Audiobook Blog Tour: Review and Giveaway -- Zoe & Zak and the Ghost Leopard by Lars Guidnard

About the Book
Move over Percy Jackson.
Find out what everybody is talking about!
If you loved Harry Potter, if you couldn't get enough of Percy Jackson, if you're wondering what to read after The Mark of Athena -- from bestselling author Lars Guignard comes the kids' magic fantasy
adventure... GHOST LEOPARD.

Zoe and Zak are lost in exotic India, where gods and magic still exist. Before they can find their way home, they just have to do one little thing...

...Save a mythical creature from an ancient evil that
wants to rule the world.

When Zoe Guire goes along on her mom's business trip to India, things get very weird, very quickly. An elephant god speaks to her from the bottom of a swimming pool... She and her classmate Zak get locked in a trunk and shipped off to a strange city near the foothills of the Himalayas... and a crazy snake charmer tells them they've been chosen to protect a mythical creature called the Ghost Leopard from an ancient evil that wants to take over the world.
As they travel deeper into the majestic mountains known as the Realm of the Gods, things get even weirder. If she and Zak want to make it back to their parents, they're going to have to tap into powers they never knew existed.
Because if they don't, things will never be the same for any of us ever again.

Book can be found at: Audible |  iTunes | Amazon  | GoodReads

How could this get any cooler?! Well to celebrate the audiobook release, the ebook version of Ghost Leopard will be available ON SALE for $0.99 (regular price $4.99) from September 9 to September 20. Please click here to order! 

My rating:

Zoe & Zak and the Ghost Leopard audiobook was an interesting listen. Zoe is telling a story much like a diary. She comes off as a mix of things: annoying, young, overprotective, overbearing, bossy, and often no fun.; whereas Zak is her opposite, he’s oblivious, troublesome, impulsive, imaginative, and outgoing. I think that this mix made for a good book. I have to admit that the reader did a very good job with her voicing of the characters including the Indian populations but sometimes I wanted to beat both the characters in the head. Zoe was too paranoid and Zak was way too impulsive to be healthy. I understand that the author wrote them as complements of one another and that made a good plot, Zoe is frustrated and wants to go back home and Zak wants to see what is around every corner.

Aside from the characters, I really enjoyed the plot as well, and think that Middle grade readers and listeners will too.  It is a history lesson in the culture of India but also action packed and fun. The characters are going after the Ghost Leopard and you learn more and more about the leopard and the characters as the plot trickles forward.  The audiobook narrator did a very good job of this, recounting different parts in the story as references and making those parts stand out to the reader. I found it easy to follow along with and wanted the recording to keep playing.

What I found most interesting is that it is a book about India and its culture and peoples. We get a lot of Egyptian, Roman and Greek themes for this grade range but this was a refreshing and new experience and I liked it very much.

I think this would be a great read for both boys and girls in the Middle Grade range and also for their parents to listen along too. It was a lot of fun.

Don't Forget to Follow the Tour!

3 winners will receive Zoe & Zak and the Ghost Leopard as an audiobook, paperback or ebook
It is open worldwide!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 
About the Author
Lars Guignard is a former film and television writer and a graduate of both McGill University and the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. His debut thriller novel, Lethal Circuit, has been an amazon top 100 Technothriller since its release.
Guignard has wanted to write Indian stories for kids ever since he attended a boarding school in the majestic Himalayas. The time he spent in the “school above the clouds” affected him profoundly, and once he returned home to North America he was struck by the lack of children’s stories from India available in our culture. Since India is such an incredible country, he decided
to write a series of action adventure books for young adults about India to introduce young readers to this magical, mystical land. So if you’re looking for a great book adventure for kids, try Ghost Leopard today!
American Film Institute in Los Angeles. His debut thriller novel, Lethal Circuit, has been an amazon top 100 Technothriller since its release.

Find the Author
Website | Twitter | Facebook

 

Trailer Reveal + Giveaways!: Deadly Kisses by Kerri Cuevas

Deadly Kisses by Kerri Cuevas
Publication: March 5th 2013
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

About the Book
Aiden Grant has a killer kiss.  Literally. And it’s not every reaper who gets to work with the Sixteenth President. Sure, Honest Abe likes to throw out history lessons with reaping assignments, but when you’re favored by the ancients, grim reaper life is pretty sweet for a newly dead seventeen-year-old.

Then things get messy.

Aiden is assigned to reap the soul of Bee, the only girl he has ever loved. When Aiden’s kiss of death fails, intertwining their souls, she is still very much alive and they are both in trouble. The ancients want Bee, who has special powers of her own, and they’ll do anything to get her.

Some rules are meant to be broken, even if that means Aiden must bargain with his own soul to save Bee. Who knew the afterlife could get so complicated?

