When we were getting ready to release Bryony back in 2011, my daughter Sarah (who most of the social media marketing for me at that time) suggested I pull thirty teaser quotes from the book.
She would then post one each day on Facebook in the month leading up to the book's release.
But for some reason, I never pulled any marketing quotes for the rest of the books.
So now I am catching up, one book at a time.
Caryn Rochelle loves werewolf stories and promised herself
she would write the world's greatest werewolf love story before her eighteenth
birthday. But with the date just months away, Caryn has shredded more drafts
than she's kept and is feeling desperate.
But then she learns the town's most prestigious couple has a
dark secret: they're keeping a savage boy her age locked in their basement. One
glimpse, and Caryn's inspiration skyrockets. Caryn knows she ought to report
them, but...
Can it really hurt to wait until she finishes her story?
Now this book has a Jeckyll/Hyde-ish protagonist: the author and her main character, whom she based off herself.
This book also has three parts, which run together: the protagonist's diary, her manuscript, and her short werewolf stories (none of those quotes is from the shorts).
And look - Blogger kept the book font intact!
Finding the right quotes was challenging because the protagonist has, what my mother used to call, "a mouth on her."
First, I'm sharing one quote from the introduction.
Then I'm sharing three quotes from each of the book's three parts.
And finally I'll share a snippet from each of the manuscript's chapters.
Enjoy!
The Introduction:
The
waitress brought the bill. Dad reached for his wallet. It's old and worn, more
beige than tan, but hell, I was six when I bought it for him at Santa's Secret
Shoppe. (Stupid dumb spelling at the end. It was only the school basement).
The Diary:
June
Wanna hear
about my pretend friends? No, I’m not
crazy. They’re all real people that THINK they’re real friends because I let
them think that. It makes life easier. Mom threatened to send me to a
head-shrinker if I didn’t’ make some, so here ya go.
“It was the
best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity." I think Charles
Dickens was really writing about prom night.
Then he sits down and takes out his pipe and lights it. We all sit
quietly together, Dad smoking, Aunt Silly rocking, and me hunched on the wicker
chair with my knees to my chin, reveling in the sounds of the night and the
creak of the old wood and the smell of tobacco, a robust and fragrant smell
that’s hard to describe except that it smells like a hunt at night.
July
I think rain can add other moods,
too. Think of the desolate sadness you feel in a gray dreary rain. Think of a
storm of tears, where your face is so wet you can’t tell where the tears start
and the rain ends. It’s like the whole world is having a
long, lonely cry. And you’re outside walking in rivers of despair.
Would you believe even the meat
shoppe buys Aunt Silly’s jewelry? It’s true! A place that grinds up animals into
human food wants to sell chatoyant gems on delicate wire.
Traveling with Aunt Silly is a lot
different than traveling with Dad. First of all, she doesn’t drive a
brand-new Ferdinand XGE with air conditioning. No, she drives an old Mode 9.
It’s full of rust and dents, but it powers up like a beast and has a super
smooth ride. Plus, we both smoked our lungs
out all the way there.
August
There’s a
melancholy in August I can’t describe. Almost as
if my spirit senses the dying summer and silently mourns the loss.
Do you have
a Mom, Maggie? Was she a card-playing, chain-smoking boozer, or was she the
starched aprons, homemade chocolate chip type? Does it really matter – as long as the love is there?
The favor’s
most proper. But a
dishonest weapon disrupts the trend. A hypnotic
comet streaks the sky. I scoop and
scoop, but the fluid pours out and won’t go back.
The manuscript:
Chapter 1: Paw Prints
The moon
stays with me, every step. The tracks lead me to a house, open and vulnerable
in a little clearing all by its forsaken self, spotlighted under the moon.
Who would
build a house in the middle of an empty space and then abandon it?
The house
is old and creaky. The wind bangs the loose shutters and rattles its broken
glass.
My naked
skin gets goosebumps, and I shiver. I wrap my arms around me, but hair and arms
don’t keep my skinny body very warm.
Chapter 2: The Walking Stick
I tremble at the thought of wandering
through the open field, eternally lost.
As
I’m thinking, I realize I’m sinking.
I
sink past my ankles, and my heart sinks lower than that.
Where
is my Randy, I say in my soul. Where is the old, lonely house holding my hairy
beast boy?
Chapter 3: Not a Regular Drink of Water
If you can help me find the scientist
and where he keeps the aconite, I will be able to escape. I will be able to run
past the hill. You won’t have to come to me. I will come for you. And then we
can run free together forever.
Chapter 4: The Clock Man
A month is too long to wait for
another full moon, but so is sixty seconds when you’re apart from your wolf
mate.
But the world is full of people who
can bend the laws of nature, and many of them live near me.
Rosie is one. The Clock Man is
another.
Chapter 5: Magic Ointment
Before I leave, I lay the rowan cane
near the door before I lock it. This is not as easy as it sounds. The cane was not by my door when I
woke up, and the search for it was long and irritating. Finally, I found it.
This time the cane was at the edge of the property, past the old gardens, and
half buried by dead leaves. I wipe all the blood from the cane onto the grass,
give that naughty cane a good spanking, and then carry it back to the door and
set it in place.
Chapter 6: Liquid Silver
Overhead, the silver moon is molten
and melting. I think of rainy afternoons at my bedroom window, watching streaks
trickle paths. Yes, this is what I think as the moon’s viscous fluid oozes
down; a childhood that was never simple or innocent, a childhood that was now,
thankfully, gone.
Chapter 7: Where Does Your Garden Grow?
With a claw, Randy lightly, so
lightly I can scarcely perceive it, traces my face. He starts at my forehead
and proceeds counterclockwise. His claw glides and slides, turns and twists,
and I realize it’s dancing. His claw is dancing widdershins on my face.
Chapter 8: Turning Point
I’m wearing
my long white nightgown; my feet are bare and touching the earth. I’m seeking,
seeking. I’m still the huntress, but my prey is knowledge, the whereabouts of
the aconite. To ask its mistress to give up her secrets, I must approach the
mistress directly. I never dared before tonight. Pretense always works well for
me, but it won’t do now.
Chapter 9: Finally Free
Night has
fully blossomed by the time our feet touch down by my back door, and the wild
roses that grow up around my house wrap us in its spicy aura. The sky is
drenched in darkness, and all nature feels it. The stars aren’t whispering
their faraway secrets; the katydids and crickets have silenced their songs; and
even yard toads have stifled their shrill calls. This is what happens when you bring a werewolf to your
home on a summer evening.
Chapter 10: Under a Full Moon Rising
With no
regard for the pebbles embedded in the hardpacked dirt, I keep running and
running, over the sharp pricks of pine needles and shards of soda pop bottles;
my feet slip because they’re powdered with dirt, but still I press onward until
I smell the pink soap, golden baby shampoo, gunpowder, and blood.
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