Title: Embodied Trilogy
Author: J.B. Dutton
Cover Design: Alexandra Nereuta
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction
Release Date: 11th July 2016
BLURB supplied by Bewitching Blog Tours
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Kari's exciting adventure in in one special edition of all three ebooks,
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The
Embodied trilogy is an unusual web of adventure, romance, fantasy, and science
fiction.
Prep school
student Kari Marriner is swept up in a mystery that fast becomes a thrilling
adventure when she discovers that mysterious aliens called the Embodied and
their pseudo-religion, the Temple of Truth, been influencing her family’s life
for decades. She soon finds herself battling dragons, unicorns, and nefarious
angels on the streets of New York and in the catacombs of Paris, while having
her emotions torn by a handsome alien and a jealous boyfriend. In a final
showdown, she must travel to the creatures’ home in the dark universe and make
a heart-wrenching choice: rescue her mother or save the Earth.
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EXCERPT
The first sensation was my stomach lurching and spinning.
Then I seemed to be plunging dizzily while simultaneously zooming higher on
some kind of impossible rollercoaster ride. And suddenly I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing. I was separated from any kind of physical reality, like –
oh… oh wow – like I was totally disembodied. I could sense things but not see
them with my eyes. I had… a sort of mathematical awareness, as though I was
plugged directly into the mainframe of a supercomputer the size of the
universe, my mind swimming in pure information. Geometric shapes twinkled in
and out of existence. Lines and points moved around in constant motion. It felt
like a dream made of numbers… patterns and data combining and separating.
Spirals within spirals and symmetries within symmetries.
“Mom?” I called out. Or at least imagined myself calling
out. Ripples in this web of information undulated in front of me when I said
her name. “Mom? It’s me. It’s Kari.” More complex ripples floated away.
Nothing.
At that moment it occurred to me I had no way of getting
back home.
“Noon?” I said hopefully. Oh man – he’d told me how to use
the sphere to reach the Dark Universe but now I was here and totally
disembodied, I had no way of controlling my body to remove the sphere from my
forehead.
But before I could worry about this too much, the waves of
information started to coalesce into more recognizable shapes. Pyramids and
spheres, but not solid ones. They seemed to be made of… of symbols and binary
code. That was it – they were like living equations! And then weirdly, in one
of the pyramid shapes, I could recognize Noon. I felt as though I could see his
mesmerizing face. Even though it was data or whatever, it was somehow him. The
whole experience was kinda hypnotic. Was it even really happening? In one
respect, I guess none of it was real, because I was literally seeing outside my
universe.
“Kari – you made it,” I heard him say.
“Is that really you? Cilic didn’t kill you?”
“Well, he killed Embodied me, but the Mihim brought my
diamond pyramid back here.”
This was super-bizarro. Now it was like the surrounding
patterns had gone out of focus and I could clearly see the pyramid that was
Noon’s true form.
“Wait, let me do something,” he said. “I’m going to recreate
a reality you’re familiar with to make this easier for you.”
And the entire crazy churning data kaleidoscope sort of
crystalized. I found myself standing in a towering hall with walls, floor, and
ceiling made of what looked like sheets of sheer diamond. But in the depths of
the diamond the same patterns I’d seen before were refracted in a million
colors. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever encountered.
Title: Silent Symmetry
Series: Embodied Trilogy
Author: J.B. Dutton
Cover Design: Alexandra Nereuta
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction
Release Date: 14th May 2013
BLURB supplied by Bewitching Blog Tours
Kari Marriner’s earliest memory is her father’s death in a
car crash back in small-town Wisconsin. Now, 12 years later, her mother has
been hired by a pseudo-religious organization in Manhattan called the Temple of
Truth (a.k.a. the ToT). At Chelsea Prep, Kari develops a crush on classmate
Cruz. But when she realizes that Noon, another attractive guy at school, is
involved with the ToT, her curiosity gets the better of her.
Kari stumbles upon a secret tunnel leading from her
apartment to another in the building, where an ancient book holds images she
can scarcely believe, and a cavernous room contains... something inexplicable.
As Kari pieces together the incredible evidence, she discovers that the ToT is
run by other-worldly beings called The Embodied who influence human behavior
and have established a global long-term human breeding program. But why? And what
is her role in all this?
Just as she starts wondering whether the love she feels for
Cruz is genuine or if her emotions are being controlled by The Embodied, her
mother is kidnapped and Kari has to figure out who is human, who is Embodied,
and who she can count on to help rescue her mother.
Book One Free!
Title: Starley's Rust
Series: Embodied Trilogy
Author: J.B. Dutton
Cover Design: Alexandra Nereuta
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction
Release Date: 15th January 2015
BLURB supplied by Bewitching Blog Tours
Six months ago, Kari Marriner’s life was torn apart. Now
turned 17, she’s looking for answers in her rural Wisconsin hometown. But just
as the Embodied seemed to have vanished, there’s a new, more terrifying visitor
from the Dark Universe.
