, toward a world thatburns me, because I have no other choice.
The lights are so close. Heat scalds my skin.
Images race through my mind, paralyzing me. I skid to a stop, my boots digginginto the mud. The vision’s blurred edges materialize into solid shapes.
I gasp.
A new horror rakes my insides. Desperation propels me forward; the picturesnagging at my seams threaten to tear me apart.
Scorching fire licks over my skin. In my vision, I contort like a vile, uglycreature, eyes as black as decay. My frame hunches over the small, dead girl,like a demon looming over a defenseless child. Her blood drips from my mouth.
I lick my lips and taste only salty sweat.
I run, desperate to trample the vision under my feet, to crush it deep into theground.
I refuse to believe the image, refuse to acknowledge the monster within medemanding to be unleashed—and the possibility it has already been unbound. Anunrelenting tide of fear washes over me. Past the denial, the fear, and thehope, I think I can still taste her.
The cold stillness inside me cracks open just as the lights of the city slaminto me.
Excerpt #2
Connor
Tears burn. I never realized it before, but they do. Tears reach down my throatand settle in my gut until the pain cripples me. I clutch my stomach as I lookinto the casket. His face doesn’t even look the same. Bloated like a Mardi Grasfloat, discolored like a mannequin. This isn’t my father.
But it is.
If I have learned anything in my short life, it is this: funerals are bullshit.People dress in carefully pressed black suits. Parents give me “meaningful”nods as if that could ease the grief. It doesn’t.
Then there are the kids from school, the ones dragged along by their parents.People drag their kids along as if filling the church was a necessary thing. Asif the more pews filled somehow expedite the dead’s trip to heaven. I doubt itdoes. Maybe some of the girls went shopping to buy just the right outfit sotheir cleavage to respectability ratio was just right, or their ass towaist ratio was cinched properly.
People sit in the pews dressed in their finestlet’s-go-pay-our-respects-to-the-dead-guy-we-never-knew wear, smacking the gumin their mouths, cupping cellphones so they can LOL any comment buzzingin, and drumming their fingers because the pastor is going on too long. All they want to do is go home, sneak in a make-out session with theirgirlfriends, eat their dinners, and maybe catch a 7 o’clock movie.
I hate these kids. The ones who stare at me, roll their eyes, and yawn. Theones who trip me at school and slam me into lockers. The ones who sit in a pew,contributing to the headcount, while I sit up here in front, holding back thetears fighting to make their appearance. I swallow them down. I won’t cry. Nothere. Not with these people.
Dad’s funeral should be an empty church with mom, his three brothers, and me.It should be the five of us having a messy, sloppy, sobbing affair where wecling to each other because we are all we have left. The marble floors shouldbe slick with our tears. It isn’t. We sit here, straight backed, completelycomposed as if death is just a passing expiration date and our small,insignificant world has not been split open and left gaping.
***
I’m in my room, staring at the ceiling. The funeral service was hours ago.
The house feels empty and cold. I hear a stifled whimper from down the hall.
Mom.
Probably crying into a pillow so the house can’t hear, but it can. It seemsunfair she can’t wail aloud, so loud the house’s hundred-year-old studstremble.
She doesn’t. I don’t either. We cry in our own rooms, remembering a man whowill never be here again.
The house creaks. Maybe it feels the weight of our grief, maybe the floorboardsare buckling because the burden is too heavy.
I ache, desperate to forget the long battle with cancer, the blood sputteringout of his mouth with his last words—what where they? I can’t remember becausethe fear in his eyes overshadowed anything he said. Now the loss. I don’t wantto feel this loss. Some divine entity has taken dull scissors and cut out apiece of my life and now I have jagged scars to remind me I lost too much. Toomuch.
I want to forget, because it hurts to remember.
I bury my head in the pillow, hoping to suffocate the memories, to choke outthe pain.
Excerpt #3
“Have you ever been in love?”
I spill my popcorn on my lap. “I, uh, what?” I say, swiping off the kernels.The question catches me off guard.
“You know, in love.”
“No. No, I haven’t.” I shift on the couch, needing more space between us. “Whatabout you?”
“Nah.” She flicks her hand toward me as if she is brushing away nonsense, butthe hard look in her eyes says something different.
“Why?”
She points to the TV screen and the couple making out there. “Figured if youhad been, then you could explain that to me.”
The guy sweeps the girl up and carries her into bed before they… you know. “Uh,sex?”
She bursts out laughing. “That too. But I was talking about what it feelslike to be, you know, in love. Totally, without question. Like, does that,” shepoints to the screen again, “exist?”
“Yeah, I think it exists.” I think of mom and dad—the way they kissed everymorning, hugged a few moments longer than anyone else, laughed so hard theycried, and cuddled, shutting out the world, looking more content than thesefakers on the screen. “It exists. And in real life, it’s better than thatcrap.” I say, suddenly uncomfortable by the moaning coming from the TV.
“I thought you said you’ve never been in love?”
“I haven’t. But I’ve seen it. And I haven’t ever seen anything come close tothat in the movies.”
She opens her mouth as if about to ask a question, but then closes it andsmiles, accepting my answer. “Well, it’s good that there may be something inlife to look forward to.” She drops a kernel of popcorn in her mouth.
“May be?”
“Well nothing is guaranteed. Who knows, I may die an old spinster.” She’ssmiling, but her eyes aren’t.
I think about the movie store guy’s possessive eyes, Jesse’s chair fiasco, andDominic’s leering, my heart. “I doubt that.”
Excerpt #4
He smiles a bit wider and hands outthe pin.
As, I reach to pluck it from his palm, he snatches my wrist with one hand, mybicep with the other and crushes me against his chest.
His grip is tight—too tight, it hurts—and the bend of him hovers over me,leaning in. I try to shake him off, but he doesn’t let go. I squirm as I feelhis thumb trace circles on the inside of my wrist. The touch sends a skitter ofsensation over me. Something tinges the air; a sweet, cool feeling brushes overmy skin, making my knees want to buckle. He smells like mint, his breathtickles my face. I pull back, hating the sensations that please my skin andcurdle my insides. Bile surges in my throat. I tear myself away from him,glaring.
“What?” He says coolly as if he hadn’t just bruised my arms with his clutchingfingertips.
“That. Hurt.” I say. I don’t say he smells sweet or his breath is refreshing onmy skin or his touch sends chills up my spine, delicious chills. I step away.
His smile is unnerving. “Don’t worry, Jade.” He winks at me. Damn that wink ofhis. “One day, you’ll like it.”
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