What books have you read lately that sizzle? Any indie titles? I love getting great read recs! This Monday I’m participating in Indie-PENDENCE Day and it’s all about blogging great Indie Reads:) Stay tuned! Today a the YA Indie Carnival we’re celebrating the 4th with some fiction fireworks 🙂 I want to post an excerpt from Winnemucca, a small-town fairy tale since it’s book birthday is coming up on July 9! Winnemucca opens with Ginny awakening to her own intuition for the very first time when it “talks” to her through her feet. In this scene, Ginny’s intuition begins to move from her feet to her fingers:
The night that changed my life started off like every other. I listened to my strings’ stories in the same corner booth at The Pit. Dolly stacked glasses at the bar. If it were up to me alone, I might have missed my transformation. But, lucky for me, the boys in the band kept their ears open and knew when I’d taken the turn.
“Play that again,” Matt said, putting his hands on his hips, holding a drumstick in each hand. The boy-genius drummer for the house band, The Midnight Men, glared at my fingers, instead of my twins, so I knew he was serious. His boyish grin made me smile too.
I took a deep breath and tapped my feet to try and calm them. I imagined my bedroom back home, sitting by my picture window, the wild oats rippling all pink and purple in the wind. And when my heart stopped racing, I hunched over my vihuela, willing my fingers to do what they’d done to make Matt notice. But, the story didn’t come out the same.
Matt gulped down some Budweiser and placed his damp fingers over my eyes. A chill poured through my eyelids, invaded my skull and settled in my slightly twitchy feet. “Play it again,” he said. Something about the darkness calmed the twitchiness.
“Again,” he said still covering my eyes.
I strummed faster. As if the faster I played, the clearer the strings’ story would be. But, something unfamiliar flavored the harmonics.
Matt let me go and took a long drink of his Budweiser.
I felt like some idiot fan of his, grateful to be noticed at all.
“Here,” he said throwing a bandana on my lap. I picked it up and waved it in front of me, all dark blue with tiny white stars. It smelled like the wash on the line and reminded me of the eternity I’d spent in my own grime. It had been even longer since I cared. But I cared more than ever because Espy might walk in the door any minute.
Matt slipped the bandana out of my fingers, rolled it up and tied it around my head to cover my eyes the way my folks did with Anna and me and our friends at our birthday parties, just before they spun us in circles and turned us loose, bat in hand. Lizzy and I would make bets about who’d burst the piñata first. God, how I missed Lizzy. Even told Him so, hoping I’d baked the murderer out of me by now. Hoping He’d see fit to bring Lizzy and I back together again, somehow. Lizzy kept me company in the darkness, like she always did.
“Sometimes, the only way to hear what’s on the inside is to make the outside disappear,” Matt said. One boot hit the cement harder than the other on his walk back to the stage.
I played the riff blindfolded. And the earth’s rhythm played with my fingers, and a growing and a blooming and a withering visited them. Part music, part message from beyond. At times I couldn’t tell which was which. Even though my words sat with my heart in my throat, the ripening eased in me. For the first time. So after I played my very own song again for the third time, I pulled the stars off my eyes wanting to capture it forever, but I had no idea how.
It’s hard to believe I’ve been an Indie for a year now. To celebrate Winnemucca’s book anniversary I’m holding a $25 gift card giveaway, you can check it out here.
Want more fireworks? Check out what’s sizzling with the authors at the YA Indie Carnival here.
Click here to find out what’s new at the carnival this week!
Happy 4th from all of us at the carnival!!!