Goodreads

Purchase Links!

Amazon

WiDo Publishing

Trailer!

Giveaway 1 Signed Book of Deadly Kisses and one original picture signed by the artist (8 to choose from)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Giveaway 2 (One Book Trailer good for a year)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
About the Author

Kerri Cuevas was born and raised in Rhode Island. She moved to New Hampshire in 2005. When she's not writing, she's chasing chickens on her small farm or searching for the ultimate mac-a-cheese recipe.

Kerri went to college for Early Childhood Education but now writes books for young adults full-time. Her storytelling stems from watching too many horror flicks as a teen, but she no longer needs to sleep with the lights on.

Find the Author
Website 

Author Goodreads 

Facebook

Twitter

Building the Book Pile #65

Welcome to Building the Book Pile! 
A Weekly meme inspired by Stacking the Shelves

Hello Readers, Bloggers, and Awesome people! 

Giveaways Going on NOW!        

   
Click pic to be taken to the giveaway!
Others may be linked on the right sidebar :) check them out!

  
What's Happening?!

Coming up on the Blog...

Blitz: Deadly Kisses Trailer Reveal by Kerri Cuevas (YA) 

Blog Tour/ Audiobook Review: Zoe & Zak and the Ghost Leopard (MG) + Giveaway

Blog Tour: Spotlight -- Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff (YA/ A) 

 

What I got this week...

EBooks

Covers Link to Goodreads

A Broken Fate by Cat Mann (Bought on Amazon- I couldn't help myself)

But that's it :)

Have you missed anything lately?

Last Week

Blog Tour: Review -- The Outside by Laura Bickle (The Hallowed Ones #2) (YA)
Blog Tour: Guest Post! When the World Was Flat by Ingrid Jonach (YA)
Cover Reveal: Paranormal Investigations series by Rita and TJ Webb (NA)
Review: Diary of Edward the Hamster by Miriam Elia (GN)
Cover Reveal: Toxic Heart by Theo Lawrence (YA)

  Comment and leave me a link to your Round-up post! Happy Reading!

Recent Reads: Echo by Alyson Noel (Soul Seekers #2)

Echo by Alyson Noel
Series: The Soul Seekers #2
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Available: Now 

 

Source: Macmillan Audio for Review
Format: Audiobook 

My rating: 

Goodreads Synopsis:

The second book in the Soul Seekers series about a girl who can navigate between the worlds of the living and the dead by #1 New York Times bestselling author Alyson Noël!


Daire Santos just saved her grandmother's life—and her soul. But at a cost. The Richters, a dark family of sorcerers, have been let loose in the Lowerworld, and Daire and her boyfriend, Dace, must once again work together to find them before they upset the balance between good and evil, and destroy not only their small town in New Mexico, but the entire world.

As Daire and Dace's relationship deepens, Dace’s evil brother Cade grows stronger than ever, building his power and forcing Daire to confront the horrifying prophecy that has brought them all together. One that will leave Daire no choice but to claim her true destiny as Seeker, but only by making an unthinkable sacrifice for the greater good of all.

Review:  
NOTE: If you have not read Fated, there may be spoilers...

Echo is the second book in the Soul Seekers series and the follow-up to Fated.  In Fated we learned that Daire is a Seeker and it is her destiny to rid Enchantment of the evil that lurks there. At the end of the last book the reader learns about the evil released during the Day of the Dead by the Richters and so the beginning of Echo picks up right there. Daire and Dace are hunting for the undead Richters in the lower world; all the while the lower and middle worlds are suffering from the undead presence.

Without giving too much away, the reader learns more about Daire and Dace’s connect and how Dace and his twin brother, Cade, came to be and are so very different. The Prophecy is coming to fruition and Daire is determined to stop it, plus make it snow in Enchantment for her friends. (The town has not seen snow in many years because of the Richter influence).

I received this as an audiobook from Macmillan, as I did with Fated, and I am glad I listened to this one versus reading it. There were times when I just didn’t feel like continuing the progression of the plot moved a little too slow at the key times but with the audio I pressed on in the car on long commutes.

I felt like with all the build up in book one about Dace and Daire being together there would have been more build up and hype once we got going in this book, but not really and even the intimate scenes were…well...kind of horrible and lacked emotion. 

[SPOILER] They are intimate and by that I do mean they have sex…but that is pretty much all it says. He liked the feel of her body, she liked his eyes on her…but that was it. I know this is not a raunchy romance novel but after all the build up of Fated, I was let down. [END SPOILER]

As for the plot, like I mentioned it was slow, but yea there was a lot of loose ends from book one tied up. In the very end though more loose ends were left for the reader. So far this series looks like 4 books (from goodreads at least) and I will continue the series. The ending of Echo was cliffhanger enough to ensure that.

