Sara Codair has a new queer supernatural/urban fantasy book out, Evanstar Chronicles book two: 'Power Inversion." And there's a giveaway!
Do you have to be a monster to fight one?
Erin Evanstar is a demon hunter, a protector of humanity from nightmarish predators that feed on people's fears and flesh. They are settling into their dual life of being a teen and hunting demons.
When a tentacled horror abducts Erin's partner, José, Erin and their family go on the hunt to get him back. But Erin gets an ultimatum: help the Fallen Angels bring on the apocalypse or watch José die. Erin will do anything to save José, but fighting monsters comes with a grim price--becoming one themselves.
Warnings: Violence, Death, Death of a Minor Character, Temporary Death of a Main Character, Mention of Past Abuse, Mention of Miscarriage, Pregnancy of Side Character, Self-harm, Suicidal Ideation, Guns, Grief, Kidnapping/abduction, alcohol use, brief depiction of humans enslaved by a supernatural creature
NineStar Press | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Giveaway
Sara is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card with this blog tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:
Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47130/?
Excerpt
White graduation caps fell from the sky like flakes of vaporized Demon. High school was a beast, and I’d vanquished it like every monster I’d fought, with one exception—myself.
This moment deserved savoring.
Breathing deliberately, I slowed my perception of time until the caps seemed as if they were falling through cold honey on their way to the ground.
The late-spring sun beat down on me, but a breeze kept the temperature bearable. Some tassels lilted southeast—away from the towering clouds bruising the northwest sky. The weather wasn’t going to hold much longer, but I was okay with that. Thunderstorms awoke something wild in me—a pulse-racing, dance-around-like-no-one-can-see-you kind of wild—a rush of adrenaline almost as good as what I’d get from battling a Troll or sparring with Mel.
With my sense of time slowed down, the distant thunder sounded like a lion purring. The clouds glowed purple as lightning forked through them like an X-ray, temporarily revealing a mass of tentacles undulating in the clouds.
Mel, did you see that? I thought as loudly as I could, hoping my telepathic cousin would hear me.
I’d seen a lot of different Demons in the three months I’d been hunting them, but based on the stories and the Lexicon, the massive tentacled ones only materialized in oceans, and they certainly could not fly. Yet, every time lightning flashed, there they were, waving as if violent updrafts were a gentle breeze.
My heart sped up. My hands closed into fists. Mel didn’t reply.
I shut my eyes, opening my mind so I could feel all the energy around me. Most humans were blobs of buzzing heat, but Mel, a hybrid of human, Angel, and Elf, had a hotter, more intense aura with a spritz of simultaneously depressed and optimistically peppy texture. I found her near my Elven grandmother, who felt like a condensed thunderstorm.
Mel? Niben? Can you hear me? Did you see that?
Of course, there was a good chance they were both shielding. What telepath would have their mind open to other people’s thoughts when there were so many other people around?
One who hasn’t been able to properly shield in months. Mel’s melodic yet squeaky voice was a welcome presence in my mind. Shut down the hyper drive. You’re giving me a headache.
I exhaled over the course of ten seconds, willing my sense of time back to normal.
A garbled din of stretched-out voices morphed to something more akin to a clattering avalanche of pots and pans. A shoulder jostled mine. The corner of a graduation cap crashed into my head.
Erin? What had you wanted to tell me?
There were tentacles in the clouds, I thought at Mel, turning in the general direction I sensed her in.
I crashed into José, who, of course, stood right next to me.
“You okay?” he asked. Tears glistened in his midnight eyes and trickled down his sun-kissed cheeks. One snagged on the crooked tip of his nose. He clutched two graduation caps, his and mine, so tight that the scars on his knuckles were visibly stretched.
“Yeah. Are you?” I wondered if I should tell him what I’d seen. He’d been hunting Demons longer than me, but he also thrived on keeping school and the supernatural as two separate entities. And what if they hadn’t been tentacles? What if the storm had just appeared that way with the lightning in slow motion? I didn’t want to ruin his day if there wasn’t an actual threat.
