Book and Author Details:
Silverwood by Betsy Streeter
(
Silverwood #1)
Publication date: March 15th 2015
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Synopsis:
A story of finding where you belong, even if it involves time travel, shape shifting, and hacking.
Helen Silverwood, fourteen, is sick of life on the run with her mom and her younger brother. Nothing makes sense. She doesn’t understand why she has recurring dreams of shape-shifting creatures, why her mother is always disappearing, and how her brother can draw things that haven’t happened yet. Most of all, Helen longs to know what happened to her dad—is he imprisoned, a fugitive, or gone forever?
When someone blows up the apartment where Helen lives, the stories of the ancient Silverwood clan—and her role in it—begin to unravel. All Helen wants is to feel like there’s someplace she belongs—but getting there will prove very, very complicated.
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25094985-silverwood?ac=1
Book trailer:
https://youtu.be/p2fWEyjCAok
Purchase:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NX4RDXC/ref=x_gr_w_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_ca-20&linkCode=as2&camp=15121&creative=330641
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/silverwood-betsy-streeter/1120408202?ean=9781611531190
AUTHOR BIO:
Betsy Streeter grew up on a steady diet of Star Trek, The Muppet Show, Atari, and musical rehearsals in her family's living room. Her habits of making up stories and drawing and painting on everything within reach eventually led to degrees in art and communication from Stanford University. She has worked in film and video production, design, and video games, and has served as president of a community theatre. She and her family are voracious consumers of books, music, movies, art, action figures, and musical instruments, resulting in inadequate storage space. Betsy has published single-panel cartoons, comics, art, and short fiction in paper, digital, graffiti, and tattoo form. She lives in Northern California with her husband, son, daughter, two peculiar and disruptive cats, and a mellow but hungry tarantula.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://betsystreeter.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/betsystreeter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BetsyStreeterAuthorArtist
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3453453.Betsy_Streeter
Light Messages: http://www.lightmessages.com/lm/index.php/betsy-streeter#Book1
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SILVERWOOD EXCERPT I: HELEN SILVERWOOD
(This is the opening of the book)
Helen Silverwood,
fourteen, sits dangling her legs from the roof of a twenty-story brick
apartment building. Her boot heels bounce off the wall in rhythm as she swings
her feet.
The noise of the city
echoes from below. Helen’s straight black hair
flies across her face in the wind. She peels it off and pulls it back behind
her ear with one hand.
With her other hand,
Helen carves a symbol into the brick with a folding knife. It’s a
circle, with a square in the middle, and a spiral that goes from one corner of
the square out to the edge of the circle.
Once it’s done, Helen admires her work.
She folds the knife’s
blade into its handle. The knife was a gift from Helen’s
father, Gabriel. It’s really much than a
knife; the handle sports a variety of buttons and a tiny screen. One of the
buttons, when pressed, lights up red and blinks on and off. This is the button
that Helen uses to record her journal.
Helen recorded her latest
journal entry a few minutes ago on this roof:
RECORDING
Hi Dad, It’s
Helen.
Sorry it’s been
a while, we were moving. Again. And I didn’t have a roof to get some
privacy so we could talk.
Currently, I'm sitting on
top of our lovely apartment building in this, our latest greatest home. It's
grimy and wet up here, and you have to avoid the puddles. I'm going to do the
customary carving of my little symbol up here somewhere, like I do everyplace
we stay. I like the way it says: Helen
was here. Helen was somewhere. Since I’m sure I’ll be
gone again soon. I’m not from anywhere.
When I woke up this
morning, I thought the bio reader in the handle of my knife was lit up and I
almost fell out of bed. You know, the reader that’s supposed to go on when
you come near. Well, the light from the window hit it, I think, and for a split
second it looked lit up. But it wasn’t. It’s
never lit up.
Mom has been gone every
night this week, every night since we moved here. She seems really edgy. The
kid brother Henry says so too.
I wish I knew what mom
was doing at night. All she ever says is, she has to go to work. And that her
job is to keep us safe, and that’s why she does what she
does. When she comes home in the morning she looks pretty rough, like she’s been
fighting. I’m sure you know all about it, but since this is strictly a one-way
conversation, I don’t suppose you’re
going to tell me much. Mom is going to have to tell us herself. That is, if we
don’t figure it out first.
I have my theories.
Theory one: She’s a bodyguard for some mob boss or musician and they tour around
and we have to follow. Theory two, which is better: She’s a
repo-woman. You know, a person who goes out and takes people’s cars
back when they haven’t paid for them and if
they fight she kicks their butts and takes the car anyway. Whatever she does,
it involves combat skills I’m pretty sure.
Henry has theories too,
but his approach is to interrogate mom which doesn’t get
very far. He’s only nine, so you have to excuse him, but he’s as
smart as any grownup. I think that bothers the grownups.
I’ve got
to talk to mom about Henry. He’s having a really hard
time. I mean he’s always had a tough time with all this moving around, and he
cries every time we pack up and leave. It makes my stomach hurt when I hear him
cry.
At his last school Henry
got in a lot of fights. And now he’s really quiet. I don’t
know, something gives me the feeling he might try and run away. I’m
worried about him. And he’s making more drawings of
stuff that looks… bad. That’s all I can think of to
say.
I say to Henry, someday
we’re going to stop moving around, and we’ll
have a real home, and dad will come live with us. And we’ll
have friends. And a real bed, not just some stuff on the floor. Someday, we
will be from somewhere.
I don’t want
to be too dreary, so I’ll end on a positive
note. Mom always tells me, say something positive. She says she got that from
you.
So here it is: At least
when we move, I get a break from the dream I always have about the big ugly
Tromindox creatures. You know, the ones with the black scales and the
tentacles. They look like if I could smell in my dreams, they would smell
really bad.
The Tromindox dreams don’t show
up for a few days after we move to a new place. Not that it’s all
that bad. The dream is the same every time – this slimy thing shows
up, and I turn it into a person, and they say thank you about a thousand times
and then they leave. That’s it. It’s not
a terrible dream, it just happens over and over. I get tired of it, even though
the people are different. It’s nice to have a break
when we move.
That’s my positive thought for today. No dreams. Maybe instead I
can dream about flying for once. Until the Tromindox catch up with me again.
That’s it from the roof, and Dad if you ever get this, I hope I
see you soon. We miss you.”
END RECORDING
Giveaway:
Blitz-wide giveaway (INTL)
- Concept sketches that the author has done, one of a Tromindox and one representing the Guild. These are originals and she can sign them to the winner (images attached).
- 5 iBooks copies of Silverwood
- 3 signed copies of Silverwood
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Wanderers