I felt like the emotion in book one was more than book tow, but if you enjoyed Fated, who’s to stop you from the rest of the series. If you weren’t really sure about it, I wouldn’t continue.

Other Books in this Series

 Cover2CoverBlog Review HERE!

Cover Reveal: Toxic Heart by Theo Lawrence (Mystic City #2)

Another reveal for something I have been waiting for: The 2nd book in the Mystic City series. Didn't read Mystic City? Well you should! It is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet and it is SO good!

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Goodreads Synopsis:

A city in flames. A trust betrayed. A perfect love destroyed.

Has Aria lost Hunter, her one true love?

Ever since rebellion broke out in Mystic City, pitting the ruling elite against the magic-wielding mystics, Aria has barely seen her boyfriend. Not surprising, since Hunter is the leader of the mystic uprising, and he'll do whatever it takes to win freedom for his people—even if that means using Aria.

But Aria is no one's pawn. She believes she can bring the two warring sides together, save the city, and win back the Hunter she fell in love with.

Before she can play peacemaker, though, Aria will need to find the missing heart of a dead mystic. The heart gives untold powers to whoever possesses it, but finding it means seeking out a fierce enemy whose deepest desire is for Aria to be gone—forever.

Available: April 8, 2014!

Mystic City (Book #1)

Cover2CoverBlog Review HERE!

Early Reader Review: Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990 by Mirian and Ezra Elia

Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990 by Miriam Elia
Publisher: Blue Ridge Press, Penguin
Available: Sept. 26th, 2013

 

Source: Netgalley and Blue Ridge Press
Format: Ebook
 
My rating:


Goodreads Synopsis: 

The darkly comic musings of a deeply thoughtful rodent—the perfect gift for pet lovers and anguished existentialists of all ages.

Review: Edward is a hamster, he is a writer, and he is miserable. This is the story of Edward, really his journal and experiences as a hamster, a miserable, trapped, hamster. I read a few reviews and a few people found this to be a funny little tale, but I found it a little depressing and sad…poor hamster.

Edward thinks of the outside world as freedom but cannot find it in himself to break free and leave his captivity. He is sad and lonely and trying to make sense of his situation, a pet hamster.

Edward has cagemates but they are not always to his liking ad his knowledge of freedom often is a burden. I think this is why the story seemed so sad to me. Edward does not like his home, his pet parents, or his wheel/ ball/ or maze and yet he is trapped physically and emotionally to them all.

Most of the book was made up of pictures and short little entries and they were both cute and interesting. I was hoping for less heavy words from Edward.


View all my reviews

Double Cover Reveal: Paranormal Investigations Series by @RitaJWebb and TJ Webb

AH! So excited. I have been waiting for the sequel of Playing Hooky to be released for a while now and now we have a cover for it but ALSO a cover for another novella that fits in between books 1 and 2 <3

Yay!

Here they are!

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Taking Chances (Paranormal Investigations #2)

Synopsis:

Someone — or something — vandalized Jason's new shop. Smashed windows, a broken cash register, damaged merchandise are strewn across the floor, but the culprit left the money.

The evidence: bloody bear prints larger than any bear Jason's seen, black ooze that can eat the flesh from bones, and a missing employee.

Bears don't wander into busy shopping districts, turn off security alarms, and break into stores. When more people go missing, Jason and Emma realize the cops aren't up to handling the situation.

Something’s going wrong in the paranormal world. Can Jason and Emma fix things before someone else gets hurt?

Breaking Angelina (Paranormal Investigations #1.5)

 

Synopsis:

For ages 17+ due to violence, language, and some sexuality.

Powerless to silence the voices in her head, Angelina obeys their every command, even if it means ruining her college career, swindling money from her friends, or kidnapping and killing a siren so she can brew a love potion to ensnare the man she's crushed on since childhood.

The Hunter, a man-wolf-hawk chimera, drowns the memories of his murdered family in liquor. A tracker for hire, an honorable man who has misplaced his honor, a twisted soul with no heart left to care.

…until Angelina hires the Hunter to help her track down a siren and wakes him from his drunken stupor. What will it take to set them both free?

Guest Post: Re-Imagining Einstein -- When the World was Flat Blog Tour!

When the World was Flat (and we were in love)

Author: Ingrid Jonach

Publisher: Strange Chemistry

Release Date: 3 September 2013 in the US and Canada, and 5 September 2013 in the UK, as well as worldwide as ebook and audio.

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15767908-when-the-world-was-flat

About the Book

Looking back, I wonder if I had an inkling that my life was about to go from ordinary to extraordinary.

