It's very cool to have the chance to support fellow authors as they launch their latest releases. I am very happy to be featuring the lovely, Laura A. H. Elliot and her latest book Shadow Slayer. I have not read the book yet, but I read it's prequel, "13 on Halloween" and enjoyed it, so I'm expecting good things from this book too.
Shadow Slayer releases tomorrow on Amazon.
Here is Laura's Amazon Author Page so you can easily find her work once the book goes live.
Laura A. H. Elliot - Amazon.
Shadows will do anything to become human.
You see their influence everyday.
You say things you don’t mean or do things that
aren’t like you.
You look, different.
Friends you’ve known forever suddenly never call.
As a freshman, Roxie just
wants to fit in which is impossible because she barely runs into her friends at
her huge high school. Adrianne’s disappearance and Hayden’s attention rock
Roxie’s world. But nothing rocks it like the most gorgeous guy at school, Drew.
And nothing is more important to Roxie than astral projecting back to Planet
Popular to solve the mystery of the map. But that changes when Drew invites
Roxie to homecoming. Hayden warns her that something’s wrong. Why would a guy
like Drew like Roxie anyway? Drew must want something. Hayden’s right. Drew
is…different. Planet Popular was just the beginning. Part of a bigger world,
the Shadow World. There’s a war brewing between the world of humans and the
world of shadows. When the shadow invasion begins at Roxie’s high school,
she’ll not only fight for her life but the lives of her family and friends,
when she discovers she’s the Shadow Slayer, the one human who can save Earth
from the shadow onslaught. But, Roxie can’t even kill a spider. Oh yeah,
there’s an evil English teacher, an enchanted play, a sword of Sandonian steel,
a homecoming of horrors, and seven magic words too.
And here's a little excerpt, because who doesn't love reading those :)
I pull some blush and mascara out of my makeup bag. I’m
late, as usual. No one else is in here with me and it’s too quiet, too quiet
for opening night. I try extra hard to keep the makeup off my dress, wedging
scratchy brown paper towels all along my shoulder strap to protect it.
I glance over at one of the open, empty lockers. My sword
hides in locker number 316, a row away from me. I thought about slaying every
one of the shadows that had invaded in dress rehearsal but there was no way for
me to ride the bus and sneak my sword in to school without a million eyes on
me. Without getting noticed by some teacher who’d confiscate it and expel me
for bringing a weapon to school. I had so much stuff to take for the play that
Mom offered to give me a ride at the crack of dawn this morning. I hid my sword
under my dress. Mom was so scattered because of her big meeting she didn’t
notice anything and since it was so early no one was in the halls to give me a
second look when I hid my sword in my locker. Note to self: early morning is a
good time to hide stuff at school.
I stroke one cheek and then the other with blush and
remember standing with Drew at the bonfire. The last night we went out as
boyfriend and girlfriend. The last night he was human.
On your 13th birthday,
you get the call. By your 14th birthday you find out what the call is.
Everyone I know is in the audience tonight. Ally, Mom, Dad,
Brian, even Mitch because he came home for my birthday. We’re having our family dinner tomorrow night since
tonight the cast party’s at Drew’s house, unless I decapitate him first.
“Roxie five minutes!” Hayden yells into the girl’s locker
room. As usual I’m the last one out. I sweep my hair up to the side and try to
remember my first line. For some reason it’s the one I always forget.
All hail, great
master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best
pleasure...
I open locker 316, grab my sword and just as I step outside
of the locker room Wanda runs up to me and starts talking non-stop about her
nerves and how they’re getting worse and worse.
“What’s that?” she asks. I stop cold in my tracks at the
backstage door.
“There are lots of words for things that don’t exist––the
unseen. Like monsters and aliens and dragons and vampires and ghosts,” I say
sort of in a trance.
“Yeah, so?” Wanda says, wringing her hands.
“If they don’t exist, why are there words for them? All the
stuff I thought was crazy really isn’t crazy at all,” I say, finally getting
what Drew was trying to tell me at the bonfire at the estate at homecoming.
What the human Drew said before I danced with his shadow. My role in the
unseen, the shadow world. Still, I don’t know so many things. Like, what
happens to a shadow once I slay it? And where do humans go when their shadows
invade? How can I save my human friends?
“Roxie, I caught you! I was so late because Brian’s car got
a flat. He fixed it so great, I couldn’t believe it. It’s like he went to bad
ass school or something,” Ally says, laughing.
“Ally. Finally!” We hug. I swallow hard. Brian. Fixed. A.
Flat. I mean it’s not brain surgery but believe me, if it doesn’t have an LCD
screen Brian doesn’t think it exists. He doesn’t know how to fix a flat. O.M.G.
Brian is probably a shadow too.
