This is my stop during the book blitz for Suspected (#2) by Rori Shay. This book blitz is organized by Lola's Blog Tours and runs from 20 April till 3 May. You can view the complete blitz schedule on the website of Lola’s Blog Tours.
So far this series contains 2 books: Elected (The Elected series #1) and Suspected (The Elected series #2). The Elected series is about the environment and environmental change and what can happen after climate change. It’s about a girl pretending to be a boy for the good of her country. Fans of Mulan will love this series.
Suspected (The Elected series #2)By Rori Shay
Genre: Dystopia
Age category: Young Adult
Blurb:
East Country upheld the laws. Mid destroyed them.
In the year 2185 Earth is rebuilding after a global eco-crisis. Countries maintain complete isolation so there is no warfare over scarce resources. One Elected family is chosen to lead each country for 100 years to ensure stability. Women aren't allowed to take office and must reproduce at all costs. Technology use of any kind is banned to preserve what's left of the environment.
And yet, I'm my country's Elected. I've just sanctioned technology use to ready us for war. I'm about to cross the border to spy on our neighbor. And...I'm a girl. Shhhhhh.....
You can find Suspected on Goodreads
You can buy Suspected here:
- Amazon
First book in the series:
Elected (The Elected series #1)By Rori Shay
Genre: Dystopia
Age category: Young Adult
Release Date: April 8, 2014
Blurb:
It’s the year 2185, and in two weeks, Aloy will turn eighteen and take her father’s place as president of the country. But to do so, she must masquerade as a boy to avoid violating the Eco-Accords, four treaties designed to bring the world back from the brink of environmental extinction. Aloy hopes to govern like her father, but she is inheriting a different country. The long concealed Technology Faction is stepping out of the shadows, and as turmoil grows within her country, cryptic threats also arrive from beyond their borders.
As she struggles to lead, Aloy maintains her cover by marrying a woman, meanwhile battling feelings for the boy who knows her secret—the boy who is somehow connected to her country’s recent upheaval. When assassination attempts add to the turmoil, Aloy doesn’t know whom to trust. She understood leadership required sacrifice. She just didn’t realize the sacrifice might be her life.
You can find Elected on Goodreads
You can buy Elected here:
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Kobo
Elevated Excerpt :
First time the two main characters meet
I fall into a fitful sleep, but when I hear a noise in my room, it jars me awake. The mid-morning sun is high in the sky, which must mean I slept straight through to the next day. I don’t make a movement, trying to assess the sound. It’s footsteps coming from across my bedroom near the window. I expect to see my mother or a maid, but the figure is a man. It’s too slender to be my father and too tall to be Tomlin.
My hand instinctively juts out from under my bed covers and finds the small whittling knife on my nightstand. I use it merely to carve wood, but it’s the closest weapon I have. I close my fist around its small handle, ready to plunge it into my attacker should he step forward. I lie in wait, at the defense. But then I think, if he has a weapon, he could strike me from afar. So, I gently lift the sheets off my body and step out of bed, now on the offensive.
His back is to me, and since my footsteps are light as a feather, he doesn’t turn.
I wonder why the guards at my door didn’t stop him, but I have little time to ponder because I’m now inches from the man’s back. He still doesn’t move. He’s got something in his hands at waist level. It must be an intricate weapon. One he’s getting ready to use.
I lift the knife higher in the air, ready to advance on him, when the thing in the man’s hand lets out a loud “Squawk!”
I falter for a second, the tip of my foot catching against a raised floorboard, and it’s in that brief moment the man hears me and abruptly turns.
“Hey!” he says, stepping backward against my window when he sees me so close.
“Get back!” Still, I don’t hear guards ready to storm in and rescue me. So I stand my ground, knife raised, ready to inflict damage against this man myself if I need to.
I look at him closer. He’s not even a man. He’s my age.
“Watch what you’re doing with that thing!” The boy’s voice sounds familiar, but I can’t think where I’ve heard it before. I concentrate only on keeping my ground. Keeping him in place.
“Don’t move,” I say. “If you do, I’ll advance. And show me your hands!”
“I’m not moving!” He raises both hands in the air, palms open so I can see they’re empty. I want to trust this boy. I don’t want to have to harm him with my knife. But it isn’t until I see one of my pet parrots fly off the boy’s shoulder and onto mine that I realize I know him.
I’ve never spent more than a second up close to the bird keeper, but over the years I’ve made a personal pastime of watching him from afar. The boy’s name is Griffin. He’s the son of my father’s veterinarian. Griffin is the apprentice, administering to the smaller animals around our house. He’s fixed the wing of my parrot before.
I step back but don’t lower the knife.
“What are you doing in here?” My voice is gruff. I might know this boy, but he could still be here to do harm.
“I didn’t know you were in here. If I’d known, obviously, I wouldn’t have come in to look after your birds.”