When sixteen-year-old Lillie Hart meets the gorgeous and mysterious Tom Windsor-Smith for the first time, it’s like fireworks — for her, anyway. Tom looks as if he would be more interested in watching paint dry; as if he is bored by her and by her small Nebraskan town in general.

But as Lillie begins to break down the walls of his seemingly impenetrable exterior, she starts to suspect that he holds the answers to her reoccurring nightmares and to the impossible memories which keep bubbling to the surface of her mind — memories of the two of them, together and in love.

When she at last learns the truth about their connection, Lillie discovers that Tom has been hiding an earth-shattering secret; a secret that is bigger — and much more terrifying and beautiful — than the both of them. She also discovers that once you finally understand that the world is round, there is no way to make it flat again. 

An epic and deeply original sci-fi romance, taking inspiration from Albert Einstein’s theories and the world-bending wonder of true love itself.

 

Re-imagining Einstein

I conducted a lot of research into Albert Einstein for When the World was Flat (and we were in love), initially into his theories and then into his life.

I researched his Theory of Special Relativity and Theory of General Relativity, which explained the connection between space, time and gravity.

Einstein was quite a character and reportedly explained these theories as:

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.

It would also seem that he was a bit of a romantic too from the above quote, which means he might have approved of my use of his theories in When the World was Flat (and we were in love).

It was mainly his Unified Theory (commonly called the Theory of Everything) that played into my novel though, after it captured my imagination as his self-confessed attempt to “read the mind of God.”

But Einstein passed away in 1955 before he could finish the Theory of Everything.

And, as an aside, I found these amazing images of his office in the hours after his death (via Time Magazine). 

 He died of an abdominal aortic aneurism, which had previously been operated on. He declined a second operation, saying that if he was going to pass away he wanted it to be elegantly. “I have done my share, it is time to go,” he said.

It led me to wonder what would have happened if he had managed to finish the Theory of Everything. This reimagined history is what I have explored in When the World was Flat (and we were in love).

You will have to read the book to find out the result, but I can tell you that if he had accepted the operation we would probably have a single theoretical framework that explains the fundamental forces of nature.

But we would probably not have When the World was Flat (and we were in love).

Author Bio

Ingrid Jonach writes books for children and young adults, including the chapter books The Frank Frankie and Frankie goes to France published by Pan Macmillan, and When the World was Flat (and we were in love) published by Strange Chemistry.

Since graduating from university with a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing (Hons) in 2005, Ingrid has worked as a journalist and in public relations, as well as for the Australian Government.

Ingrid loves to promote reading and writing, and has been a guest speaker at a number of schools and literary festivals across Australia, where she lives with her husband Craig and their pug dog Mooshi.

Despite her best efforts, neither Craig nor Mooshi read fiction.

Find out more at www.ingridjonach.com

Enter below for your chance to win one of two awesome prize packages as part of the Around the World in 80 Days Blog Tour for When the World was Flat (and we were in love) by Ingrid Jonach.  

There will be two winners worldwide. Each prize package includes:

• a signed copy of When the World was Flat (and we were in love)
• a pair of silver plated key-shaped earrings in a When the World was Flat (and we were in love) gift box
•  a When the World was Flat (and we were in love) bookmark

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The competition will run until 21 October 2013 and the winners will be announced on this page and via www.ingridjonach.com 

Blog Tour: Excerpt & Review -- The Outside by Laura Bickle

The Outside
The Hallowed Ones Book Two
Laura Bickle

Genre: paranormal YA
Publisher: Harcourt
Date of Publication: September 3, 2013

ISBN: 978-0544000131
ASIN: B00AUZS6PQ
Number of pages: 320
Word Count: 85000 words

Cover Artist: Shane Rebenschied


About the Book
One girl. One road. One chance to save what remains…

After a plague of vampires is unleashed in the world, Katie is kicked out of her Amish community for her refusal to adhere to the new rules of survival. Now in exile, she enters an outside world of unspeakable violence with only her two “English” friends and a horse by her side. Together they seek answers and other survivors—but each sunset brings the threat of vampire attack, and each sunrise the threat of starvation.

And yet through this darkness come the shining ones: luminescent men and women with the power to deflect vampires and survive the night. But can these new people be trusted, and are they even people at all?

In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, it’s up to one Amish girl to save her family, her community, and the boy she loves . . . but what will she be asked to leave behind in return?

The Outside begins where book one (The Hallowed Ones) left off. Katie has been kicked out of her Amish community and is left with a boy named Alex whom she saved and was the reason for her shunning and Ginger an outsider mom who is frantically trying to figure out what has happened to her family.  If you have not read book one, all of this is probably shocking, so go grab The Hallowed Ones and start reading, otherwise this review is going to get even more confusing.

