Joseph, wake up, wake up, wake up...
She says it over and over. It’s her mantra, her prayer, her plea. But life doesn’t stop while he’s sleeping. With a newborn baby in her arms, Rosa's thrown into a new world, with new rules and a philosophy that sounds too good to be true. She’s sure they didn’t rescue her out of the goodness of their hearts. The Survivors must want something in return.
The Wall finds Rosa eagerly entering a new life, yet struggling to keep the demons and ghosts of the past from dragging her backwards. She’s left so many people behind.
There’s freedom in the Survivors’ world, more than she’d ever dreamed of, but there’s also secrets. The darkest of which pulls Rosa headfirst into a trauma, forcing her to reevaluate her past and pushing her to make a choice that threatens to destroy the tenuous, sewn-together family she’s built on the outside.
EXCERPT:
GIFTS
I could feel her hand linked in mine, pulling me backwards. A warm breath on my neck made me pause and a deep rumbling voice whispered, “Don’t do this.” I shook them both free.
The moment I breathed in the cold air, everything hit me at once. This was where I was supposed to be. I had lost myself to my grief, to my struggles with the baby, and to Joseph. This was not who I was. This was not the girl he fell in love with. My heart ached at the thought, a splinter of grief for my own losses splitting me open. My eyes found the landscape unrecognizable. I had craved winter, so long ago. Back in the Classes, I’d wanted the peace and quiet to wander the garden without kids staring at me. This was more beautiful than an arboretum. This was real. It was breathtaking but harsh and cold, bitingly so. Nature never waits; it layers the world, changes it, circles it, and brings it back again.
The woods were heavily laden with white snow. Glimpses of evergreens sparkled with crystal icicles. It filled me. I crunched onto the snow, my feet instantly frozen. I quickly jumped towards the cabin, snow up to my knees. I could see a faint path, the thin slip cut into the snow only someone as small as Apella could have made. She must have been inside.
I poked my head in the door. Everything was exactly as we’d left it. A circle of beds, backpacks stacked neatly in the corner. A pile of firewood. I fought back tears as I looked at the pile of stones on the floor. An unfinished puzzle dropped the second we saw Joseph walking towards us. Apella was huddled in the corner, shivering. I sighed. The wood was right there. If I hadn’t come, she would have frozen to death. She looked up at me with an expression I couldn’t read—sad, expectant, angry? Maybe all of those things.
I retrieved a backpack and pulled out a lighter, building a fire. Memories of orange and yellow warmth flooded through me. But it was an unpleasant memory. That jagged knife was turning around and around, sending veins of pain creeping through my whole body. This place was no good. It felt like it held all our dashed hopes, all our fears. The fire warmed the corner but with no door, it was still horribly cold.
I took one of the blankets, draped it around her slight shoulders, and sat close. I wanted to speak but I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Don’t do this,” I stammered. My teeth were chattering, from the cold and from the fact my body was trying to stop my mouth from moving. It didn’t even make sense to me but I desperately didn’t want her to do this. I knew what it meant if she didn’t, but I couldn’t put the two outcomes together. I couldn’t owe her this. The debt would crush me. I wondered in the blackest corners of my mind whether she would regret it and resent us. Of course she would.
She looked at me, her big, blue eyes unblinking, and her hand on her stomach. “Rosa, do you know how many girls I watched them hurt?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. I remembered the sickening rosy cheeks. That glow of pregnancy that sat so wrongly over the unaware girls. Their skin stretched thin over their stomachs and their faces, like it was all they could do to hold themselves in. Those girls were probably still walking around the roped-off yards, still fighting the oppressive fog of drugs, stuck in their own contained nightmare. They were so young. I was so young.
“I did nothing. I let them treat those precious, young lives like animals, worse than animals, and I did nothing. I was selfish,” she continued.
I put my hand on hers. It was cold as ice and still as stone. I watched her face—watched it change.
“I understand now. I don’t get to have a baby. I don’t deserve one. I have to let it go.” She had no tears. Her face was accepting.
“But I can’t…” I started to say, feeling hysteria pulling me down, the weight of too many lives sitting on my tiny shoulders. “I don’t know how… it’s too much.” I burst into tears. She put her thin arms around me and held me close, wrapping me in a paper-thin cocoon, making shushing noises and stroking my hair.
“It’s all right. I’ll be all right,” she said calmly.
“You’ll hate me. If you do this for me, you will end up hating me.” I wasn’t even sure why I cared so much. I had hated her. I blamed her for so much.
Apella laughed a soft, sad, gasp of a laugh. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Joseph and for our strange, little family.”
I nodded, still unable to control my tears, sniffing and shaking. We couldn’t lose anyone else. But this sacrifice was more than anyone could ask. And I guess that’s why no one would. This was her choice. I had to abide by it.
“How did this happen?” I asked
“How did what happen?” Her voice was serene.
“All of it.”
“It’s like you said, Rosa. We always have a choice,” she replied, dipping her chin and staring into the fire.
Damn it! My own words were coming back to bite me. I smiled, genuinely. Tears froze on my cheeks. We picked up a few things and left, our arms around each other. Apella would give her blood and might lose her baby in the process. We just had to hope it would be enough and that Alexei would forgive her.
When being unique puts you in danger and speaking your mind can be punishable by death, you might find yourself fighting to survive. Sixteen-year-old Rosa lives in one of the eight enclosed cities of The Woodlands. Where the lone survivors of a devastating race war have settled in the Russian wilderness because it’s the only scrap of land left habitable on the planet. In these circular cities, everyone must abide by the law or face harsh punishment. Rosa's inability to conform and obey the rules brands her a leper and no one wants to be within two feet of her, until she meets Joseph. He's blonde, fair-skinned, green-eyed, and the laid-back complete opposite of Rosa. She's never met anyone quite like him, and she knows that spells danger.
But differences weren't always a bad thing. People used to think being unique was one of the most treasured of traits to have. Now, the Superiors, who ruthlessly control the concrete cities with an iron fist, are obsessed with creating a 'raceless' race. They are convinced this is the only way to avoid another war. Any anomalies must be destroyed.
The Superiors are unstoppable and can do anything they want. After all, they are considered superheroes by the general public. But not everyone sees them this way. When they continue to abuse their power by collecting young girls for use in their secret, high-tech breeding program, they have no idea that one of those girls has somehow managed to make friends even she didn't know she had. And one man will stop at nothing to save her.
Goodreads ** Smashwords ** Amazon ** Barnes&Noble
About the author:
Lauren Nicolle Taylor is a 33-year-old mother living in the tiny, lush town of Bridgewater on the other side of the world in Australia. She married her high school sweetheart and has three very boisterous and individual children. She earned a Bachelors degree in Health Sciences with Honours in Obstetrics and Gynecology and majored in Psychology while minoring in Contemporary Australian Writing.
After a disastrous attempt to build her dream house that left her family homeless, She found herself inexplicably drawn to the computer. She started writing, not really knowing where it may lead but ended up, eight weeks later, with the rough draft of The Woodlands.
In 2013, Lauren Nicolle Taylor accepted a publishing contract with Clean Teen Publishing. Her first published novel, The Woodlands, was released on August 30, 2013. The Wall is the second book in The Woodlands Series.
2 comments:
What a delightful concept of a story.. thank you for sharing and the chance giveaway.
Terrific excerpt.. I so very much look forward in reading.. ;) congrats and good luck in future. ;)
Post a Comment