Title: EDGE: A Young Adult/New Adult Paranormal Collection
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Young Adult
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Young Adult
Publication date: April 5th 2016
BLURB supplied by Xpresso Book Tours
Limited Edition Paranormal Boxed Set
20 New York Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling Authors.
20 of today’s most magical, sought-after titles.
Yours for only $0.99.
Twenty Edgy Young Adult & New Adult Paranormal Tales
Twenty of today’s favorite young adult and new adult authors have come together to bring you a collection packed with full-length, spellbinding reads sure to keep you keep you on the edge of your seat and up way past your bedtime!
But reader beware: These novels take everything to the edge–and not just the edge of your seat. With authors who aren’t afraid to push the boundaries, you get stories that take everything to limit, creating whimsical reads that teens can actually relate to and that adults can enjoy, too.
Save over $50! This set is only available at this price for a limited time, so scroll up and grab your copy before it’s gone!
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EXCERPTS
Mary Hades by Sarah Dalton
Excerpt
The whiskey, and Seth’s company, has elicited
whatever happy hormones needed to help me slip into a state of relaxation. I
lean back in my seat and tilt my head to the sky. On any other night I hate to
look up at the stars. I hate to be reminded that we’re in this huge universe
that we don’t understand, and we’re a speck of insignificance on a great big
piece of rock circling around a ginormous lump of fire. Tonight, I could get
lost in space. I could stare up at the moon all night.
“Shooting star?” Seth asks.
“No, an aeroplane,” I reply.
“Somewhere you want to go?” he asks.
I turn my eyes back to him. We hold gaze. “No.”
No smiles. No impish grin. Instead—his eyes on
mine. His eyes coming closer, until I feel as though his eyelashes might graze
my cheek. His lips near mine. The scent of musk, whiskey and smoke. Sweet.
Sweet scent. Him.
Jolt.
Groan.
The wheel stops. We break apart and laugh.
“Looks like Damo’s giving us a little
sightseeing time,” Seth says. He pushes his fingers into his lush hair. There’s
a ring on his right hand. The silver of it catches one of the flashing lights,
so that it turns green, and then yellow. “You haven’t told me why you’re here?
You local?”
“I’m on holiday,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “And you came to Nettleby?”
What I don’t tell him is that I’m with my
parents. That would be even more embarrassing.
“Are you local?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh.
“Maybe you could show me around?” Mary, what on Earth are you doing?
He grins. “Sure.
He moves a little closer and wraps his arm
around my shoulder, pausing not once but twice, as though almost changing his
mind. There’s a slight flush of pink on his cheeks. It could be nerves, or it
could be the whiskey. Lacey would be proud of me. For the first time ever, I’m
on a normal date with a great guy, and it’s going well. There aren’t any
Things, or ghosts, or people with psychiatric issues. There is me and
Seth—alone.
Warm, fuzzy feelings spread through my arms as
I lean into him. We stay silent for a while, watching the lights from the
campsite. Beyond the fairground I know there’s a forest, but it’s now a black
fade in the night. The fairground is dark, with the occasional torch light and
one or two flood lights to help the men as they lock up for the night.
“Damo’s taking his time,” Seth says. His eyes
narrow with concern.
“Something the matter?” I ask. We do seem to
have been still for a while.
“I dunno,” Seth says. He turns in his seat so
that he’s leaning over the ledge, and pulls his arm out from under me. Cupping
his hands around his mouth he yells, “Damo! Hey, Damo. What’s going on, mate?
You gonna get this thing started or what?”
A chill runs through me. Am I such bad company?
Does he want to get rid of me? To get this date over and done with?
“Sorry,” he says, turning back to me. “I get a
little nervous with these rides. When you know how they work, you know how much
can go wrong.”
“Oh, okay.” I think back to his safety conscious
worrying over the safety bar. Wow, a carnie who cares about welfare, that’s a
first.
I glance at my watch. 11:30pm, time flies. I
should try to get home before midnight so that the ‘rents don’t have
simultaneous coronaries. When I realise that this is going to end soon, heavy
weights pull at my stomach. I like being with Seth.
The wheel lurches forward with a groan.
