A new YA fantasy–enter to win a copy!
by T.R. Allardice
Publication date: December 15th 2014
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Fifteen-year-old late-bloomer Jean Elliott dreams of becoming a Genie like her mom. When her family relocates to Tokyo, Jean is forced to use sleight-of-hand tricks to fool everyone at school into believing that she’s a normal Preternatural or risk expulsion. When her power finally appears, it comes in the form of the Queen’s Gift–an unspeakable magic that strips power from all Preternaturals and heralds the arrival of the new queen.
After an absence of two hundred years, not everyone wants the monarchy to return and they’re willing to go to great lengths to keep the status quo. When buried secrets rip Jean’s family apart, she has a choice to make: Walk away and hope for the best or embrace the power that’s known to lead to madness in order to save her family.
Jean’s greatest dream has turned into her biggest nightmare and no matter how hard she tries, there’ll be no wishing the Queen’s Gift away.
Excerpt:
As I stepped inside the room, I felt eyes burning through the back of my sweatshirt. Was it too much to hope that it was Michael Cooper? I looked back. A Goth Fey was leaning against the far wall in the hall. His flame red hair, thick black eyeliner, and spiked choker clashed with the conservative uniform he wore. I hadn’t noticed him when we’d passed the Fey group earlier and he was hard to miss.
I elbowed Karen and casually nodded in his direction. “Thought you said all the Fey hung out together.”
She followed my gaze and paled to lemon yellow. “That’s Akio Takahashi.”
“Akio?”
“Yes, but he goes by Spider because he doesn’t want anyone to know that his father is a member of the Assembly. I think he’s embarrassed by it,” she whispered, then leaned closer. “It’s not really a secret. Everyone knows, but it’s easier to pretend that we don’t.”
He didn’t look like any of the spiders I’d seen in Illinois. “Spider, seriously?”
“Yep, no one calls him Akio except his father and close friends. But most of them call him Spider, too.” Karen hesitated. “I’d never call him by his given name. And you shouldn’t either.”
“Okay…” I didn’t get what the big deal was about his name. Tokyo didn’t have a corner on the market for weird names. There’d been plenty of strange ones at my last school. “Why is he staring at me?” Was this an ‘offend one Fey, offend them all’ kind of school?
“Who knows?” Karen shrugged. “Spider kind of does his own thing. He’s weird, even for a Fey, but I’ve heard his glam punk band rocks.”
My head tingled as I tore my gaze away. “He’s in a band?” I’d never known anybody who was in a real band. I’d only been around the marching kind.
Karen nodded. “They play around town sometimes. He’s the lead singer. I haven’t seen them, but I’ve heard Spider kills it on stage. To be honest, I don’t know him well, which I think is a good thing. He keeps to himself. And if you have any sense, you’ll give him plenty of space. You know how the Fey can be.” She rolled her eyes and flashed those dagger sharp teeth.
This from a Ghoul.
I looked back to where Spider stood. He was gone. Only a small cloud of purple fairy dust remained.
interesting blurb