 

On the outside, Katie, Alex and Ginger are running for their lives, seeking shelter in and on hallowed ground to keep safe but the undead just keep coming. In the beginning of the book Ginger is just kind of useless and annoying, she rides their only horse and is a whiney, crying mess most of the time. Katie is stronger than in book one. She has come to terms with the undead and how she has been shunned and is trying to live her life on the outside as best she can and if killing is in that equation then so be it. Alex is an interesting character, I honestly did not remember that much about him from book one, but he is strong and almost mysterious in the beginning of the book.

 

From chapter one the reader is thrown into running and escape and fighting for the characters lives and it only gets better and more intense from there. With undertones of the religion versus science debate and a theme branching from religion, I still found this book intrigueig. The characters are well balanced and I kept wanting to read on. Katie believes in  her Plain ways while Alex is not entirely sure- as a scholar of sorts. I found their interactions refreshing. Not wholly science and not wholly religious. 

I think that this book is a very good portrayal of the Amish belief system (at least what I know of if- which really isn't too much) but also of other opinions of religion (which I am more familiar with). 

I really enjoy this series and while I found it difficult to read it all alone in a dark house; it was full of suspense, twists and turns and I loved them all. If you enjoyed book one you will definitely enjoy this one too, if not more so.

~Buy Links~

BN   Amazon Print   Amazon Kindle  IndieBound

Powells    BooksaMillion   Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

 Advance Praise for The Outside:

 “Top-notch. . . . A horror story with heart and soul.”
—Kirkus, starred review

“At once horrifying, hopeful, and hauntingly beautiful, this gorgeous read with its rich textures and spine-tingling suspense kept me glued to the pages in utter fascination. Laura Bickle is a master storyteller.”

-Darynda Jones, NY Times Bestselling author of The Darklight Series

Praise for The Hallowed Ones

"This is a book to make you fear the shadows--a horrifying and gruesome tale of faith, and things that blink red eyes in the night. I began reading in the daylight, and read on into the late hours, leaning close, biting my lip. I could not look away; I was obsessed. Katie is an unbreakable soul."
—Lauren DeStefano, New York Times Bestselling author of the Chemical Garden Trilogy

"What an eerily believable, unique story! I can't stop thinking about it--or shivering."
—Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely Books

"Tight pacing, suspenseful scenes, Wow! moments of tension, and exposure into a world I knew little about, The Hallowed Ones is an exciting, terse read. . . . Laura Bickle's debut novel for young adults has quickly become my favorite dystopian novel of 2012. . . . It left me wanting more, so much more."
—readergirlsblog.com

"Readers will find it hard to put down this suspenseful, scary, compulsively readable adventure."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Katie's an original character, and her thoughtful rebellion makes her an interesting addition to supernatural fictions's gallery of strong heroines."
—Bulletin 

THE OUTSIDE

Copyright © 2013 by Laura Bickle

CHAPTER ONE

The hard part about the end of the world is surviving it, surviving when no angels scoop you up to fly you away to heaven. God doesn’t speak. But I kept asking.

“Unser Vadder im Himmel . . .”

My breath was ragged in my throat, my voice blistering around the words of the Lord’s Prayer. I spoke in Deitsch, the way my people always did when we prayed. It didn’t matter if evil understood me, only God.

“. . . Dei Naame loss heilich sei . . .”

I opened my arms, my coat and dark skirts flapping around my legs and wrists. I stared out at a field, holding a sharpened pole in each fist. One had been a garden hoe in a previous life and the other a shovel. The metal had been stripped from them, but they were still tools. Weapons. A crumpled piece of paper was fastened to my chest with straight pins, the writing growing faint and illegible in the gathering darkness.

Darkness with eyes.

“Dei Reich loss komme . . .”

I strained to see into the night. Shapes seethed. I knew that something terrible was out there. The bullfrogs had stopped chanting and the late-season crickets had gone silent. I heard crunching in leaves, saw something shining red.

“Dei Wille loss gedu sei.”

My knuckles whitened on the wood in my hands.

“Bonnet, c’mon!” 

My head snapped around, my bonnet string slapping my chin. I could see two familiar figures retreating behind me. A short, round woman scurried through the field. Her platinum hair was bright against the night, almost appearing as a moon bobbing along churning water. She reached a nervous white horse who was pawing at the earth, clambered clumsily onto its back. Between her and me, a lanky shadow in a dark jacket gestured at me with white hands. Alex.

Bonnet. That was Alex’s nickname for me. My real name is Katie.

Alex said that God did not rule the end of the world. Alex said the end of the world was ruled by sun and Darkness. By time. And time was one thing we had very little of. The light had drained out of the day, and we were vulnerable.

