Author: Laury Falter
Original release date: April 2012
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Age Group: Young Adult
Buy Links
Barnes and Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/residue-laury-falter/1110162509?ean=2940014509992
Book Description
When Jocelyn
Weatherford is whisked away from a preparatory academy in upstate New York to
live with her extended family in New Orleans, she is unprepared to encounter
the dangers awaiting her. Yet even as she is thrust into an unfamiliar world of
witches and voodoo magic, the greatest threat of all may be the boy she has
fallen for.
While handsome and
charming, he is also a Caldwell...a member of the family the Weatherford's have
been feuding with for centuries. As their forbidden love grows it becomes the
volatile spark that forever changes their world and everyone in it.
Included on the
Following Goodreads Lists: Best Supernatural Series, Young Adult Romance, Books
That Should Be Made Into Movies, Favorite Books, Books That Should Get More
Attention, Best Female Characters from YA and Children's Fantasty and Science
Fiction.
Read This Book Excerpt
The
directions I followed, took me to a quiet side street lined with worn
buildings, and more specifically, to an unmarked, weathered door along a row of
doors looking remarkably the same.
Without
the typical store sign or even a window to peer in, I didn’t know whether I
might walk into someone’s house. To be on the safe side, I knocked.
The door
rattled loosely against its frame and then settled. A few moments passed and no
one came, so I knocked again. Again, there was no answer.
Wondering
if the directions were wrong, I tried the door handle. It was unlocked, which
almost surprised me. Opening it a crack, I peered inside.
While it
was incredibly dim inside, lit only by candles held in wall sconces and open
lanterns hanging from the ceiling, I could see that it was actually a store.
Disheveled and poorly laid out with towering wooden bookshelves stuffed with
merchandise, I couldn’t see all that far inside.
“Hello?”
I called out without receiving an answer back.
Figuring
they may be in the storage room, if one even existed, I stepped inside.
“Hello?”
No one
responded so I moved farther down the aisle.
This was
no regular OfficeMax or OfficeDepot. It didn’t even resemble a college
bookstore. In the place of textbooks on biology, calculus, and the English
dictionary there were witch almanacs, spell books for solitary witches, and
tomes on spells and rituals for every purpose. Where pens and paper should have
been, there were tarot card stacks and candles of every color, style, and size
imaginable. Canisters of countless herbs, stones, and gems replaced
impulse-purchase bins of calculators and keychain flashlights.
What
exactly am I supposed to buy in here? I wondered.
Then,
just as I reached the cash register, which looked like an antique ready for a
museum, the store’s front door opened, allowing in a thin stretch of light down
the side aisle. I listened as the store’s most recent patron strolled toward
the back, where I now stood when the scratchy voice of an older woman drew my
attention away.
She hobbled
out from the back room, hunched and bracing herself against the counter as she
walked.
“What you
lookin’ for?” she asked.
Hesitating,
I didn’t know quite how to explain it and then settled on the most basic of
answers. “My school supplies.”
She
lifted her chin in a brief gesture of acknowledgement and then shuffled down
the long counter, stopping at nearly the end of it. From there, she withdrew a
clothed bundle, tied with twine at the top. Rather than carrying it back to me,
she dragged it, drawing up dust where it had settled. Leaving it before me, she
then held out her hand for payment.
“Eighty-five
dollars.”
I placed
the cash in her palm and she dropped it in a canvas bag beneath the register,
without bothering to count it.
“You got
the potent kind,” she stated.
“The
what?”
“They’re
dangerous,” she warned. “Watch yerself with them.”
Interestingly,
I wasn’t the least bit surprised that whatever the brisk woman sleeping across
the hall from me had ordered on my behalf wasn’t safe.
“All right,” I shrugged. I wasn’t quite
sure what was in the bundle or how I should treat them to prevent inflicting
harm.
Then
several things happened simultaneously. Just as I turned around to leave, the
person waiting patiently in line behind me spoke. And just as he spoke, the
room broke into chaos.
