Title: Speak of the Devil
Series: Book #1 in the Speak of the Devil series
Author: Shawna Romkey
Genre: Paranormal YA
Release Date: April 15th, 2015
Blurb
After dying with her two best friends in a tragic car
accident, Lily comes back to life only to wind up in the middle of a war
between good and evil at a time when God has disappeared.
What happens when falling in love and
falling from grace collide?
After dying in a car accident with her
two best friends, Lily miraculously awakens to grief and guilt. She escapes to
her dad’s to come to terms with the crash and meets some people at her new
school who seem all too eager to help her heal. Sliding deeper into sorrow and
trying to fight her feelings for two of them, she finds out who…what they really are and learns they are
falling too.
Can she find the strength to move on
from the past, reconcile her feelings for Luc, figure out a way to stop a
divine war with fallen angels, and still pass the eleventh grade?
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Book Trailer
Excerpt
Rain fell, not uncommon for late spring in Missouri. “If you don’t like
the weather here,” my grandfather would say, “wait five minutes.” Of course,
I’d visited distant relatives in Maine once before, and they said the same
thing.
Julie fumbled with
the wipers while I pulled the sun visor down to check my face in its little
rectangular mirror, even though I’d only left my vanity like five minutes ago.
The lights on either side lit up the interior of the car. I reached into my
tiny party purse to find my lip gloss, which was easy to locate since I’d only
packed the essentials in my bag: phone, some cash, and make-up. As I glanced at
myself, I saw Mike in the reflection, smiling at me from the back seat. I stuck
my tongue out at him, making him laugh, and put on the lip-gloss, fully aware
of how flirty I acted.
The windshield
wipers couldn’t keep up with the sudden downpour. The pitter-patter turned to
thumping. Hail came down in gumball-sized pellets. “Damn.” Julie jerked the
steering wheel to keep The Whale off the curb.
“Slow down, Jules.”
Mike gripped Julie’s headrest. “We can pull over until it passes.”
“Yeah.” She
squinted to see the road before her.
I pressed my lips
together to smooth out the gloss. “Damn is right. I didn’t bring a jacket.”
The Whale swerved
to the right crunching along the gravel on the side of the road. I braced
myself in my seat. Julie leaned up to the steering wheel and peered over it as
my grandmother sometimes did when she drove. I squinted because of the stupid
light up visor mirror. I slammed it shut, but Julie panicked and over
corrected, pulling The Whale to the left and careening over the yellow dotted
line in the middle of the street.
“Julie!” Mike
shouted.
Time slowed and
ticked out in heartbeats.
Ba bum.
Julie cringed, her
hands moving up to shield her face. Her head turned away from the highway.
Ba bum.
Mike reached
protectively from the back seat.
Ba bum.
The headlights
illuminated the rail of the overpass.
Ba bum.
The car hit the
rail on the opposite side of the road with a hard thud.
Ba bum.
Crap. We’re going
over the bridge.
Ba bum.
The Whale’s nose
pointed down toward the water.
Ba bum.
A jolt forward and
my forehead slammed into the dashboard.
Ba bum.
The Whale flipped
in the air. I’m upside down.
Ba bum.
Pain.
Ba bum.
Did my mom say
good-bye when I left?
Ba bum.
Cold water rushed
into the car.
Ba bum.
Is this it?
Ba bum.
I can’t breathe. Oh
my God, I can’t breathe. I can’t see or breathe!
My heart quickened.
It pounded. The Whale leaned on its side under the surface of the water which
rushed in fast, and I couldn’t see a damn thing.
Calm, stay calm.
Don’t panic. They say when you’re drowning not to panic because you use up your
air faster.
Dammit, am I drowning?
I tried to get
myself upright and jerked out of my seatbelt. Luckily, it gave way. I fought
the latch to open the door facing up, but the pressure of the water from Black
Water River held it closed, trapping me inside.
Jesus. I know this
river. It’s more of a creek. It can’t be more than fifteen feet across and ten
feet deep.
I pushed at the door. Opening my mouth to scream, I swallowed water.
I couldn’t see or
hear Julie or Mike. My watch ticked. Or was it my heart beating?
Ba bum. Ba bum. Ba
bum.
Darkness.
Silence.
Cold.
Wet.
Defying gravity.
Nothing.
The dreams came.
Like a good sleep you don’t want to wake up from. I felt heavy and floaty. I
wore this long white gauzy gown and the wind blew my dress and my hair like in
some feminine hygiene commercial. I could breathe slowly and deeply. Completely
relaxed and at peace, but I was alone.
I floated along in
a white space for a while. Drifting. Breathing. Relaxing. Had I gone to a spa?
After an immeasurable amount of time, others appeared. They wore white
clothing, too, and they floated like me, reaching out. They opened their arms
as if to welcome me to them.
I stopped and
frowned. I heard no sound, and I didn’t know who these white floaty people were
or why they welcomed me. They smiled, genuinely happy, and held their arms out
to me. I panicked.
Where’s my mom? My
family? Wait, Mike and Julie were just with me, where are they? Are those
wings?
I noticed the others floating with me had white feathery wings.
“Lily,” one of them
called out.
Holy hell. I’m dead.
About the Author
Shawna grew up around
farms in the heart of Missouri but went to the University of Kansas, was raised
in the US but now lives on the ocean in Nova Scotia with her husband, two sons,
one rescue dog and one overgrown puppy from hell. She’s a non-conformist who
follows her heart.
She’s taught
English at the university and secondary levels for close to twenty years and
can’t quite fathom how all of her students have grown up, yet she’s managed to
stay the same. She’s a huge geek and fan of Xena, Buffy and all kick ass
women, and loves to write stories that have strong female characters.
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4 Stars
Lily wants nothing more than to forget the night she lost her two best friends and died, yet somehow came back. She moves away from her small town and to the city with her dad and his family. She's just trying to get by day by day, lost in her own haze until a group of theater students seem to become determined to pull her out of the dark.
Turns out they are in the dark too and just might need her help to pull out of it. Can she help them while they help her?
Lily is a survivor, she may not feel it or believe it but it's what she is. She goes through her grief at her own pace not letting anyone else dictate what she should be feeling and when. She also has an inquisitive side that helps her take notice of things most people don't and it help her see through the BS people try to tell her.
She is tough and strong and even when she is feeling the grief and loss of her friends she is more there than some people are throughout their entire lives.
You see Lily as she goes through a horrible tragedy and tries to understand why things have happened the way they have, and if there's really someone else out there guiding you through them. She learns there is more to life than what you see with your own two eyes, but only if you have Faith. You see as she learns about a whole new world and has to figure out who to trust and when to trust them.
Interesting start to the series and I'm excited to see where it goes.
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