I saw Alex taking off his jacket, wading through the grass toward me. I swallowed. That meant that he sensed the same thing I did, that the hair also stood up on the back of his neck, that he was ready to fight.

He stripped off his shirt. My heart flip-flopped for a moment and my grip on the stakes slackened for a fraction of a second. His pale skin was covered by black sigils that seemed to blur in the twilight. It was cold, but for them to work well, the creatures pursuing us needed to see them —the same reason I’d pinned the petition to God to my chest.

I worked the prayer through my teeth, one eye on the horizon, at the roiling shadows in the east.

“ . . . Uff die Erd wie im Himmel.”

“Damn it, Bonnet.” He grabbed my elbow. He tore the white bonnet off my head, stuffed it into his pocket.

I snatched at the strings. “Don’t . . .” 

“This thing makes you a target. I could see you from all the way back there.” He stabbed a thumb at Ginger’s retreating figure on horseback, melting into the grass. “It shines like a beacon.” 

I lifted my chin. “Ja. Maybe it should.”

This was an argument we repeated often. Though the end of the world had come, I adhered to the old ways. I was born Amish, and I would die Amish.

But hopefully not tonight.

Alex’s eyes narrowed and he looked over my head. I could feel his hand grow cold through the sleeve of my dress.

“They’re here,” I breathed.

He swore.

Alex pulled me back, back into the tall grass disturbed by a breeze.

My breath hissed behind my teeth:

“Unser deeglich Brot gebb uns heit,
Un vergebb unser Schulde,
Wie mir die vergewwe wu uns schuldich sinn.”

I ran. I felt the grass slashing around my skirts as I plunged into the gathering night. The landscape slipped past, and I had the feeling of flying for a moment, of hurtling through that striped shadow in which no crickets sang.

But I knew that a more solid Darkness gathered behind me. I could feel it against my back, the way the air grew thick and cold, the way it felt above the earth right before first frost.

The last lines of the Lord’s Prayer slipped from my lips:

“Un fiehr uns net in die Versuchung,
Awwer hald uns vum ewile.
Fer dei is es Reich, die Graft,
Un die Hallichkeit in Ewichkeit . . .”

Evil hissed behind me, crackling like ice popping over a fire. I felt the thread of a spider web slip through the grass, breaking on my hands.

“Amen.” 

I turned, swinging the hoe in an arc around me. It whipped through the grass with the sound of a card trapped in bicycle spokes. A pair of glowing eyes leapt back, but claws scrabbled around the makeshift stake. I lunged with the second weapon in my left hand. The point struck home into something solid, and that something shrieked. I fought back the urge to shudder.

Nothing human made a sound like that. It was a sound like a bobcat wailing at sunset, mourning the loss of the day. Only this shadow mourned the loss of flesh.

Alex, ever the anthropologist, had a theory about that sound. In the calmer daylight hours, he speculated that this shriek had been at the root of the banshee myth, in an earlier, more orderly age. Once upon a time, when there had been civilization. I’d never heard the myth before, but I knew that inhuman sound all too well now.

The stake broke off in my hand, and I stumbled back with only splinters in my fist. Something swept up from the grass and ripped at my sleeve with claws.

I howled, smelling my own blood. The scent would bring more of them.

I twisted in its grip. The letter pinned to the front of my dress rustled and the creature with the glowing eyes hissed. It loosened its hold, enough for me to jam the ruined stake into its face.

I was no longer a pacifist. I meant to kill.

I was no stranger to death. We Amish lived close to the earth, under the watchful eye of God and all of his kingdom. I had helped with the butchering of pigs, mourned the loss of dogs at my kennel in whelping. I had stood at the bedsides of my grandparents when they died. I’d held my mother’s last child, a stillborn, and witnessed a neighbor die during child-birth. Those things had happened in normal life.

But when life stopped and God’s kingdom fell into shadow, I saw death in an entirely different fashion. I had dressed the bodies of women in my community for burial, only to be forced to cut their heads off before daylight’s fingers of sunshine had left them. I had seen children torn asunder, reduced to unrecognizable smears on a ceiling. I had slain men who were once like brothers to me, impaled them, and burned them.

I had seen too much. 

I had seen true Darkness.

My heart thudded against the fabric of my dress and the holy letter pinned there —small defense against the undead, but still a defense. I thrust down with all my might to jam the stick into the face of the creature twisting beneath me in the grass.

This was not murder, I had decided. This was doing the Lord’s dirty work. Putting the dead back in the earth.

“Bonnet!”

I glanced up to see a pale face with a gaping maw hurtling toward me. I saw fangs, red eyes, little else. I flung my right hand with my remaining stake up before me, but the creature slammed against it, buffeting me back to the sea of grass. I landed on my backside, my feet tangled in my skirt. Its cold shadow passed over me, blocking out the pinpricks of starlight in violet sky. It smelled like blood.

