Excerpt from FIRE AND HEIST

One of my favorite things to write is first chapters. And the first chapter of my next YA novel, FIRE AND HEIST (coming out 12/4), was one of my all-time favorites to write. Think Ocean's Eleven with were-dragons! You can read the excerpt here: http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/FireandHeistexcerpt.htm

Excerpt from THE QUEEN OF SORROW

Excerpt from THE QUEEN OF SORROW now live! Just posted the 1st three chapters of Book 3 of The Queens of Renthia, the finale to my epic fantasy trilogy about bloodthirsty nature spirits and the queens who can control them, out 5/15 from Harper Voyager! 

http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/QueenofSorrowexcerpt.htm

Excerpt of The Stone Girl's Story

Excerpt of THE STONE GIRL'S STORY now live! Just posted the first two chapters of my forthcoming middle-grade fantasy book, coming out on 4/3 from Clarion/HMH! Click through for a sneak peek and meet Mayka, a girl of living stone!

http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/StoneGirlexcerpt.htm

 

THE RELUCTANT QUEEN Excerpt -- Chapter Two

Just two weeks until release day for THE RELUCTANT QUEEN! Time to post another chapter! Chapters 1 and 2 are now available to read here: http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/ReluctantQueenexcerpt.htm #RQCountdown 

 

Excerpt from Journey Across the Hidden Islands

Just posted the first two chapters of my upcoming MG fantasy book, JOURNEY ACROSS THE HIDDEN ISLANDS! Check 'em out here: http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/Journeyexcerpt.htm

Excerpt: First Three Chapters of THE QUEEN OF BLOOD

THE QUEEN OF BLOOD comes out tomorrow!!! Woohoo!  *checks stash of chocolate, eats stash of chocolate* The first three chapters are now online:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Excerpt: First Two Chapters of THE QUEEN OF BLOOD

THE QUEEN OF BLOOD comes out one week from today!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The first two chapters are now online:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Excerpt: Chapter One of THE QUEEN OF BLOOD

It's exactly 2 weeks until THE QUEEN OF BLOOD comes out! Eeeep! You can read Chapter 1 here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/harper-voyager/the-queen-of-blood-chapter-1/1096449987091362

Excerpt from CHASING POWER

Two months until CHASING POWER comes out!!!  I can't wait for you all to meet Kayla!  She was so much fun to write.

I just added the first two chapters to my website, so you can get a taste of her story.  Here's how it starts:

Razor blade.

Thread.

Gum.

A ball of tinfoil.

A dull fishing hook.

Kayla checked each pocket in her jean shorts, knotted the straps of her bikini top tighter, and pulled on her favorite black hoodie. She frowned at her bare feet. She'd blend in better with flip-flops, but she could run better in sneakers, if anything went wrong. After a half second, she chose the sneakers. She believed in herself, but she also believed in the supreme idiocy of people and their tendency to interfere in the most inconvenient way possible.

Click here to read more.

If you're a reviewer, librarian, bookseller, or other publishing industry professional, please note that the eGalley (digital advance reader copy) of CHASING POWER is now available.  Click here to request it on NetGalley!

In related news, CHASING POWER received a lovely review from Kirkus:

"Snappy dialogue, snarky teens and explosive exploits. A quick but complex read -- enjoyable on both counts." -- Kirkus
 
As well as two blurbs from two wonderful writers:

"A riveting adventure tale. Action-packed, suspenseful and a lot of fun!" -- Melissa de la Cruz, New York Times bestselling author of the Blue Bloods series

"Chasing Power took me on a magical rollercoaster ride through dusty tombs and ancient catacombs at such breakneck speeds, the only thing I could do was tightly grip the safety bar and hope I made it through to the other side. Part Indiana Jones, part Jumper, the heroes travel faster than the speed of light but even that isn't quick enough for them to escape the treachery, mystery, and danger waiting around every corner." -- Colleen Houck, New York Times bestselling author of the Tiger's Curse series

And I also got word last week that production has started on the CHASING POWER audiobook, which I'm really, really excited about.  I can't wait to hear what Kayla sounds like -- you know, outside of my own head.  (Kind of a freaky thing when the voices in your head start actually talking out loud...)

Anyway, I hope you all have been having a wonderful summer, and I hope you enjoy the excerpt from CHASING POWER!

Excerpt from THE LOST

Two months until THE LOST comes out!!!

Very tempted to make a joke about how I lost track of time and am shocked that it's only two months until pub day, but I'll resist.  I can't wait for people to meet Lauren and Peter and Claire!

If you're a reviewer, librarian, bookseller, or other publishing industry professional, please note that the eGalley (digital advance reader copy) of THE LOST is now available.  Click here to request it on NetGalley!