The parrot gives another shrill squawk. I study the boy for a moment. Close to me now, for only the second time in my life, I stare at him openly. The dark hair I’ve seen from afar falls forward over his brow but ends in sharp points around the sides of his ears, like he’s cut it himself without a mirror. His eyes are a deep amber too. Like fresh gingerbread cookies straight out of the oven, glowing and bright. He’s lean but relatively tall.
The one thing I know about him for sure is his gait. Since before I can remember, Griffin was the only male my age allowed into our house. He followed his father around, watching him work and then taking over some of the veterinary duties himself. I made an art of subtly watching Griffin to learn how a male my age moved and talked. It was one thing studying the masculine characteristics of my father, but it was altogether another to study someone my own age.
And then there’s the one time I did see Griffin up close, just for a brief second when I was thirteen, but the memory stayed with me for years.
I realize we’re staring each other down.
“Well, are you going to lower the knife, or do I have to knock it from your hand?”
“You wouldn’t!” I’m disturbed he dares speak so brashly to me. My eyes squint into lines. “If you come one step closer, I swear I’ll use this. What are you doing in here anyway?” My voice is rough from sleep, and I make no attempt to soften it. I want to appear hard right now—fearsome. Yet, Griffin doesn’t seem to fear me at all. In fact, he’s impertinent. It’s not something I’ve dealt with much in my seventeen years.
“I didn’t know you were in here. No one did, or they would have stopped me. You’re supposed to be in training right now, like your usual schedule.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not.” I practically spit the words at him. “What do you know of my usual schedule?”
“You’re not in your bedroom by mid-morning. That’s when I come in to feed your birds.”
I never thought who fed them each day. Knowing Griffin’s been in my room daily gives me a strange shiver up the back of my legs. I feel a sheen of cold perspiration erupt on the back of my neck.
“Well, I’m in here now, so you shouldn’t be.”
“How come you’re in your room anyway?”
“Not your concern,” I say.
Griffin flicks a strand of unruly hair off his forehead and takes a step away from me to the right. He’s getting altogether too casual.
“Get out!” I say again.
He ignores me. “May not be my concern, but your birds seem to care. No one’s fed them yet today. They’re hungry.”
I watch as he dares to move from his spot by the window and walk over to my parrots’ cage. He reaches in and softly smooths down the bird’s back feathers. I see my parrot arch its back under Griffin’s touch and bob its head in approval.
“Fine.” I take a deep breath. “You can feed them and then leave.”
Griffin scoops a handful of seeds out of his pants pocket and deposits it on the floor of the cage.
“Sleeping in?”
“Yeah, something like that,” I mumble. I realize the hand holding the knife has fallen to my side, no longer on the offensive.
“I didn’t realize you were allowed to do that.”
Something in the way he says “allowed” irks me. I sneer back at Griffin. “Well, I guess my schedule is allowed to be modified if there’s just been an attempted assassination against me.”
Immediately, I know I’ve said too much. In the second he’s looking at me, I see his eyes flash. But then Griffin’s face points away from me again, shielded by the birdcage.
“Oh,” he says, trying to act more casual with his voice than his eyes would convey. “Well, looks like they missed.”
“Looks like.” I saunter across my room to my writing desk, set the knife down with a thunk, and spin onto the chair so I’m still looking at him. “Aren’t you done yet?”
“Just about.” The coldness of his voice startles me. I’m used to everyone being overly nice to me, if not at the very least polite. Griffin’s conversation leaves me feeling unnerved.
He brushes his hands against each other, letting a few leftover seeds fall to the floor. “Done.” He starts to walk away from me toward the door, but halfway there he stops, his back still facing me. “You watch me.”
It isn’t a question. More of an accusation.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes.” He pauses. “You do. Have for years.”
My eyes are wide. How has he seen me watching him? Has he been watching me in return? This thought unsettles me in ways I don’t fully understand.
So who cares? So he’s seen me staring at him. Why should it make a difference to me? But I can’t fool myself. I do care. If he’s seen me when I don’t know it, what else has he seen me do? Have I done something genuinely feminine in front of him that he’s guessed my secret? As if he can read my thoughts, Griffin says, “I know what you are.”
About the Author: Rori Shay is a strategic management consultant living in the Seattle area with her family, black lab, and cat. In the writing world, Rori is primarily know for her science fiction trilogy, The Elected Series. She enjoys running, reading, snow-shoeing, pumpkin-picking, and right now…writing the third ELECTED novel! Rori is also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).
You can find and contact Rori here:
- Website
- Goodreads
There is a tour wide giveaway for the book blitz of Suspected. This giveaway is US and Canada only.
- a kindle ereader and a signed copy of Elected by Rori Shay
For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter below
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you so much for helping spread the word of SUSPECTED's release!
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