Blog Tour & Giveaway: Our Dark Stars by Audrey Grey & Krystal Wade
Our Dark Stars by Audrey Grey & Krystal Wade was just released and I am excited to help spread the word today as part of the blog tour! Check out all the book information, an excerpt, and a tour-wide giveaway for a $50 Amazon gift card!
Our Dark Stars by Audrey Grey & Krystal Wade
Category: Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Fairy Tale Retelling
Publication: March 6th, 2018
Purchase: Amazon, B&N
While she sleeps, the whole universe changes.
Princess Talia Starchaser has it all. Wealth. Status. Adoring citizens. But on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, she’s forced to publicly betray her best friend, a companion mock she’s had since birth, setting events into motion that lead to the destruction of the humans, and the princess floating through space, a remnant of a time when humans ruled over droids.
One hundred years later, half-mock captain Will Perrault and his ragtag crew discover a device floating in space. When a very human Talia emerges from its depths, Will suspects she’s the key to buying his way back into the regiment he once commanded against the last remaining rebel humans—and the ruling mock queen’s good graces.
Both Talia and Will would rather get space-tossed than trust one another, but with the queen’s forces chasing them across the galaxy and the fate of both worlds hanging in the balance, they’ll forge the unlikeliest of alliances to survive.
Excerpt:
This excerpt begins after Talia crashes her cruiser into a frozen lake, and Will and his crew are fighting drones in the air around the sinking vessel.
***
Will was so focused on the drones he forgot about Talia. When he turned his attention back to the vessel, his body went cold all over.
Only the top of the cruiser was visible, bobbing just above the surface. Bubbles disrupted the top of the water. Then they stopped, and the vessel sank with a groaning sigh.
Stars, she was trapped. Will ripped off his snowsuit and kicked out of his boots, the chilly air stinging his skin. “Cover me.”
“Let her go, Captain!” Lux pleaded. “There’s too many.”
That was the most rational decision, of course. Any other time he would have agreed to flee. But this time—this time he couldn’t let go. Already the image of her fragile human body stuck inside that metal cage was eating him alive. He couldn’t get to her fast enough.
As he teetered on the edge of the ice, overlooking the darkness, Lux called out one more time, “Will! Don’t.”
Any other day, the rare pleading in her voice would have made him listen. “If I’m not back up in one minute, leave.”
He dove before he could hear her reply. The freezing water was like a punch to the chest, the cold wave enveloping him. After all that noise, the silence of the water was startling. His muscles went rigid. Frantic beeps sounded inside his head, and a temperature monitor popped up on his biometric vision. The warmth of his body was plummeting. Even mocks like him succumbed to water this cold. He needed to hurry.
Pushing past the initial shock, he swam deeper, following the receding light of the craft. The cruiser had settled on its side on the floor of the lake. A dim-yellow light filtered out from its interior. His ears popped as he reached the door handle and tried to pry it open. The door wouldn’t budge. Lungs aching, he swam around to the front and darted inside.
Talia’s white face and unblinking eyes resolved from the darkness. His heart clenched, but then her wide-eyed stare jerked his way, bubbles of oxygen escaping her purple lips and rising to the long bubble of air trapped at the ceiling.
She was alive.
She gestured to the harness pinning her to the pilot’s seat. Silt and strands of her hair brushed over his face as he leaned close. The buckle was jammed. He retrieved his pocketknife and carefully slipped the blade under the harness to begin cutting. As he did, he noticed the sound of air leaving her lips stopped.
Hold on, Princess. He could hardly feel the knife handle beneath his fingers as he cut, sawing with a desperation he hadn’t experienced in years. The thoughts floating around his brain went from the possibility of her dying, to the inevitably.
That cannot happen.
Her eyes began fluttering back into her head, and a rush of panic overwhelmed his systems. Finally the blade severed the first harness strap. The second one seemed harder to cut, or perhaps he was tiring. Slippery shadows nibbled at his vision. His body temperature was dangerously low, and his oxygen readout was blinking.
Not good.
Leave her, the rational side of him argued. No bounty is worth dying for.
He didn’t know why he cared so much. Why the wretched human emotions he’d tried so hard to leave behind had suddenly reappeared. But there was no way in hell he was leaving her to die in this dark, lonely place.
The last strap gave way, and he slipped his arms under her armpits and kicked off the floor. As soon as their heads hit the air bubble trapped at the top, he filled his lungs with oxygen. Talia’s eyes were half-rolled back, blue shadows clinging to the bone-white skin around her mouth. In this meager light, the wet hair pasting her skull was the same color as old blood.
“Breathe, Princess,” he whispered, knowing full well the fear gripping his chest went beyond keeping her alive as a bounty and into different territory. “Please, just breathe.”
Author Bio: Audrey Grey & Krystal Wade
Audrey Grey is an award winning and USA Today bestselling author of several books, including the Moonbeam Children’s Award bronze finalist, SHADOW FALL. She lives in the charming state of Oklahoma with her crew: one husband, two little people, four mischievous dogs, and one poor cat. You can usually find Audrey hiding out in her office from said crew, surrounded by books and sipping kombucha while dreaming up wondrous worlds for her characters to live in.
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Krystal Wade is the USA Today bestselling author of six Young Adult Fantasy and creeptastically imagined fairytale books. She can be found in the sluglines outside Washington D.C. every morning, Monday through Friday. With coffee in hand, iPod plugged in, and strangers who sometimes snore, smell, or have incredibly bad gas-sitting next to her, she zones out and thinks of fantastical worlds for you and me to read. How else can she cope with a fifty-mile commute? Good thing she has her husband and three kids to go home to. They keep her sane.
Giveaway:
$50 Amazon Gift Card!
