E is for Ellison, Kate Avery

A little note for everyone stopping by for the A to Z challenge:

First off, hi! Welcome! Look around, have fun. My posts will be short this month, but they'll be following a theme: Books and Authors. I'll be showcasing some of my favorites within those categories. But I'll also be having some special posts regarding the release of my debut novel, Elemental, from time to time. Also look to the right for an ARC giveaway that is going on. :)

Isn't she so cute??

I feel I must let you all know that Kate Avery Ellison is a very good friend and EXTREMELY talented crit partner of mine. However, she was on my top list of authors long before all this. She is the author of The Curse Girl and short story collection, Once Upon a Beanstalk. But! BUT, my dear readers, her latest book...

...has just released! Ellison is such a talented writer and I've been lucky enough to get a sneak-peek at this book. Let me tell you, it is amazing. Here's the blurb:

In the icy, monster-plagued world of the Frost, one wrong move and a person might end up dead—and Lia Weaver knows this better than anyone. After monsters kill her parents, she must keep the family farm running despite the freezing weather and threat of monster attacks, or risk losing her siblings to reassignment by the village Elders. With dangers on all sides and treachery just one wrong step away, she can’t afford to let her emotions lead her astray. So when her sister finds a fugitive bleeding to death in the forest, a young man from beyond the Frost named Gabe, Lia surprises herself and does the unthinkable.

She saves his life.

Giving shelter to the fugitive could get her in serious trouble. The Elders have always described the advanced society of people beyond the Frost, the “Farthers,” as ruthless and cruel, and her village has nothing to do with them. But Lia is startled to find that Gabe is empathetic and intelligent…and handsome. She might even be falling in love with him.

But time is running out. The monsters from the forest circle her farm at night. The village leader is starting to ask questions. Farther soldiers are searching for Gabe. Lia must locate a secret organization called the Thorns to help Gabe escape to safety, but each move she makes puts her in greater danger. Is compassion—and love—worth the risk?

I know this post is already much longer than I normally do, but this excerpt is well worth the read:

“Where’s Ivy?” I swept my gaze across the main room of the house. Dried laundry draped across my great-grandmother’s furniture, laundry my little sister had been supposed to fold and put away before I got home. A curl of anger kindled in the pit of my stomach—we were barely making quota, the winter storms were upon us, and she wasn’t even keeping up with the basic chores I gave her. She was almost fourteen—she was old enough to do her share of the work.

Jonn raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t seen her all afternoon. I thought she was with you.”

A little piece of my insides froze at his words. Our eyes met and held, and a million wordless things passed between us. I went back to the door and opened it.

Darkness was falling along with the snow. I hadn’t seen my sister in the village, and she hadn’t been in the barn. It was a small farm—just a round clearing in the woods, really. There was no sign of her in the yard. I shouted her name, but the wind snatched the word from my lips and flung it away. The Watcher Ward rattled above me, and the sound was like bones shaking.

My heart beat fast. My lungs were suddenly empty. I took a shaky breath and then exhaled slowly before turning to my brother.

“I’m going out to find her.”

Jonn looked at the fire. I knew he wouldn’t argue with me—he wasn’t the type to voice disagreements, especially not with me—but his whole face tightened and his lips turned white.

“The Watchers...”

“It’s too early for Watchers to be out,” I said. “There’s still light left. Besides, nobody’s seen one in months.”

That was a half-lie, as their tracks were spotted almost every week crisscrossing the paths or wandering around the edges of the village where the border of snow blossoms was planted to keep them out. But it was a half-truth, too. We hadn’t seen them recently.

But Jonn and I knew better than anybody that there was still a risk.

“I’m going,” I said.

He didn’t reply, but I could tell by his expression that he was furious that he couldn’t go. He wasn’t mad at me. It was just the way things were. There was no point in wasting time talking about it, so we didn’t.

I pulled on my cloak again and struggled into my heavy boots with the snowshoes for walking on top of the snow. Opening the front door, I threw one final look over my shoulder at Jonn before ducking back out into the wintery evening.

It had grown colder since I’d been inside, or maybe that was just the wind stealing the warmth from my body. I padded through the dusting of snow that covered everything, cupping my hands over my mouth to call her again. “Ivy!”

Most of the time fear was just like a rat in my belly, gnawing and gnawing a hole in the same place day after day whenever I’d let it. But now the rat had turned into a lion, and it was tearing me apart from the inside out. I reached the edge of the yard, where the trees formed a wall of brown and green, and I stopped. The wind shivered through my hair.

“Ivy!” I screamed again.

She was always wandering the farm with a dream in her eyes and a song in her mouth. She had a head full of thoughts about things that didn’t matter and never would, and she didn’t have an ounce of sense when it came to our survival. I wrapped both arms tight around my middle to hold in the fear, and I sucked in another breath to call again when I heard it, lost against the wind. My name.

“Lia...?”

Her voice was faint, almost imperceptible, but my ears were fine-tuned with terror and I heard it.

I surged forward into the woods, kicking up snow. “Ivy?”

She appeared out of the shadows suddenly. Her cheeks were bitten red with cold and her long dark hair was wet with melting ice. She stumbled, grabbed my hands. Her mittens were missing.

“Hurry,” she breathed, tugging at me. “Quickly.”

“Ivy Augusta Weaver,” I hissed, torn between joyful relief and flickering anger. “It’s almost night time. There is a storm coming. What were you thinking? Where have you been?”

“There is a boy,” she panted, ignoring my scolding. “In the woods.”

FROST LINKS:

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13555538-frost

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Frost-The-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B007Q4LLWE

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1109825221

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/144165

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Frost-Volume-Kate-Avery-Ellison/dp/1475005873

Enjoy!!