And no matter who you are, I'm excited to invite you to read the first two chapters of THE LOST, which I just posted on my website.  I hope you enjoy them!  Here's how it starts:


Things I lost:
a stick of Chapstick
a few quarters
one turquoise earring, a gift
my old college roommate's new phone number
my left sandal
Mr. Rabbit, my favorite stuffie from my preschool years
my way

Chapter One

For the first hundred miles, I see only the road and my knuckles, skin tight across the bones, like my mother's hands, as I clutch the steering wheel. For the second hundred miles, I read the highway signs without allowing the letters to compute in my brain. Exit numbers. Names of towns. Places that people call home, or not. After three hundred miles, I start to wonder what the hell I'm doing.

In front of me, the highway lies straight, a thick rope of asphalt that stretches to a pinprick on the horizon. On either side of the highway are barbed wire fences that hem in the few cows that wander through the scrub-brush desert. Cacti are clustered by the fence posts. Above, the sun has bleached the blue until the sky looks like fabric stretched so thin that it's about to tear. There are zero clouds.

I should turn around.

Instead, I switch on the radio. Static. For a moment, I let the empty crackle of noise spray over me, a match to my mood, but then it begins to feel like prickles inside my ears. Also, I begin to feel self-consciously melodramatic. Maybe as a sixteen-year-old, I'd have left the static on, but I'm twenty-seven. I change the station. Again, static. And again. Again.

First option: an apocalypse has wiped out all the radio transmitters.

Second, much more likely, option: my car radio is broken.

Switching the radio off, I drive to the steady thrum of the car engine and the hiss of wind through the cracked-open window. I wanted the radio so I wouldn't have to think. I listen to the wind instead and try to keep my mind empty.

I won't think.

I won't worry.

I won't scream.

Click here to read more.

CONJURED on NetGalley!

My next YA book, Conjured, is now available for review on NetGalley! If you're a book blogger, librarian, educator, bookseller, reviewer, or publishing professional, you can request the eGalley here.

And whether or not you're any of the above, if you'd like a taste of Conjured right now, please feel free to hop over to my website and read the first chapter.

I am so, so, so excited about this book!  It's the creepiest one I've ever written, and I had a blast working on it (though I'll never view carnivals the same way again).  I can't wait to share it with you!

CONJURED will be coming out on September 3rd from Bloomsbury/Walker.

Excerpt from CONJURED

57 days until Conjured comes out!!!

In honor of that completely random number of days -- and also because I am ridiculously excited about this book -- I've posted the first chapter on my website.  Hope you enjoy this sneak peek at Conjured!

Here's how it begins:

"Your name is Eve. Remember that."

She was supposed to call him Malcolm. Pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the car window, she stared at the house. Yellow and narrow, it loomed over the lawn. She traced the outline of the house on the window: a peaked roof, two windows with shades drawn, a front door dead center. "It's a face," she said.

The man and woman in the front seats checked their phones and then their guns. "You can't give her kiwis," the woman said to the man. Malcolm. And she was Aunt Nicki. "She'll think they're mice."

"Kiwis are nutritious," Malcolm said. Twisting in his seat, he leveled a finger at Eve. "I walk first, you second, Nicki last. Understood?" He didn't wait for her response, and she didn't give him one. He stepped out of the car and stretched.

"Start her on apples," Aunt Nicki said, opening her door and stepping out into the street. "Or bananas. Oranges."

"You could have shopped," Malcolm said. "Besides, it is impossible to eat an orange without it spitting at you. It's a hostile fruit."

"Oranges are classic. For centuries, soccer moms have been carting orange wedges to refuel their charming tykes on the field of battle."

Outside, they shut their doors. Eve let the blissful silence wrap around her for three seconds until Malcolm yanked open her car door. "You push the red button to release the strap." His voice was kind and soft, as if he expected her to cower or bolt. He pointed next to her, and she located the red button. It clicked, and the seat belt snapped out of her hands and flattened onto the seat behind her. "It's going to be okay," he said, and she was certain he wasn't talking about the seat belt. Not wanting to see pity in his eyes, she stared at the seat belt contraption for a second before she climbed out of the car and followed Malcolm toward the house.
 
Click here to read the rest of the first chapter.

Website Makeover and VESSEL Excerpt

Happy Fourth of July!  (Or, to those of you outside the US, happy random Wednesday!)  Today, I did all the traditional Fourth of July things:

- Cooked hamburgers and hotdogs.  Except I cooked them on the stove instead of the barbecue grill because a squadron of yellow jackets has colonized the grill, and I chose to grant them their independence.  So sweet of me.  Or cowardly.  But let's go with sweet.

- Watched fireworks.  On TV, because it's so much calmer and simpler that way.  No parking.  No crowds.  No mosquitoes.  And total access to my fridge (which is also, incidentally, a lovely perk of being a writer).  I don't really understand why the Washington DC fireworks are always shown hidden behind a bugle corp.  Makes the fireworks look like one of those cheesy school picture backdrops.  But I adore the Manhattan fireworks with their four barges worth of fireworks in sync to the music.