“There, it’s—” My blood runs cold. The Ferris
wheel jerks forward, no longer running smoothly like it did on the way up, but
worse than that, worse than the possible failure of the ride, I see a dark
shadow, and then I see it.
“No,” I mutter without meaning to.
“What’s wrong?” Seth says.
I shake my head. This can’t be happening now,
not on the first date that has made me feel normal.
It crawls up the ride.
Bony fingers cling to the metal framework.
An x-ray of bones shine through its skin. I
lean forward and grip the safety bar with my fingers, gripping so hard that the
whites of my knuckles protrude through my skin, like the bones of the Thing climbing up to me.
“What do you want?” I whisper.
“What did you say?” Seth asks.
“Nothing,” I reply.
“Are you all right? You look a little pale?
It’s the ride, isn’t it? Don’t worry, it gets a bit stiff sometimes, when it’s
been inactive for a few minutes. Did I frighten you with what I said? Honestly,
it’s fine. Damo knows how to—”
Screeeeeech.
The ride stops so abruptly that I’m thrust
forward against the safety bar. My head snaps forward, painfully. One of the
bears slips from my grasp and hurtles down towards the black ground below.
“Shit.” Seth grabs hold of my shoulders and
pulls me back against the seat. “That’s never happened before. Are you all
right?”
The Thing
is gone. It has passed on the warning, showing me its hideous face. Now I have
to wait for whatever horrible event is about to happen.
Are we
going to die?
The Ferris wheel bench rocks back and forth,
suspended halfway down the 80 foot full height of the wheel, as boasted on the
sign by the ticket booth. Seth holds me tight, his anxious face turned down
towards the control booth below.
“Damo?” he shouts. “Damo, what’s happening down
there, pal?”
There’s the scrape of a door opening and a
small voice calls up. “Summats up, mate. The controls have gone funny. I keep
trying to get you down, but then it… it’s like it has a life of its bloody
own.”
Seth rubs his chin. The wheel lurches forward
again, this time making me cry out and grip onto Seth’s arm tighter.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “It’s gonna be all
right.”
I shake my head. No it isn’t. When the Things
show up, it’s because someone is going to get hurt. It’s not usually me, it’s
someone else. Death follows me.
“This is my fault,” I whisper.
“What?” he says.
“Bad things happen… you… you should get away
from me.”
Our seat rocks forward, forcing us both up
against the safety bar. “This isn’t your fault—”
The bench drops an inch to the left, but my heart
drops to my knees. We slide together, hitting the edge. In a moment of utter
panic I realise that the chain has come loose at the top. There’s a good chance
it will break altogether and we’ll fall…
Wraith by Angel Lawson
Excerpt
I walked over to Ms. Anderson’s desk and
asked for a hall pass. She handed it over with a disapproving nod, and I bolted
out the door and out into the hall. The corridor had that calm, cool feeling
all schools have when everyone is in class. The only sounds came from a locker
door slamming near the science wing and my footsteps echoing off the shiny
floor. I turned the corner and gasped when I came face to face with Evan.
“Watch it!” I whispered, peeking over my
shoulder. “What are you doing?” I continued to walk toward my locker, with him
hot on my trail.
“I saw you come out here, so I thought I
would drop in and say hello.” I turned to glare at him and was rewarded with a
megawatt smile. “Hello.”
“Evan. You need to go, and I have to get
back to class. Ms. Anderson is PMSing or something and I don’t want to get
detention.” My fingers spun the dial on my lock and I searched for my pencil,
eventually finding it behind a stack of books.
“Fine! But I need you to give that kid
Connor a break. If he tries to talk to you again—just do it.” I looked at Evan
suspiciously and noticed he refused to make eye contact.
“No. Have you heard where he’s been?” My
voice rose and I dropped it back down looking around for other students. I
couldn’t afford getting caught talking to “myself” in the hallway again. “He
was basically in kid jail!”
Evan leaned against the wall of lockers,
crossing his arms over his chest and fixed me with a glare. “You of all people
should know not to listen to rumors.”
A twinge of guilt manifested at his
accusation, but I refused to give in. Yes, I listened to the rumors, but I’d
seen him with my own eyes vandalizing public property. “I’m not talking to him.
