Welcome to the blog tour for Ignite The Shadows by Ingrid Seymour. Isn't the cover of it awesome!! I'm excited to be able to share an excerpt of the book below and I hope you enjoy. Don't forget to enter the giveaway and check out the rest of the stops HERE.
Ignite The Shadows by Ingrid Seymour
(Ignite The Shadows #1)
Published by: HarperVoyager
Publication date: April 23rd 2015
Genres: Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Marci Guerrero is one of the best teen hackers in Seattle. However, she’d give up all her talents to know she isn’t crazy.Marci feels possessed by what she perceives as shadowy spectres that take control of her body and make her do crazy things. While spying on the clandestine group known as IgNiTe, she’s confronted by the leader, James McCray. His presence stirs the spectres inside her brain into a maddening frenzy. Her symptoms and ability to control them don’t go unnoticed by James, who soon recruits her and shows her the awful truth.Half of the world’s population is infected by sentient parasites. They bind themselves to the human brain and replace the pathways for all thoughts and actions. The creatures then morph their hosts into grotesque monsters with extraordinary strengths. Winged, clawed, fanged half-humans become living nightmares. Now Marci wishes she was crazy, because the truth is worse.She’s infected.
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Excerpt:
Something totally shifts inside my head, and I rev the bike even more. Complete recklessness. As we whiz by a dark street, a blue light flashes, followed by the whine of a siren.
“You really messed up this time,” Xave says and his words are carried away by the wind.
The needle in the speedometer pushes above eighty and keeps on. I’m going faster than I’ve ever dared in the city. If there wasn’t something maniacal possessing me, I might even enjoy the ride, the chill in the air and the speed. But I’m terrified.
We speed for a few blocks and I dare hope we’ve left the cop behind, but I’m fooling myself. He can go from zero to screwing-up-our-lives faster than I can. He’ll catch up soon. He’s got his radio.
Suddenly, we take a sharp turn. We barely slow down and still we make it around the corner, missing a parked car by a few inches and eliciting a cry from a bystander. This goes beyond my skills. I haven’t been riding bikes that long. I learn fast, always have, but this feels like something else.
Something else entirely.
I crisscross through alleys and streets I don’t recognize. Some fancy part of town. We’ve lost the cop. As my panic dies down a bit, I try to regain control of my body. I can do it. I’ve done it before. I just need to concentrate.
Concentrate!
As I struggle to find myself, everything goes blank. Suddenly, I can’t see, hear or feel anything. Panic gains a new level. I try to focus, reaching out for my self-awareness. Nothing happens. Everything feels different, far away and utterly desolate. I can’t find myself. I’m right here and I can’t find myself. Desperation sets in. I whirl in an empty space, trying to claim my body and my very mind. But everything is gone.
All my senses are gone. Yet somehow, I know I’m here, pushed to a corner where I’m tiny and inconsequential. I’m weightless. A plundered body, a consciousness without gray matter, nerve endings or synapses. A wisp of nothing.
What is this?
Then I understand. The shadows have won. I’ve lost total control like never before. My brain, my body are gone. I have been … replaced, as if the code that makes me who I am has been erased by a flawless hack. Something else fuels me, and I realize that my lifelong fears are far worse than I’ve imagined. I’m still alive. This thing didn’t kill me. It made me a prisoner, and it’s worse than a thousand deaths at the blade-end of a thousand knives.
No, no, no!
Rage boils fire-red in my secluded corner. This can’t be happening. Not to me. I’m strong. I’m Brian Scott Guerrero’s daughter. I don’t give up. He was a fighter, a decorated officer, a doctor in combat. Brave as a mountain against a blizzard. I’m like him. I’m like him.
With what little I’ve become, I picture a strong body. It has claws instead of hands. I imagine myself tearing through this quiet bubble. I punch and punch until my claws pierce through something. With all my strength, I drag down, ripping, tearing my prison.