- Updated my website.  Okay, maybe that's not really traditional in the, um, traditional sense of the word.  But in addition to being the birthday of our nation, it's now about two months until the pub date for my next novel, Vessel, so I gave my website (and the backdrop of this blog) a Vessel-centric makeover.  Click here to check it out!

And while I was Vessel-izing the site, I decided that today marks the official beginning of my personal countdown to Vessel (during which I will get more and more deliriously excited as we get closer to September!!!).

So I posted the first two chapters of Vessel on my site!  Hope you like it!

Here's a taste.....

On the day she was to die, Liyana walked out of her family's tent to see the dawn. She buried her toes in the sand, cold from the night, and she wrapped her father's goatskin cloak tight around her shoulders. She had only moments before everyone would wake.

She fixed her eyes on the east, where the sky was bleached yellow in anticipation. Shadows marked each ridge, rock, and sand dune. Overhead, a few stubborn stars continued to cling to the sky, and a raven, black as a splinter of night, flew into the wind before angling toward the dark peaks of the distant mountains. Liyana felt the wind caress her cheeks and stir her hair. She'd left it loose last night, and she'd counted the strands when she couldn't sleep. The wind stirred the sand at her feet, and it whistled over the dunes and rocks. She listened to it so intensely that every muscle in her body felt taut.

She had wanted to be calm today.

Click here to read through the end of chapter two.

Go ahead.  I'll wait.

*taps feet*

*tries to whistle, but fails*

*hums*

Yay, you're back!  Did you like it?!  Did ya?!?!  Did ya?!?!?!

TARN and a Scene from Drink, Slay, Love!

8 days until DRINK, SLAY, LOVE!

On Wednesday, September 7th, at 6pm, I will be participating in the Teen Author Reading Night at the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library, along with Coe Booth, Paul Griffin, Jeff Hirsch, David Levithan, Jonathan Farmer, Jon Skovron, and Adrienne Vrettos. We'll all be reading from our latest YA books. If you're in the area, I hope you'll come!

If you're not able to come... please wipe your tears, quit rending your clothes, and cease wailing your eternal disappointment to the unyielding stars. I have a present for you that I hope will console you: a scene from DRINK, SLAY, LOVE!

It features Pearl (our vampire-girl heroine) sparring with her vampire boyfriend. FYI, she was stabbed through the heart by a were-unicorn only a few hours earlier and nearly died. Enjoy!

FROM DRINK, SLAY, LOVE:

"I suppose you think you're good enough to be my escort to the ceremony?" Pearl asked.

"Of course." He charged toward her, swift as a blur. She swung up as he sliced toward her head. The wood hit as she blocked the blow, and the staff shuddered from the strength of the impact. She swayed as pain rippled through her, but she shoved.

He stumbled backward.

"I have heard there's waltzing," Pearl said.

"All the more reason you need a handsome prince to complement your stunning beauty."

"Your brothers are handsome as well," she said. She swept her leg out, caught his knee, and yanked. He twisted away before her foot could pull him down. "And perhaps more coordinated."

He smacked her side with the staff, and her breath hissed through her teeth. Clearly, she'd misjudged Mother. Mother had indeed intended this as punishment. She knew that Pearl would never admit weakness to Jadrien, and she knew he wouldn't hold back. Of course, there was a way to escape the intended beating: kick his ass first.

He struck again with the staff. Right, left, down, left. "You are destined to be with me," he said. She blocked. One, two, three, four. She spun and landed a second strike on his side. He swore as he danced away. "You are the most beautiful creature in all the state," he said as he swung his staff toward her neck. She bent backward as the tip pushed against her jugular.

"Just the state?" Pearl asked. Continuing to bend backward, she reached out with one hand to touch the floor and then kicked up hard as she flipped over. Her feet caught Jadrien on the chin, and he reeled back.

"Let's see how well you clean up before we invest in too many superlatives," he said.

"I think I'll 'clean up' right now," she said. She swept her staff low, aiming to sweep his feet out from under him.

He was too fast. He leapt over the staff and struck out with his fist. It caught her in the solar plexus, and pain from her wound lanced through her. Another blow came at her, and she was a second too slow to react. It knocked into her stomach, and she flew backward across the room. She slammed into one of the wood pillars.

"Slow today," he commented.

"Just lulling you into a false sense of complacency." Pearl sprang away from the pillar and attacked. The spinning staff whirled into a blur. She struck at his neck, his legs, his shoulders, his arms. He ducked as she rained blows down on him.

Jadrien struck back, and she raised her staff over her head with two hands, catching his staff dead center. Crack! Her staff split in two. Splinters rained down. She withdrew, holding half a staff in each hand.

