Blurb from the author ~
When Seraphina was younger, she healed her best friend's injured hand. Terrified by the inexplicable cure, the girl shunned her. From that day on, Seraphina found herself without friends, a freak and an oddity. And so she obeyed her mother’s rule to refrain from using her innate ability, heeded her mother's warning that its use could land her in the local mental health facility alongside her aunt and grandmother.
But when sixteen-year-old Seraphina finds a mysterious, wounded boy hiding in the hollow in the woods behind her house, she can't hold out against the overpowering urge to help him. She is drawn to him each night, and as they come to know one another, their irresistible attraction blooms.
She longs to uncover his secrets — where he comes from and why he's hiding and how he came to be so wounded — and to share her own, though she knows it's forbidden. And while her healing touch seems to be helping him, it's hurting her. When the symptoms of psychosis — experienced by the women in her bloodline who used their powers — begin to plague Seraphina, she is faced with the unbearable choice of saving her sanity or the boy she’s come to love.
Publisher: Summer Stone
Genre: YA, Paranormal
Format: ebook
Release date: March 14, 2013
Buying Links: Barnes & Noble Amazon Smashwords
GOODREADS: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17370950-hell-s-hollow
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Excerpt
As I tried to hug Gran, she jumped to the
ground and twirled around. “Did anybody follow you in here?” She closed the
door and pushed her chair up behind it. “They’ll be coming for me,” she
whispered, sounding scared and certain.
“Mother,” my mom cooed. “No one is coming for
you. Come sit down and tell me why MK is passed out like this in the middle of
the day.” I didn’t know how she stayed calm with Gran acting so crazy. The room
felt hot and too small. Besides the two beds and Gran’s chair, there was only
room for the dresser with the TV and radio on top and a decaying brown
recliner.
“This,”
Gran explained, “is what happens when you follow along. Pills go in, MK goes
down. They’re trying to control us. Are you sure there wasn’t anyone behind
you? They’ll be after me again. It’s that Johnny Rocket fella. He’s a bruiser.
Did you see him in the hall?” She peeked behind the curtain. “I don’t know if I
can take him down on my own. Why do you leave me with him when you know he
wants to axe me?”
“Mother, try to focus. What about your pills?” Mom asked her.
Gran pointed at MK with a look that said
something along the lines of she took
them and I had nothing to do with it.
“Oh, Mother!” Mom stood up and turned to me.
“I’m going to talk to the nurses. Looks like MK has been getting both of their
doses again.” She glared at Gran. “Keep an eye on her, Seraphina.”
“An eye? An eye?” Gran called out, backing up
against the wall as if I was about to peg her with an eyeball. “You keep your
eyes to yourself, young lady. I’ve got two of my own and I don’t need any more
thank you very much. I once knew a man in San Francisco who could take his
eyeball out at will. Made a horrible sucking noise when he smushed it back in,
like the sound of the bathtub emptying. Dangerous places bathtubs. I don’t
fancy them myself. Fancy is as fancy does, so don’t go getting up on your high
horse. Your horse, your horse, of course, of course.”
“It’s okay, Gran,” I promised, trying to unknot
my stomach muscles and calm her at the same time. “My eyes are staying in my
head.”
“Damn straight they are,” she mumbled,
squinting her own at me like she didn’t trust me. “Straight as an arrow on a
hot tin roof.” She pushed the chair under the doorknob.
I sat on her bed. “Can I ask you something?” It
seemed hopeless given how out of it she was, but I had to at least try, besides
maybe it would bring her around.
“Depends. Who told you to ask?”
“Just me. I was wondering about your
sensitivity.”
“We don’t talk about that,” Gran parroted. “No
siree, your mom says we don’t talk about that. Bad things could happen. We
could bring down the apocalypse like
the horsemen in colors of finery of the finest fine. Just like pine. Do you
smell peppermint? Is it Christmastime?”
“No, Gran. There’s no peppermint. Listen, Mom’s
out with the nurses,” I said. “She won’t talk about it with me, the sensitivity
stuff. Come on, Gran, please?” Hope was trickling away. Some days she seemed so
with it, so almost normal, and then some days were like this, where she
couldn’t string together a complete thought.
“All right, quick then, what do you need to
know?” She sat down practically on top of me, her head swiveling toward the
door and back to the window.
“Is there a way to … you know, keep it from
making you… I mean, is there some way to control it, to protect myself? Like,
is it possible to… give in to it and still stay sane?” I couldn’t believe I’d
actually thought it, much less said it out loud.
“Lordy be, if I’d figured that out I wouldn’t
be in this joint. But there’s gotta be a way. They’re keeping it from us so we
all end up in here with the crazies. It’s mind control. That’s why I won’t let
them cut my hair. It’s a terrible waste. My locks protect me from those radio waves
Johnny Rocket keeps sending. He thinks he can make me do whatever he damn well
pleases. But I’m on to him. Don’t you end up in this trap, you hear me? It’s
beastly. Of mice and men. Scattered on the shores like so much garbage. You
figure out how to block those radio signals, then come back and spring us. All
right?”
I could almost feel the wildness of her
thoughts, like a storm wind, reckless and raging.
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About the Author:
Summer Stone loves immersing herself in the worlds that live inside her mind. When she's in the real world, she likes kicking back on the beach, exploring new places, reading (of course) and eating rich, gooey chocolate. She loves spending time with her husband and kids, which she does as much as she can. Summer writes young adult and women's fiction, both supernatural and contemporary, realistic and looks forward to sharing her novels with you!
Find Summer online:
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