“Food,” it rasped. “Lovely food . . .” It reached toward my face, gently, reverently, almost as an intimate might. It was a very human gesture, rendered savage by the greed in the red eyes. By hunger for the blood that slipped down my arm and pooled in my palm.

“Get away from her!”

A black and white blur passed between me and death. Alex. From behind, I could see the familiar tattoos stretching across his skin: a Djed pillar, sacred to Osiris. And on his chest, an ankh made of scars, which he told me was the symbol of eternal life.

It was nothing like the carefully scripted letter pinned to my dress. It was called a Himmelsbrief, and had been made for me by my community’s Hexenmeister, a petition to God on my behalf. But any symbol of divine power behaved in the same way, the way that crucifixes and holy water did. God, in whatever guise he chose, did have some power over these creatures.

The vampire reached for Alex with an expression of longing.

“Food,” it whispered, with a nearly palpable sorrow.

But its hands were stilled just above the ankh burned on Alex’s chest. It was as if this was an invisible barrier it could not cross. The vampire froze in puzzlement, and I could almost imagine that some thoughts still rattled around its head as it had learned what was safe to eat and what was poisonous.

“Not food,” Alex responded. There was a subtle jerk at his elbow, and the flash of a silver knife plunged between the vampire’s ribs. The creature clawed, scratching at the edge of the ankh. I could hear the sizzle of his flesh, a sound like bacon frying. Black blood flowed over Alex’s wrist. He shoved the vampire down to the grass, and I could see his knife slashing, the black droplets of vampire blood clinging to the tips of the grass stalks like dew. I was still mystified by it, by its lack of redness, by its soft, inklike consistency. It smelled like iron, though, which was enough to tell what they had once been. Alex speculated that iron oxidized in their blood, darkening it.

That black blood was on my wrist. I smeared it against my skirt as Alex’s fingers wound around my hand. “We’ve got to go. There will be more.” 

I nodded. This was no time to contemplate biology or humanity. This was time to act, to move. To survive.

We ran, hand in sticky hand, sliding through the grass like ghosts.

I could see the bright helmet of Ginger’s hair and the stark white figure of the horse far before us. We’d given them a head start, which was good —Alex and I had the only really effective weapons against the vampires. Alex had his tattoos and I had the Himmelsbrief. They were more of a deterrent, Alex said, like spraying mace at a perpetrator. The startlement they created sometimes gave us enough opening to run away. Or kill.

“Where are we going?” I asked, casting my gaze about the dark landscape. It was suicide to be out in the open like this. “We can’t fight until daylight.” 

He shook his head, mouth pressed in a flat line. “I don’t know. The sign said that there was a church back there, but all we saw was burned timbers. Useless as shelter, if it was desecrated by the vamps.” 

“We’ll have to find someplace else,” I decided, nodding sharply to myself.

“How do you feel about sleeping in trees?” His face split open in a lopsided grin, his teeth white in the darkness. There were some at the horizon we could possibly reach, but none in the field.

“I’m quite sure the vampires can climb trees.” 

“Maybe not if we set fire at the roots . . . they don’t like fire.” 

I made a face. “I don’t much fancy the idea of being roasted alive in a tree.” 

“Reminds me of a movie, The Wicker Man . . .” he began.

I glanced at him blankly. I had never seen a movie.

“Never mind, then. I’ll tell you later.” 

Ginger’s horse was climbing a slope ahead of us. This part of the meadow wasn’t cultivated, and the grass and weeds swelled over this rill in the earth, perhaps five feet tall, stretching east to west.

My skin prickled. In the far distance, I could see more glowing eyes gathering. They had heard us. They smelled blood. I pulled at Alex’s sleeve and pointed.

Ginger had reached the top of the hillock. She was panting, and her glasses slid down over her nose. She was dressed as an Amish woman, but she was not one of my people. She was an Englisher, like Alex. She was an old friend of my family who had lost everything: her husband, her children. And she was the only part of my old life I had left. I clung to her.

The horse stared to the south. His ears flattened, and his eyes dilated black as obsidian. His nostrils flared, and his tail swished back and forth. He pawed the earth, pacing nervously. I had found him back on Amish land with an empty saddle, smeared in blood and with his former rider’s boot still in the stirrup. We had discovered that the horse had a sixth sense about the vampires. Perhaps he could sense them the way dogs could sense earthquakes. Or perhaps he was merely a nervous horse and vampires were everywhere.

Alex had named him Horus, after an Egyptian god of the sky who defeated evil. Ginger and I just called him Horace.

