Scales: Book One of
the Fate and Fire Trilogy
By Amity Green
Genre: Urban Fantasy,
New Adult
Book Description
Book Description
Tessa Conley isn’t ready to go back home to Austin when her summer course in London comes to an end. She gets her wish as she steps into a new world of urban fantasy and mystery when she is transformed into a living gargoyle, complete with wings and a tail. Mostly human by day and gargoyle by night, Tessa is not alone in her new world with other gargoyles in the bookstore she now calls home. Bree, her best friend from Austin, is kidnapped and held in the UK. Tessa uncovers the mystery of her birthright, and learns what kind of monster she’s become in order to save her friend... if she can survive the horror her new life holds in store.
Author Bio
Amity Green was born in a small town in Colorado in the spring of 1971. She graduated high school in Kingman, Arizona in 1989. She started taking college courses in the fall of 1992 while working as a raft guide on the Arkansas River. Amity won her first writing award as an essayist in the fall of 1998 and continued college part time while raising her children and working as a haul truck driver in the mining industry. In the summer of 2006, she went to Austin, Texas to continue her education. She has studied Creative Writing and British Literature, including a stint in London during the summer of 2010, where she toured and studied theater and the history of English Literature. Amity returned to Colorado in late 2010, where she began her first novel, "Scales" which she outlined in Stratford Upon Avon while touring bookstores and playhouses. Since then, many of her short stories have appeared in numerous published anthologies and continue to appear in new publications. In 2014 she moved to Manitou Springs, Colorado, where she currently resides and continues to produce works of Urban Fantasy and Horror. Amity is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association and keeps steady attendance at local writers groups. A lover of animals, Amity is an advocate against animal abuse and assists with lost pets in her community.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amitygreenauthor
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmityGreenBooks
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmityGreenBooks
Purchase Links:
Brief
Excerpt:
Change is Fate’s little sister. Fate and I shared a long, hateful history, where Change and I were virtual strangers. Change can make you or break you, just like Fate. I’ve let them do both. The trick is to embrace what they bring.
I was nineteen the first time I killed another person. Blood dripped from my claws, and I just stared as he went. I stood over him, watching his paling face while sight left his eyes, breath left his lungs and his soul went straight to hell.
There’d been a time when I didn’t even like to watch such scenes play out in a movie.
Change played time like a fiddle while Fate watched me dance.
I hated to love my new life. Most nights I raged inside. Some nights I remembered the girl I was in another lifetime—a pastel-tinted, musical, lonely life in the sunshine. Those times were a few short months ago that felt like decades on the day. Sometimes I wondered if my new way of life was also my own, personal brand of mourning for the girl I used to be. . . .
And then I was set free.
* * * * * * * (scene break)
Enlarged knuckles burned as if my hands had been rubbed down with Icy Hot. Elongated digits were tipped with pointed nails that were foreign, save for being polished with my favorite fingernail polish. A button shot from my cardigan, ricocheting off solid wood. I squealed and ducked, covering my head with my arms. The burning sensation spread to my elbows and shoulders as the fabric of my sweater split along the collarbone, leaving bits of knit wool hanging limply from my wrists. The hook-and-eye clasps of my bra popped loudly across my back in unison to the waistband of the matching panties. My skirt slicked across my thighs, revealing a viscous grey-blue substance coating my skin.
“Ewwww!” I inhaled with a sharp snort and screamed. The only thing I could think to do was run.
After bludgeoning the door handle enough it relented, allowing access to the hall outside the study. The corridor was long, displaying huge, floor length portraits of dogs.
“Whu . . .?” I muttered, staring at the odd choice of the artist. I gimped down the hallway, my feet heavy, like walking with mud caked on my shoes. I ran a serious temperature, with too much heat burning in my chest and face.. I desperately searched for a way back out of the store. I launched myself toward the next doorway in the hall, and pounded at the thick wood there. A shiny doorknob landed on the floor with a dejected thump. So much for trying to open the door.
“Please help me!” I yelled, “Somebody open the door!” Wailing again, I balled my fists and hit the door with both hands, sending it crashing open.
Silence. Not even an echo returned my pleading calls. I sniffled, head twitching with hysteric sobs, and began to run as best I could, into the dim corridor.
The hall ended, offering the choice of turning either direction. Completely lost, I put trust in a snap decision and continued my flight down the hallway to my left. Incredible detail emerged, contrasting colors and shades of light popping to life, creating an echo of visible, layered dimension to my surroundings.
I slowed, lost deeper in the labyrinthine bookstore, considering the fact that I wore what I ran from. I hiccupped violently, giving in to morbid curiosity.
My hands were no longer my own. Scales covered the skin, reflecting charcoal and grey as I examined them in the lighting under a wall sconce. I trembled on elongated feet bearing claws for toenails, each tip glinting with crackled, pink polish. Muscles bulged within the plated skin of my calves, tapering to boney ankles. The fluid coating my body was drying, leaving behind glimmering, spade shaped scales that connected to form a tough interweaving of plated skin. The skirt I’d adored hung loose around my tapered waist, length abbreviated far above my knees, more of a loincloth than the previous statement of fashion and modesty. My cardigan was gone, apparently falling away completely in my frantic sprint from the study. My camisole remained, blotched with sticky fluid, clinging to a flat breast plate that replaced the curved features of my chest. A slender tail spiraled around my left leg, coming to a point on top of my foot. The tip twitched toward the ceiling.
No comments:
Post a Comment