Monday, 23 February 2015

The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea by Jeanne Gransee Barker Blog Tour and Giveaway!

Welcome to my tour stop for The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea by Jeanne Gransee Barker. This is a young adult sci-fi. The tour runs February 16-27 with reviews, author interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for more information.

About the Book:

Everything she’d ever known was a lie. Now Bea must find the courage to trust her own voice to save not only herself — but an entire planet.
At almost 15, late-bloomer Bea Parker has just discovered that her aunt, uncle and cousins—the only family she’s ever known—aren’t actually related to her and don’t know anything about her birth parents. Then a strange, high-tech device shows up in her room in the middle of the night with a note promising answers about her shadowed past. This alien technology takes her on a journey that forces her to leave behind Earth, and everything she knows, to meet her destiny.

Goodreads

On sale for only .99 cents on Amazon for a limited time!

Excerpt from Chapter 1: The Gift

Back in her bedroom, she pulled an XXL Bulls T-shirt out of the drawer and slipped it on. She stuffed the torn pajamas into the back of her closet. She would figure out what to do with them in the morning.

As her back hit the mattress, she felt a sharp pain in her side. There was a box in her bed. No, not a box, a present. Even in the dark she could see the sheen of the deep-pile, red velvet bow, feel the weight of the jacquard-print paper. There was a simple tag with a short note written in an elaborate script. It read:

Bayatrice,

Follow the initial instructions and this device will tell you what you need to know about where you come from.

It is of the utmost importance that you show it to no one.

That spelling of her name, Bayatrice, just like on the note with the papers in her aunt and uncle’s closet. Oh God, did her aunt and uncle put this here to make up for what had happened? Did they know she’d been out on the roof? No, they would be up waiting for her if they did. And she sensed they wanted everything about her past to disappear. They would never bring it up on their own. Why would anyone put a gift—a gift with her birth name on it—in her bed in the middle of the night? And how would they have gotten in? That thought creeped her out.

She hopped out of bed and poked her head out of the bedroom to check the front door. Leaning over the railing on the landing, she could see it was still locked. The back door had been locked. Maybe she was in shock and just imagining this.

Back in her room, Bea was almost surprised to see the package still waiting for her. Of course, Patty would have slept through its arrival. She would have slept through marching band practice. Whatever it was, someone clearly meant for her to have it. So what could she do but open it? She sat on the edge of her bed with her back to Patty and pulled one end of the bow. The dense nap of the velvet rubbed against itself as she tugged. The ribbon loosened and then fell away under its own weight.

The box wasn’t actually wrapped. It was covered with the textured paper, giving it not only an elegance but also stiff, durable sides. She lifted the box top and the bottom slowly slid out. And there it was.

But what was it?

About the Author:

I discovered science fiction when I was four. My father loved Star Trek, the original series. Every Friday night he’d make a big deal of getting the house quiet so he could hear the TV. The importance of it drew me in. And then I was hooked on other worlds, molecules being scrambled and reformed, and meeting totally logical aliens. As I grew older and continued to watch, I loved the idea that a story could explore our contemporary dilemmas couched in two-tone faces or hidden with green skin. Science fiction was the “gateway genre” that led me to fantasy and paranormal fiction.
I began my first novel at age 12. I still have the ring binder with the hand-written pages of OOTG-1 (that stands for Out of the Galaxy)—the story of the first manned expedition to venture forth beyond our galaxy. Alas, after about thirty pages my hand got tired and the crew never left the Milky Way. But that experience sparked a lifelong love of writing which has continued through my school days to the present.
When I'm not enjoying the alternate universes of my written creations, I live, work, and play Seattle, Washington.