“They’re out there,” Ginger said, staring out at the dark and patting Horace’s sides soothingly.

“Ja. They’re coming.” I climbed up the hill, gazing at the flattened trail of grasses we’d left.

Alex scrambled to the top of the hill. Ginger and I made to rush down the slope on the other side, but he said: “Wait.” 

I looked up at him, my brows drawing together. “What do you mean?” 

Alex shook his head. He squatted, and squinted to the beginning and the end of the strangely squiggling formation of land.

“Alex. We’ve got to go.” Now it was me urging him on.

He slipped on his jacket. “We wait here.”

Ginger’s head popped up above the grass line like a platinum gopher. “What are you talking about? We’ve gotta get moving.” She tugged at Horace’s reins, but he would not budge. He stood on the pinnacle of the hill as if he were a statue.

Alex shook his head, and he pressed his hands to the ground. He was smiling. “No. We wait here. On the hill.”

I bit my lip. Perhaps the stress of running from vampires for the last several weeks had caused Alex to finally lose touch with reality. Perhaps he had some desire to make a last stand. I confessed to myself that I felt like that often. I hadn’t been baptized, so I wouldn’t get to heaven, but it was sometimes peaceful to imagine not existing in this chaotic world any longer. I didn’t think I’d be sent to hell, but I just wasn’t sure.

In any event, I wasn’t quite ready to test theology.

“Alex,” I said. “We need to go if we’re to have any chance of—”

“Do you trust me?” 

He crouched on the top of the hill, looking at me with an infuriatingly jovial smile. I felt myself frown, but I reached down for his hand. Behind me, Ginger sighed and scrambled up the grass bank.

We sat on the crest of the little hill, looking down, as dozens of glowing eyes converged upon us.

“We’re screwed,” Ginger said.

I didn’t disagree with the sentiment.

Those luminous eyes drew near. I counted more than two dozen pairs. My heart hammered, and my mouth felt sticky and dry. I fingered the rough edge of my makeshift weapon. I might be able to kill one vampire with it. Not dozens.

Jagged silhouettes of people pulled themselves from the grass, like spiders extricating from webs. I braced myself, clutching my puny staff. Their eyes swept up the hill. I expected them to rush to us like water in a trench after a rainstorm.


They reached up with pale fingers that smelled like metal. Their lips drew back, hissing, and I could see the thirst in their eyes. But they made no move to climb the hill.

I sidled closer to Alex. “What’s stopping them?” 

“Holy ground,” he said, grinning.

My brows drew together. I didn’t understand. I saw no sign of any human habitation here. No church. No graveyard. Just this oddly shaped hill that rose up out of the field.

“How?”

Ginger started laughing behind me. She turned on her heel and surveyed the sad little hillock. “I see it now,”  she said. She huddled in closer with us when a vampire snarled at her.

“See what?” 

“We’re on an Indian mound,” Alex said. “A holy site built by any one of a number of tribes in this area. They were used as burial mounds, ceremonial sites, astronomical measurements . . . some, we have no idea what for.” 

“How did you know?” It looked like just a rill in the land to me. A bump.

“See how it’s sorta shaped like a snake?” He gestured to the west. “It’s hard to see underneath the tall grass, but notice how it undulates in the ground?” He swished his hand back and forth like a snake swimming, and I could see some of the suggestion of a reptile in it.

“I saw a mound one time that was shaped like a big serpent eating the moon.” He cocked his head and started to walk off down the snake’s back. “I wonder if this one is like that . . .” 

Ginger snagged the back collar of his jacket. “No exploring in the dark with the monsters down below.” 

“What do we do now?” I leaned on my staff. The hissing and bright eyes below were unnerving. Pale fingers combed through the grass.

Alex sat down. “We wait for morning.” 

I sighed and knelt down to pray. I could feel the chill of the earth beneath my knees, dew gathering. My skin crawled at the thought of the creatures, only feet away. I shut my eyes, trying to prove that I trusted God. He had kept us safe so far. He would keep us safe as long as it suited his purposes.

That was part of what I believed —what the Amish believed. We believed in Gelassenheit — surrendering ourselves to God’s will. It was difficult, at times like this. I struggled to keep my eyes closed, seeing crescents of light beneath my lashes; I could not quite make myself trust the darkness.

“Unser Vadder im Himmel . . .
. . . dei Naame loss heilich sei . . .”

“Damn. I wish I had a harmonica,” Alex grumbled.

About the Author

Laura Bickle’s professional background is in criminal justice and library science, and when she’s not patrolling the stacks at the public library she’s dreaming up stories about the monsters under the stairs (she also writes contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams).

Laura lives in Ohio with her husband and six mostly-reformed feral cats.

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