I’m not giving him the chance to make fun of me or whatever it is he’s up to.
In fact it makes more sense now, with his background, that he was messing with
me. He probably broke into my records and found out just enough to freak me
out.”
I’d begun walking again, leaving Evan
behind me, pouting against the wall. “Fine. Just…” I looked back before turning
the corner and saw he had vanished.
“Ooof!” I exhaled when I slammed into
someone hard. “Watch it!” I shouted.
“You watch it.”
I focused on the jerk I’d run into and
who currently had his hands on my upper arms, holding me upright. The jerk who
had crystal blue eyes and warm, firm hands.
Connor. Of course.
I shrugged my arms away from him and
glanced away from his eyes and hair and his warm skin, and swallowed the
apology that had been on my tongue.
“Excuse me.” I attempted to dart around
him.
His hand gripped my arm, trying to stop
me. “Wait.” I twisted out of his reach. Now that I knew he was a troublemaker
of some variety, I really didn’t want to tangle with him again. I didn’t want
him to make fun of me.
“Jane, right?” His feet moved behind
mine, and the thick soles of his boots scuffed the floor. “Your name’s Jane,
right?”
“Leave me alone.”
We approached the Fine Arts Hall and I
assessed that in twenty more feet I could be back in the classroom, away from
him.
“Stop, okay? Just give me a minute.” His
voice was low but laced with frustration, and I couldn’t help but turn.
“What?” I half-whispered, half-yelled. “What
do you want?”
When he saw that I’d stopped, his
shoulders—perfectly broad, in that not too wide, not too narrow kind of way, I
noted—relaxed, and I saw the glimmer of relief in his eyes. “I want to talk to
you for a minute. Dammit.” He rubbed the corner of his mouth. “I want to
apologize, for the other day.”
I eyed him. “Fine. Apology accepted.
Finished?”
“No,” he snapped. “I’m not finished. I
apologize for my rudeness and just coming up like that. I know…I know that was
harsh, but we need to talk. Away from school.”
I shook my head in disapproval before he
finished talking. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
I took a minute to assess Connor head to
toe. He wore a black T-shirt under an open button-down shirt, jeans and black
work boots. There were multi-colored paint drops on the hems of his pants. He
appeared normal and I knew he had friends and I knew he had been in trouble,
but he seemed to know more about me than he should, and all I wanted was to
stay invisible.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing,
but I don’t want part of it. I know what the other kids say about me and you
just got back and all, but everyone has finally left me alone. Just because it’s
new to you doesn’t mean I’m willing to be your punching bag. Find someone else
to mess with.”
I said the words with as much venom and
confidence as I could muster, ignoring my shaking hands. I ran back to class,
pulled out my drawing and refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
Several minutes passed before I heard
the door swing open and Connor entered the room. He’d obviously waited outside
so it wouldn’t appear we were in the hallway together—further evidence, in my
opinion, that he didn’t really want to have anything to do with me. With my
head down, I waited for the sounds of his stool to slide back as he settled
into his seat. It didn’t happen. Instead, I sensed him hovering by my desk,
taking the long way back to his. In reaction my heart hammered in my chest.
I refused to look up.
I wouldn’t look up.
There was no way I was looking up.
I looked up.
But what I saw wasn’t what I expected.
He wasn’t looking at me or attempting to talk again. Connor’s eyes were glued
to my portrait. The portrait of Evan I’d been working on for weeks. I’d
finished the majority of his face and all of his wavy, light hair. I worked on
his chin, trying to get the angle right, trying to accentuate the dimple at the
bottom. I’d erased and reworked it dozens of times so far and was about to
quit. Other than the chin, it was pretty good—fairly accurate.
“Mr. Jacobs, please take a seat,” Ms.
Anderson directed from her desk, causing an almost-frozen Connor to flinch.
He moved as directed, but when he sat
our eyes locked once again. To my surprise he mouthed the word, “Wait,” and
reached for the thick piece of drawing paper on the table. After pausing to
study it for a moment, he flipped it over so I could see. My hand flew to my
mouth on instinct and I fought an overwhelming urge to vomit as blood rushed to
my ears.
Connor’s portrait was an exact replica
of mine.
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