Back in Manhattan, a charismatic English artist named
Starley convinces Kari he can find her missing mother if she flies to Paris
with him. He also shares an incredible secret from the dawn of mankind. But
Starley is not who he seems. Before she knows it, Kari finds herself standing
in front of the Mona Lisa with him, yelling out, “He’s got a bomb!”
And that’s when things go totally insane. The Rebel
Embodied’s henchman, Cilic, returns to Earth on a deadly mission. The body of
Kari’s treacherous friend Aranara is washed up on the banks of the Hudson. But
is she really dead? In the Paris catacombs, Kari and Starley are hunted by a
nightmarish mythical creature that’s all too real.
A family mystery, an exiled race, freakish beasts, jealousy,
love… and death. Kari has to face them all in this fast-paced fantasy thriller.
EXCERPT
The sun was setting behind the buildings. A big barn with
half the roof missing. A grain silo. A couple of smaller shed-type buildings,
one with no door, the other with the door hanging off its hinges. And a
farmhouse. Windows shattered. Front door gawping at me. I gulped and sent an
ILY back to Cruz. He liked those.
Then I had the strangest feeling. Like a disruption in the
atmosphere, but also in my mind. The air changed somehow, and I heard a
rumbling of distant thunder. I could have sworn that the fading daylight got
brighter for a few seconds. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. It made
me stop moving. Then reality seemed to snap back to normal. I kept going toward
the farmhouse.
I saw something move.
The setting sun had backlit the barn so it was hard to be
sure what it was. A horse, I think. A big, black stallion moving around in the
barn.
My mind filled in the blanks. Probably a horse that had
escaped from a neighboring farm and made a new home for itself here. Okay,
cool. No mystery. Maddie must have seen it and her mind made it fit the legend.
I lay Maddie’s bike down in the grass, careful not to make a
sound. I tiptoed toward the barn, not wanting to startle it. I turned on the
flashlight app on my phone. Clouds were gathering, the light was fading. More
distant thunder. I just needed to find it, take a photo and show Maddie. Her
grandfather would know what to do, how to capture it safely and find its owner.
I entered the barn, still creeping quietly. Ew. It certainly
smelled like a barn. There was hay strewn around on the ground. My phone
flashlight was practically useless. It illuminated a patch, like, five feet in
front of me. In the dim light, I could make out a row of stalls on each side
and a hayloft up ahead with a ladder propped against it.
Now I thought about it, the smell was kinda weird. I grew up
around here and although I’d never spent any time on a farm, I sensed that
there was some kind of extra, non-farm smell here. Hard to identify. But yucky
and familiar all the same.
Was that an animal noise in one of the stalls on the left?
Or just the wind blowing through the holes in the walls? I crept toward the
stall very, very carefully. My hand holding the phone was shaking. Come on,
Kari. Get a grip. The sides of the stalls weren’t high enough to conceal a
horse. Unless it was lying down in the hay, of course.
I reached the stall where I thought I’d heard the noise. I
waited a second, held my breath, then stepped in front of the stall’s open
gate. It was empty. And that’s when the hairs stood up on the back of my neck
again. But this time there was another, all-too-familiar feeling along with it.
It was the feeling I had when Noon was in my head. Yet not
exactly the same. This was unpleasant, even disturbing, and somehow stronger.
I spun around. In the barn doorway stood the black stallion.
Protruding from its forehead was a long, tapered horn. It really was a unicorn.
It raised its head and my mind felt like a heavy blanket had been draped over
it. It eyed me purposefully. My irrational fear as a little girl came flooding
back, multiplied by a million. I almost peed my pants. Was this a bad dream?
Maybe I would wake up surrounded by My Little Pony’s in my 8-year-old’s
bedroom?
If only…
The unicorn took a step forward. The feeling in my head got
even stronger and now I could swear that I heard the name Noon repeating over
and over. Not his voice, just his name. Was the unicorn Embodied? I didn’t get
a chance to wonder about this because now the feeling in my head was becoming
worse… painful. I was convinced that my mind was being probed by this
astonishing creature. In the space of a few seconds, the pain increased and so
did the repetition of the name Noon until it was so excruciating that I felt
like screaming. I put my hands to my temples and opened my mouth. As I was
about to close my eyes, I saw the unicorn start to charge toward me.
Despite the pain, I managed to fling myself to one side and
into the empty stall just before it reached me. It galloped past and I heard it
stop. My head was still throbbing. I staggered to my feet, one fist still
pressed to my temple. Maybe I could make a break for it.
The unicorn appeared in front of me, blocking the stall
entrance. I was totally trapped. I looked around in desperation. A broken
wooden handle was poking out from a pile of hay in one corner. I grabbed it and
pulled out a pitchfork. The unicorn advanced into the stall, its head lowered
so that its horn was aimed directly at my head. The pain coursed through my
brain like a river of electricity.
I swung the pitchfork at the unicorn’s head. I missed, but
it backed up, startled. I swung again. It made a snuffling sound and stepped
back further.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” I screamed.
The unicorn cocked its head to one side like it was
listening to me. The pain in my brain diminished.
I swung again and shouted the same thing.