The wall
sconce candles flickered first. Next the tarot cards lifted from their spot on
the shelves as if a brisk wind had picked up and carried them, disheveled,
through the air. Then heavier things began to move. Candles darted off the
shelves like projectiles, hitting the walls with enough force to leave wax
marks. Books slid off and slammed to the floor or against the bookshelves
opposite them. The ceiling lanterns swung fiercely from side to side, slamming
against the whitewash to send down chunks of plaster. The glass canisters
banged against each other threatening to break.
That was
when I felt arms around me, pulling me to the ground, and a body covering me,
solid and secure. My top hat was gone and hands now covered my head with elbows
pressed against my ears, dimming the sound of the destruction around us. With
my face covered by my own hands and my body in a crouched position, only my
legs were exposed.
I had to
give the person credit. Despite the devastation going on around us, nothing
touched me.
It raged
for several seconds, prolonging the demolition of this elderly woman’s store.
Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it came to a screeching halt.
My
protector’s hands freed my ears and the body stretched across my back moved
away. That was when I heard the voice. It was comforting, concerned, and a
little uncertain. I was instantly drawn to it, realizing a ridiculous urge to
listen to it endlessly. I couldn’t help feeling foolish, especially since his
question was so understandable given the circumstances.
“Are you
hurt?” he asked.
I felt a
hand, warm and firm, on my shoulder, coaxing me to react.
Releasing
the breath I’d been holding, I stood and blinked a few times, clearing the
haziness in my head.
“Never
been better,” I muttered and when he handed my top hat back I heard him
chuckle.
A quick
look around told me that the elderly woman had survived unharmed but her store
had not. Every piece of merchandise now lay broken, littering the floor.
Without
any warning whatsoever, she launched in to a tirade, speaking rapidly and in
French, a language I hadn’t learned well enough yet. Then she stopped suddenly,
to my surprise, with a chuckle, wide eyed and beaming.
I chalked
it up to delirium at seeing her store destroyed at some unknown phenomenon
until her other patron standing beside me spoke.
“Huh…” he
mumbled.
“What?” I
asked, still battling the surreal state I was in, watching as the woman
shrugged and disappeared into the back room still chuckling.
Then he
chuckled to himself, surprised. “She said she’s never seen this before.
Apparently she’s read about it and been told of it but hadn’t witnessed it
herself.”
“Witnessed
what?” I asked, taking my sack of school supplies.
He
laughed again, farther down in his chest. “Well…” He cleared his throat
uncomfortably. “She thinks she just saw the introduction of two fated lovers.”
“Really?
Who?” I asked, my head swiveling back and forth now, profoundly intrigued and
looking for the people they were referring to, the two whom they believed to be
the cause of this mess.
He
hesitated and then spoke deep, firm, and with certainty. “She meant us.”
About The Author
Laury Falter is the
bestselling author of the Guardian Trilogy (Fallen, Eternity, & Reckoning).
When she isn't writing, she likes to take her two stray dogs for walks and
enjoy date nights with her husband.
Laury's debut novel,
Fallen, hit Amazon's Top 100 list in three genres and the remaining two books
in the trilogy made showings in the Top 100 of the same genres as well. With a
new series available, Residue, about a teenage girl who learns she is a witch
and falls in love with a boy from a feuding family, her reader following
continues to grow rapidly.
Author's Links
Website:
lauryfalter.com
Twitter page:
twitter.com/LauryFalter
Facebook page:
facebook.com/pages/Laury-Falter/196033543803745
Goodreads page:
goodreads.com/author/show/4061922.Laury_Falter
Giveaway Details & Rules
- US Giveaway, open to US Only!
- Ends February 20th!
- There Will Be 1 Signed Print Copy of RESIDUE, picked by Rafflecopter!
- I will be Checking the Entries Regularly, so if there is Cheating, those Entries Will be Disqualified!
- As you submit Entries, be sure to use an Email that you use Daily, as that is how I will contact you, if you Win.
- You will have 24 hours to Respond, or I will have to Choose a New Winner!
- And Good Luck! :)
