It’s that time of
year again – SUMMER.
Shorts, flip flops, and sunglasses.
While the ice cream is thawing, the sun is
rising, and that summer heat is blazing, I say it’s about high time for a
giveaway! Wouldn’t you say?
And what better way to enjoy the beginning of
your summer than with a little reading? How about doing that reading on a new
Kindle HD?
Hello everybody! So, as some of you (or most of you) may have/might have heard, there is an AMAZING summer giveaway happening! The prize? A Kindle Fire! How awesome would that be to win?
As you might have guessed, I am participating in said giveaway. My debut novel 'Til Death Do Us Part is part of it! Interested in a little read? The list price for the Kindle ebook is only $0.99! Pretty good deal, huh?
If interested in my book, here is the link to the Amazon.com Kindle ebook!
To get you guys into the giveaway (and my book) here is a little preview of my debut novel!
*
Preview of 'Til Death Do Us Part by B.C. Doyle
Present Day
I didn’t want to admit that I
could no longer handle this anymore.
Somehow, I
could feel the blanket of darkness creep over me as I tried to process what was
going on at this very minute. Maybe it wasn’t the darkness that was consuming
me, but the beginning of death. No matter how hard I tried to block out the
possibility of my demise, I couldn’t seem to shake it off.
I was in no
position to fight back any longer, she was clearly the victor. Every round I’d
been faced with was for nothing. Eden was right. No matter how hard I tried to
fight death, it was truly inevitable. She would be given the grand prize, and
I’d be in the same position I was in just shy of three months ago when I was
fighting for my life before it was too late.
I could tell
she saw the desperation in my eyes as she stood over my body. Taking a deep
breath in, I saw my reflection in her sword’s blade. Adrenaline rushed through
my body, as I looked over to the crowd to see Lucas watching mortified.
He knew what
was going to happen next, just as well as I did.
Elizabeth
looked at me, petrified to make her final move. Her lip quivered as the crowds
encouraging chants provoked her to finish me off. “I am so sorry, Mary Jane,” she
whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear.
I lay on the
dirt-covered ground of the arena. At this point, I didn’t feel like I wanted to
talk any more. It was obvious what the outcome was going to be, and I just
wanted her to finish what she’d started. Clearly she was destined to become
immortal.
“You see the
guy up there?” she asked quietly and gestured to a man who watched her proudly
in the stands. She looked back at me and took a long, deep breath. “If it
weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. I wish it hadn’t come to this, because I
thought we could become friends. But only one of us can win immortality, Mary
Jane. And I love that man so much, that I’m willing to do anything to be with
him.”
Elizabeth’s
voice was shaky.
It was obvious
that she didn’t want to go through with this, but her reasoning was just as
valid as mine. The only reason I was doing this was to fight for a chance at
living forever with Lucas. If I hadn’t decided to compete against the others,
then I would’ve died when my aunt died.
“Elizabeth,
maybe there’s another way—” I tried begging.
“There isn’t,”
she snapped. “Don’t you think if there was another way, the both of us would be
immortal by now? Do you honestly think that I want to kill you? I thought of you as my friend, but I’ve got no
choice anymore. Without Alec, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“We can fight back,” I suggested shakily.
I had no
intention of getting up off the ground, but if I could try to convince her
otherwise then I’d do it.
“Fight against
Richard?” Elizabeth questioned. “Are you crazy?
If we rebelled, then neither one of us would get immortality. Then we would’ve gone
through all this hell for nothing. At least this way, one of us wins.”
I swallowed
hard, trying to collect my thoughts.
It didn’t
matter how hard I’d worked for this. The man she was in love with was the God
of War. With his help, there was no way that she could possibly lose. She’d had
the advantage the whole time, and I never saw it.
However, I
could easily pick out the fear in Elizabeth’s eyes as she clenched the sword’s
handle. All I wanted to do was curl up and wait for the end to near. But it was
the hesitation in Elizabeth’s actions, or lack thereof, which made the wait
horrifying.
I could hear
my heartbeat over my heavy pants as I desperately tried to catch my breath.
Elizabeth watched me in terror and her hands shook so badly that she could barely
hold the sword still. The crowd cheered with anticipation, waiting for the
battle to be over with.
I looked at
Lucas, who was now standing and staring at me, and closed my eyes.
This was it.
Just as I
opened my eyes, Elizabeth drove her sword into me.
I was engulfed
in blackness, with Lucas’s broken expression engraved in my mind.
It was over.
Two Years Prior to the Battle
“There’s got to be something you can do Hayden,”
Lucas pleaded. “You’re the only person who can help her. This is your realm,
there’s a reason why you’re the ruler of it. If anybody can do something to
save her life it’s you.”
Lucas’s distraught emerald eyes
searched Hayden with desperation.
“I simply rule the dead; I do not
return them back to their mortal souls,” Hayden responded, holding his wife’s
hand. Lucas looked between Hayden and Penelope, absorbing the care that they
had for each other.
“What if it were Penelope?” Lucas
questioned. “What if Penelope had got in an accident when she’d spent her six
months on earth? What would you have done then if you’d found her dead in the Underworld?
You would’ve bent the rules then.”
Hayden raised his eyebrows as he
listened to Lucas’s plea.