The unicorn drew itself up to its full height and then
something even more incredible happened. It raised its tail. But this was no
stallion’s tail. It was like a huge peacock tail, shimmering with shades of
black, gray, and silver. The tail fanned out, probably ten feet wide, and
despite the pain in my head, I lowered the pitchfork, just standing there in
awe. What was this being? It seemed to possess incredible power and at the same
time be unimaginably beautiful. In fact, it was all the more terrifying because
it was so beautiful.
Title: Diamond Splinters
Series: Embodied Trilogy
Author: J.B. Dutton
Cover Design: Alexandra Nereuta
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction
Release Date: 5th May 2016
BLURB supplied by Bewitching Blog Tours
Prep school senior Kari Marriner has a heart-wrenching
choice to make: rescue her mother or prevent aliens destroying the Earth.
Having faced down mythical beasts and trans-dimensional
villains, Kari has finally unraveled the mystery of the cult-like Temple of
Truth and found the diamond sphere that can free her mother from the evil
clutches of the Thoth high priests. But to find out how to use the sphere, Kari
must team up with the one person she can never trust: Aranara, the treacherous
sister of her missing soulmate Noon.
When a submarine trip to the bottom of the Hudson River ends
in death and disaster, Kari is scarred, both emotionally and physically. She
wants to run and hide but digs deep and finds new sources of inner strength. As
the storm of the century hits New York, a child’s life hangs in the balance and
Kari gambles everything in a final confrontation with the genocidal Thoth.
EXCERPT
Aranara pushed at the hatch. Nothing happened. Whether it
was the water pressure or some safety mechanism I don’t know, but she stopped
trying and went back to the control panel. The sub reversed. I looked through
the transparent bottom and saw Noon’s pyramid coming back into view. As soon as
it was directly beneath us, she climbed onto her chair and aimed the gun at the
globe-shaped acrylic window. With a surge of terror, I realized what she was
about to do.
“Nooooo!” I screamed as she fired. I was kneeling on the
floor of the cabin beside Mangold’s body. I automatically shielded my face. The
bullet ricocheted. The dome had cracked instead of shattering. She shot twice
more, not even flinching from the flying bullets. The crack spread. Water
started to spray in. I reached up to try to stop her, but she held me off with
one hand while she fired again with the other.
The window bulged inward. Then it burst. Water poured in and
I screamed again, clawing at her uselessly as she pulled away enough acrylic to
make an opening big enough to swim through. The water gushed like a torrent.
She got hold of the sides of the hole she’d made and somehow managed to pulled
herself out. The sub listed to one side and my reality shifted. Everything felt
like a dream. I was in a reversed fishbowl. The air was inside and the water
was outside, with Aranara swimming in it, downward toward Noon’s pyramid on the
riverbed. The water was already up to my knees. There was nothing I could do.
This was where I was going to die.
Wait – maybe one thing! I had shut Noon out. Maybe he could
do something. I closed my eyes and calmed myself as best I could. “Tell Aranara
to help me. I’m going to drown.”
I heard nothing. The water was up to my waist now. Spray.
Smell. Sickening fear. I looked down but now it was impossible to see where
Aranara was underneath the sub because of the river water rushing into the
cabin. Did she already have the pyramid? Was she blocking Noon’s communication
with me somehow? The water reached my chest. The dreamlike state disappeared.
New panic set in. There was only one chance. Once no more water was flowing
into the opening that Aranara had made, I could try swimming out through it.
But we were seventy feet below the surface. Could I hold my breath long enough?
I saw something move at my feet and looked down. I let out a huge scream as
Mangold’s head floated up next to mine. Oh god, oh god. The water was up to my
neck. I stood on the chair. My head was touching the top of the dome. The water
was now level with the opening. I had to fill my lungs with as much oxygen as I
possibly could from the few inches that were trapped at the top of the cabin. I
breathed deeply. One, two, three deep breaths. The water lapped at my chin.
Four. I held my breath.
I pushed off the chair toward the opening. It was barely
wide enough. But before I could reach it, the submarine pitched downward. The
hatch hit me in the back. The opening was further away than before, below me
now. I swam toward it. The acrylic was at least an inch thick. I caught hold of
the edge of the opening with one hand and pulled myself forward. As my head
went through, the submarine lurched to one side. A searing pain in my cheek. I
held on tight. Now I could use both hands to pull myself through. Then I was
out. My lungs were already starting to hurt. Daylight was so far away up above.
Suddenly an arm circled my waist. It was Aranara. She didn’t even look at me,
just kicked with both legs, pulling me away from the listing sub. I felt myself
getting dizzy as we rose faster than a normal person would be able to. The
pressure was enormous. The air was forced out of my lungs. I passed out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After graduating from film school in London, England, JB
Dutton emigrated to Montreal in 1987, where he still lives with his two young
children and their even younger goldfish. He spent over a decade as a music TV director
before moving into the advertising industry as an award-winning copywriter for
clients such as Cirque du Soleil. JB Dutton has written novels, short stories,
blogs, screenplays and a stage play. He also writes adult fiction under the
name John B. Dutton.
Twitter handle: @JohnBDutton
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