Shadows flow into my space and swarm, attacking my imagined claws. But I’m ready for them, ready to let what’s left of me morph, fluid like water. My claws turn to knives that stab, guns that shoot, beams of light that cut through the darkness. Shapeless, changing thoughts. That’s the key. I learned this a long time ago, before I had enough reason to know what I was doing. The specters shriek as I burst into the light. They grasp for my thoughts, but I force them to morph, concentrating on nothing specific…
Excerpt:
Something totally shifts inside my head, and I rev the bike even more. Complete recklessness. As we whiz by a dark street, a blue light flashes, followed by the whine of a siren.
“You really messed up this time,” Xave says and his words are carried away by the wind.
The needle in the speedometer pushes above eighty and keeps on. I’m going faster than I’ve ever dared in the city. If there wasn’t something maniacal possessing me, I might even enjoy the ride, the chill in the air and the speed. But I’m terrified.
We speed for a few blocks and I dare hope we’ve left the cop behind, but I’m fooling myself. He can go from zero to screwing-up-our-lives faster than I can. He’ll catch up soon. He’s got his radio.
Suddenly, we take a sharp turn. We barely slow down and still we make it around the corner, missing a parked car by a few inches and eliciting a cry from a bystander. This goes beyond my skills. I haven’t been riding bikes that long. I learn fast, always have, but this feels like something else.
Something else entirely.
I crisscross through alleys and streets I don’t recognize. Some fancy part of town. We’ve lost the cop. As my panic dies down a bit, I try to regain control of my body. I can do it. I’ve done it before. I just need to concentrate.
Concentrate!
As I struggle to find myself, everything goes blank. Suddenly, I can’t see, hear or feel anything. Panic gains a new level. I try to focus, reaching out for my self-awareness. Nothing happens. Everything feels different, far away and utterly desolate. I can’t find myself. I’m right here and I can’t find myself. Desperation sets in. I whirl in an empty space, trying to claim my body and my very mind. But everything is gone.
All my senses are gone. Yet somehow, I know I’m here, pushed to a corner where I’m tiny and inconsequential. I’m weightless. A plundered body, a consciousness without gray matter, nerve endings or synapses. A wisp of nothing.
What is this?
Then I understand. The shadows have won. I’ve lost total control like never before. My brain, my body are gone. I have been … replaced, as if the code that makes me who I am has been erased by a flawless hack. Something else fuels me, and I realize that my lifelong fears are far worse than I’ve imagined. I’m still alive. This thing didn’t kill me. It made me a prisoner, and it’s worse than a thousand deaths at the blade-end of a thousand knives.
No, no, no!
Rage boils fire-red in my secluded corner. This can’t be happening. Not to me. I’m strong. I’m Brian Scott Guerrero’s daughter. I don’t give up. He was a fighter, a decorated officer, a doctor in combat. Brave as a mountain against a blizzard. I’m like him. I’m like him.
With what little I’ve become, I picture a strong body. It has claws instead of hands. I imagine myself tearing through this quiet bubble. I punch and punch until my claws pierce through something. With all my strength, I drag down, ripping, tearing my prison.
Shadows flow into my space and swarm, attacking my imagined claws. But I’m ready for them, ready to let what’s left of me morph, fluid like water. My claws turn to knives that stab, guns that shoot, beams of light that cut through the darkness. Shapeless, changing thoughts. That’s the key. I learned this a long time ago, before I had enough reason to know what I was doing. The specters shriek as I burst into the light. They grasp for my thoughts, but I force them to morph, concentrating on nothing specific…
AUTHOR BIO:Ingrid Seymour is the author of IGNITE THE SHADOWS (Harper Voyager). When she’s not writing books, she spends her time working as a software engineer, cooking exotic recipes, hanging out with her family and working out. She writes young adult and new adult fiction in a variety of genres, including Sci-Fi, urban fantasy, romance, paranormal and horror.
Her favorite outings involve a trip to the library or bookstore where she immediately gravitates toward the YA section. She’s an avid reader and fangirl of many amazing books. She is a dreamer and a fighter who believes perseverance and hard work can make dreams come true.
She lives in Birmingham, AL with her husband, two kids and a cat named Mimi.
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Thanks for sharing, Natalie! :)
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome :)
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