New Release Excerpt and Giveaway: IRON PENDULUM by Megan Curd (Periodic series #2)

Each day of the tour is spotlighting a different excerpt, so make sure you check out the tour schedule links at the bottom of the post!

IRON PENDULUM Synopsis:

A month ago, Avery thought the world ended outside Dome Four. Thought she was one of the few of her kind. Thought the war that brought the human race to the brink of extinction was over.

But a month can change everything.

After fighting to escape a tyranny she didn’t even know existed, Avery has had to come to grips with all the secrets she’s uncovered. But more secrets continue to come to light, revealing how little of her world she truly knew. When evidence starts to show that Dome Four might be under siege, Avery knows what she must do.

Returning to the dome she longed to escape is a challenge for Avery, but now she knows there’s corruption lurking in the shadows. A massive steam shortage leaves half the dome without power, and people are falling ill. Dying.

And they’re blaming Avery.

A month can change everything. One more month could kill everyone. The clock is ticking.

Excerpt:

Alice huffed, the sound sending static through the earpieces. The Alliance had provided us the new and improved masks, capable of allowing us to speak without lifting our masks and exposing us to low oxygen levels. It was a great development, one that Sari had worked on for months to perfect. One that was currently annoying me, since all I heard was a flurry of irritation at my momentary attention lapse.

I adjusted the map and clicked on my headlamp, its dull glow illuminating the wrinkled, water-stained blueprints in my hands. I traced the lines of our route. “I think we need to go left.”

“You think?” I heard Jaxon’s voice, not through the muffled sound of the speaker, but loud and clear beside me. His lips grazed the side of my cheek, not exactly kissing me, but dissolving my focus all the same. His musical tone sent shivers down my spine, even when he was being infuriatingly sarcastic.

Jaxon’s ability to breathe in lower-oxygen situations was because of his father, Riggs, who had performed research on Jaxon from a young age. While Riggs had been forced to do it by Xander—the man behind the Resistance, and the one responsible for the fact that we were living in hiding—I still didn’t have much love for Riggs. He’d hurt Jaxon, and that hurt me. It would be a while before I trusted Riggs, no matter what he said or how many times Lexie vouched for him.

Jaxon leaned against the cement wall with his arms crossed, his dreads pulled back in a standard leather tie. His headlamp sat cockeyed, as if in tribute to his off-kilter humor and devil-may-care attitude. I wouldn’t want it any other way, even though I knew he did care, and he wasn’t nearly as unimpressed with the world as he’d like everyone to think. He’d proven that when he’d taken a vial of my blood, allowing himself to be a test subject once more for the sake of learning more about my abilities. We didn’t know how the blood would affect him—would it hurt him? Give him abilities like mine?—but it was a chance he was willing to take.

AMAZON

About Megan Curd:

Megan Curd is a graduate of Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. While having always enjoyed reading any books she could get her hands on, Megan didn’t begin writing until a friend encouraged her to do so while in college.

When not writing, Megan enjoys spending time with her family and friends. Photography, traveling and snowboarding are hobbies she loves, and she doesn’t turn down the opportunity to play xBox with her brother and friends when it presents itself.

Megan currently resides in Ohio with her husband and son, where she is trying to convert them into Buckeye fans.

Links:

Website: http://megancurd.com/