“She’s immortal,” Hayden finally
responded in the same calm tone that he’d had before. “She couldn’t die if she
were to get in an accident. It’s simply impossible.” Hayden’s charcoal black
eyes wandered over to Penelope, who sat content in the chair next to Hayden.
Penelope looked at Hayden in a
sympathetic way. Her hazel eyes were full of pity and sorrow for Lucas’s loss.
Just by her expression, Hayden knew whose side she was on. He intertwined his
pale fingers in hers tightly in comfort.
Lucas’s eyes were full of despair
as he waited for a proposition.
“I will only bend the rules once,”
Hayden said firmly. “The best I can do to help her is bind her life to a
caretaker. However, if the caretaker falls ill and dies, the girl will die as
well. I must warn you that the consequences of pulling her out of this realm
are not promising.”
Lucas looked at Hayden. “The only
family Mary had left was her parents. They both died rather instantly in the
car accident. She doesn’t have caretaker.” Lucas took a ragged breath as he
looked at Hayden.
Hayden saw his broken expression,
and looked at Penelope. It was obvious that Lucas’s spirits had been crushed,
just by looking at his unusual pale face. Lucas’s hands were shaking as he
stared wide-eyed for some sort of extension on their deal.
“Hayden, he loves her,”
Penelope’s honey sweet voice intervened. She looked at her husband’s stone cold
face, knowing that if anybody could crack him it was her. She brushed her hand
against Hayden’s cheek, supporting Lucas. “He’s your nephew, Hayden. He’s
family. Can’t you tell how devastated he is?”
Hayden sighed heavily. “Without a
caretaker, I can’t save her. It isn’t that I wouldn’t help if I could, it’s
that there is nobody I can bind her life to.”
“Make her a caretaker,” Lucas
said aloud without processing it first.
“I cannot do that without my
brother’s permission,” Hayden said apologetically. “Creating another soul is
beyond me. If you get your father’s permission, then I will help. Without it,
the girl will be trapped in this realm for eternity.”
Lucas’s heartbeat quickened
erratically.
“Eternity,” Luke whispered to
himself.
Something about the word brought
a little more color to his face. Penelope stared curiously at him, waiting for
an explanation.
“There’s another option,” Lucas
whispered. He looked up at Hayden and Penelope with a glimmer of hope on his
face. His eyes lit up as he added, “Immortality.”
Penelope was taken by the
thought. “You’re suggesting she transition into one of us?” Penelope’s voice
was full of doubt. “Lucas, you’d be better off getting permission from your
father to create a caretaker. That way she’s got a chance at living. You’d be
taking risks that you can easily regret if you propose immortality.”
“But what if I can do both?”
Lucas asked.
“How so?” Penelope asked sweetly.
“If my father agrees to create a
caretaker for Mary, I can propose immortality if anything goes wrong in the
future,” Lucas explained. “The only thing Mary has to do is impress him and his
wife. It’s not like he hasn’t given mortals the ability to become immortal.”
Penelope looked at Lucas and
shook her head. “She’s only fifteen, Lucas. Either way this turns out, she
won’t be the same girl you know and love. If she gets pulled out of the
underworld, she won’t remember you. It’s like being reincarnated with a
different mind, only she gets to keep her soul and body.”
Hayden stepped in once more, his
voice low. “What if your father doesn’t agree to this? If that’s the case,
you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. Immortality doesn’t suit
everybody. Your father has always been good when it comes to seeing who can or
can’t handle it. If Mary doesn’t get the approval, then you’d only become more
upset than you are now. Mary will be better off here anyway. I can even assure
you she’d be put in paradise, if that’s what it takes to make you happy.”
Lucas looked at Hayden with
anger-filled eyes. “You’re telling me that I should just give up on the girl
that I love? You’re telling me that instead of fighting for her life, I should
just leave her here for eternity? What if my father agrees? Then it’d be a risk
worth taking.”
Penelope stood up, her floor
length dress flowing in the breeze as she walked over to Lucas, and put her
porcelain hand on his shoulder.
“If you love her, do what you
need to do,” she said quietly.
Penelope looked back at Hayden,
who was looking calm as ever in his chair.
“It’s obvious that you want to be
her hero. Just keep in mind that there’s not always a happy ever after, okay? I
promise, we promise,” she gestured
towards Hayden and herself, “that if anything goes wrong, Mary will end up in
paradise.”
Her warm smile comforted Lucas.
Just as he was about to leave,
Hayden stood up and joined Penelope. He held her hand gently, as the two
watched Lucas. His voice was firm as he said, “We wish you the best of luck.
Mary will be in good hands until you return.”
As Lucas left the realm, his body was engulfed
in the dark. His mind was set on one thing; bringing Mary back from the dead.
*
So now that you got a good taste of 'Til Death Do Us Part, how about we move on?
Today's summer word is: [WAVES]
* Tomorrow's blog stop is Sandra Bischoff ! Her blog link is: *
Now for the moment you have been waiting for!
Today's summer word is: [WAVES]
* Tomorrow's blog stop is Sandra Bischoff ! Her blog link is: *
Now for the moment you have been waiting for!
I N T E R N A T I O N A L
Ends June 30th – 12:00 AM EST