"Surrender," Jadrien said.

"Oh, I don't think so." With one stick swirling in each hand, Pearl leapt through the air and attacked. With each hit, she felt stronger. She felt a smile tug at her lips. Her torso ached and burned, but she could think through it. She could do this. She'd survived a near-staking. She'd been chosen with her family to host the Connecticut Fealty Ceremony. She could do anything! Her breath raked her throat as she swung the sticks faster and faster. He blocked. Each strike became as loud and rhythmic as drum beats. "Our ceremony will be spectacular," she said. "I'll make sure of it." No human, no hunter, no mythical beastie with a day-glo horn was going to ruin this for her. "Better than spectacular, it will be perfect."

Catching her waist with one hand, he drew her tight against him. "I believe you," he said. And then he kissed her. The sticks dropped from her hands and clattered to the ground.

Mid-kiss, she yanked his staff out of his hand, hooked her foot around his ankle, flipped him to the ground, and pinned him down with his staff pressed against his throat. "Surrender?" she said.

"To you," he said, "I surrender my heart and soul."

She rolled her eyes. "Very romantic, considering you have neither."

Website Redesign and DRINK, SLAY, LOVE Excerpt

I revamped my website! (Get it? ReVAMPed. Ah, so many puns, so little time...) Check it out in all its vampirey splendor:

www.sarahbethdurst.com

What do you think???

Also, I am very excited to share with you the first chapter of my upcoming novel DRINK, SLAY, LOVE! You can access it through the Excerpts page of my website, but here's how it starts:

"One hour until dawn," Pearl said. She leaped off the roof and landed catlike on the pavement. "Oodles of time, if we steal a car."

Her boyfriend, Jadrien, stretched out on the roof of Outback Steakhouse. He was a shadow, a lovely shadow, against the green tin. "Come back up, Pearl," he said. "I'll compare your eyes to stars, your lips to rubies, and your breath to industrial-strength air freshener."

"Your charm and sincerity overwhelm me."

Rolling onto his knees, Jadrien clasped his hands to his heart. "Oh, Pearl, jewel of my heart, light in my darkness, grace me with your nearness so I might feast upon your loveliness."

Pearl laughed, even as she admired his silhouette. His silk shirt rippled in the night breeze. "I want to feast on mint chocolate chip. Or maybe Chunky Monkey."

"You can taste the difference?"

"Mint chocolate chip, sharp and clean like an ocean breeze. Black raspberry, rich and smooth as a summer night. Bubble-gum ice cream..." She faked a shudder. "Oh, the horror, the horror."

Click here to continue reading.

Enjoy!!!

Enchanted Ivy Excerpt

Got a present for you. Close your eyes...

Cancel that. Forgot you can't read with your eyes closed. Okay, eyes open but imagine yourself unwrapping a box. Inside the box is... a new puppy!!!

Okay, no, just kidding. It's Chapter One of my new novel Enchanted Ivy!

"Almost there," Grandpa said.

Pressing her nose against the car window, Lily frowned at the strip malls, gas stations, and industrial parks as they rolled by. "Really?" she said. She'd expected to see something a bit more picturesque than Walmarts and Home Depots en route to her dream school -- at least a stately forest or a field with a few photogenic cows. And she should hear trumpets playing, plus a massive choir announcing in verse the approach of her destiny.

Maybe she'd built up this moment a bit too much.

Click here to read the rest of the first chapter.

Go ahead. I'll wait. *drums fingers* Are you back yet? No? *attempts to whistle and fails* How about now? Or now?

You're back! Yay! So, did you like it?!?!!?!?!?!?

Excerpt from ICE

21 days until ICE!!!

In honor of that occasion, and to give you a better taste of the book, I just posted the prologue and first two chapters on my website. Enjoy!!!

Once upon a time, in a land far to the north, there lived a lovely maiden...

Cassie killed the snowmobile engine.

Total silence, her favorite sound. Ice crystals spun in the Arctic air. Sparkling in the predawn light, they looked like diamond dust. Beneath her ice-encrusted face mask, she smiled. She loved this: just her, the ice, and the bear.

Click here to read more.

I'll wait.....

So... did ya like it? Did ya? Did ya?! Did ya?!?!

The same excerpt is also now available as part of Simon & Schuster's YA sampler, Lit Up. Click here to open the sampler, which includes excerpts from nine new YA books coming out this fall. ICE begins on page 19.

Out of the Wild Excerpt

I just noticed that this is my 200th blog post! Cool! Well, in honor of that, and the fact that Out of the Wild (the sequel to Into the Wild) comes out in just 113 more days (not that I'm counting or anything), I've added the first chapter of the new book to the Excerpts page of my website. If you're interested, I hope you'll enjoy this sneak peek at Out of the Wild!