“I’ll miss everyone.” He stuffed the caps under his arms and hugged me. While I wanted to celebrate because I’d made it out alive, he mourned the loss of a place that had been a haven to him for four years.
I leaned my head on his shoulder, listening to his heartbeat, trying to let his steady warmth calm the worry growing in my mind. José’s body was a rock in the sense that it was hard and athletic, but also because it anchored me when I felt as if my mind was running away.
Have you ever watched a storm with time slowed that much? asked Mel.
I shook my head before I remembered there were dozens of people between her and me. No. Do storm clouds in slow motion look like tentacles?
José kissed my hair and whispered, “Are you talking to Mel?”
I nodded.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s having trouble shielding. We should go meet up with her and the others anyway.” I stepped away from him and walked uphill.
Students, who wore white graduation robes, and their parents, who were dressed mostly in summer dresses, slacks, and collared shirts, were clumped all over Saint Patrick’s sprawling lawn.
José draped his arm over my shoulder as I wove around groups of people. The pressure was calming, lulling panic monsters back to sleep with its warm weight. I glanced up at the clouds. They were closer and darker. The wind sped up, stealing programs from a dozen people’s hands. The clouds lit up with lightning, but I didn’t see any tentacles.
Mel’s voice popped back into my head. I don’t sense anything in the clouds, and neither does Niben. I guess she’s been restraining the storm for half the ceremony. Perhaps you were seeing her power mingled with it?
Maybe. Some tension unraveled from my chest. I’d heard stories about my grandmother, Niben, controlling storms, but I’d never seen her do it. In fact, I’d never witnessed her do any magic unless she was modeling something she wanted me to try. She’d come on a few hunts, but she’d just watched with her unblinking feline eyes and later quizzed me on what I did right and wrong. For all I knew, her fabled storm magic could resemble tentacles.
A
lot of people are surprised when I tell them that I used to hate reading.
Because I am an English teacher, writer, and voracious reader, they assume that
I have always been a book lover. While reading and I got off to a good start,
for a large portion of my childhood, it was something I dreaded.
The
first book I remember reading and loving was called “My Messy Room.” I was four
years old and read it so many times that I had it fully memorized. Memorizing
the story and being able to see the words I memorized on the page was when
reading seemed to click for me. After that, I devoured picture books and even
enjoyed more “educational” reading. My mom would play school. She’d buy these
homeschool work books for different
subjects, and I was thrilled when before I started kindergarten, I was doing
first and second grade work.
However,
when I actually started school, my love for reading waned. I’m not entirely
sure why. Maybe the read comprehension worksheets we did were boring, or the
books we read had sad endings. The stories definitely were not engaging enough
to make me hyperfocus and sit still. When forced to read, I muddled through it
and understood enough. My test scores were always high when it came to English
and Language Arts, but when I had to do a book report or some kind of summer
reading, I’d look for the thinnest book with the biggest, most spaced out
letters. The stories I created in my head were far more interesting than
anything I read.
I
know I wrote multiple book reports each year, but honestly, I can’t remember
what any of them were about until later in middle school when I started reading
historical fiction. There was a series of diary style books written from the
point of view of middle school age girls from different time periods that sometimes
held my attention. I wasn’t until I got to high school and discovered fantasy
and science fiction that I really started to enjoy reading. Over the course of
four years, I went from being the kid who hated reading to a teenager who
stayed up until two or three in the morning several times a week because they
couldn’t put down a good book.
Finding
worlds that enchanted me and characters
that spoke to me turned me into a reader and writer. They led me to major in
English and study literature. They inspired me to eventually start writing down
the stories I kept in my head.
Author Bio
Sara Codair is an author of short stories and novels, which are packed with action, adventure, magic, and the bizarre. They partially owe their success to their faithful feline writing partner, Goose the Meowditor-In-Chief, who likes to “edit” their work by deleting entire pages.
If Sara isn’t writing, they’re probably teaching, swimming in the lake, reading fantasy, or walking their dog.
Author Website: https://saracodair.com/
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/SaraCodair1
Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShatteredSmooth
Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shatteredsmooth/
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15858102.Sara_Codair
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sara-Codair/e/B072L4C869/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
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