REVIEW and GIVEAWAY
Eerie
by C. M. McCoy
Eerie by C. M. McCoy is an award-winning teen paranormal adventure featured in PEOPLE Magazine. The author stops by today to share an excerpt from the book. You can also read my review and enter our exclusive giveaway for a chance to win a sterling silver Irish Claddagh ring.
Description
Hailey’s dreams have always been, well ... vivid. As in monsters from her nightmares follow her into her waking life vivid.
When her big sister goes missing, eighteen-year-old Hailey finds the only thing keeping her safe from a murderous 3,000-year-old beast is an equally terrifying creature who has fallen "madly" in love with her. Competing to win her affection, the Dream Creature, Asher, lures her to the one place that offers safety - a ParaScience university in Alaska he calls home. There, she studies the science of the supernatural and must learn to live with a roommate from Hell, survive her ParaScience classes, and hope the only creature who can save her from an evil immortal doesn’t decide to kill her himself.
Book Video and Playlist
Check out the book video and the author's Eerie playlist.
Excerpt
Chapter 2
A Guarded Girl
A Guarded Girl
Hailey stared at the empty can on her tray, silently willing the caffeine to kick in. The last thing she needed was to fall asleep, dream of monsters, and have an “episode” in front of her 200 closest non-friends.
No way she’d let that happen.
Now if only her droopy eyelids would cooperate, because the hard plastic chair under her butt sure wasn’t. The dang thing was teasing her and feeling mighty comfy, like a puffy armchair, and she was sinking fast. Thankfully, though, just as her head bobbed, the bell rang, jolting her into a wide-eyed, full-body spasm.
Great. Real smooth, she thought, rubbing her face with both hands as a few gigglers shuffled past.
She groaned, rising with all the enthusiasm of a mushroom, not at all looking forward to another two hours inside the social torture chamber, or as everyone else referred to it, South Side High School.
She was so intent on avoiding the students there for the rest of her senior year that she rarely looked up from her books anymore, and those last two hours dragged. When three o’clock finally rolled around, she bolted outside, took the first open seat on the bus, rested her head against the window, and let it bounce there. She was just about to make it through another day of school very happily unnoticed, when Tage Adams smacked her on the back of the head.
“Ah!” she yelled, startled from sleep.
The bus was waiting at their stop, like normal, and Tage was waiting for her in the aisle, politely—not normal.
Tucking a wayward strand behind her ear, she hurried off the bus.
Tage followed.
“What’s up with you today?” he said nonchalantly, adjusting his pace to walk next to her.
He’d never done that before.
“Nothing,” Hailey said, surprised Tage was talking to her. They’d been catching the bus at the same stop for four years, and he’d never so much as looked at her.
“You’re usually not like that, that’s all.”
“Like what?”
“Nodding off in class, falling asleep on the bus…you know, slacking off. It’s just, you know, you usually have your nose in a book.”
He watches me?
“Oh,” she said, unsure.
“Guess you were working late last night…St. Paddy’s Day…”
“Yeah.” Of course she was working late. Her family owned the most popular Irish pub in Pittsburgh. Hailey pressed her lips together. Small talk was not her thing. Especially not with him.
Her mind went blank.
Searching the pavement for a thought, she chewed her lip as too many seconds stretched the silence. Finally the pressure forced her good sense aside and she opened her mouth to say…anything.
“What’s—”
“Well, see ya ‘round, Dancing Queen.”
She snapped her mouth shut and waved as he peeled off and trotted down Bridge Street. She tried to form the word, “bye,” but all that came out was “buh—”. Standing dumbfounded, she stared after him. She hadn’t realized Tage knew she existed, let alone the fact that she waitressed. And danced.
Stunned, Hailey walked, then jogged, then stopped dead to puzzle over what had just happened. Then she jogged again until she finally reached the pub.
Nobody at that school “chatted” with Hailey. Not since the fourth grade, not since the day a particularly mean girl concocted a particularly ugly rumor—that Hailey had started the fire that killed her parents. The whispers and sideways glances lasted close to a year, and in trying to defend herself, Hailey only made things worse. By the time she figured out that nobody else believed in pyromaniac-nightmare-monsters, it was too late. She’d already earned the label, “weirdo,” which, unfortunately, stuck.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
"Eerie, full of voice and romance, is a thrilling and beautifully crafted story that had me up late, racing through the pages to get to the end. " - Author Brenda Drake
"I think (C. M. McCoy) has a great deal of skill, especially crafting spine-tingling moments. That is very hard to do and a sign of her talent!" ~ Comment from author/editor Nathan B.
"Seductive, sexy, creepy, and enthralling all at the same time! It's the exciting, racing love all women dream of!!!!!" ~ Reader review by Stephanie L.
"WAHH... best ending ever! I don't know how C.M. McCoy put it all together. She's like JK Rowling! This book is amazing and riveting. It's going to be a huge success, made into a movie, etc., etc. Fantasy slash romance (and what a romance - take it from a single girl, we appreciate it!) is so in right now." ~ Reader review by Myra W.
"I f-ing loved it! I am still putting together all the pieces in my head. I love it when a book does that to me! Seriously, though. I need the second book. NOW." ~ Reader review by Amie Jo N.
My Review
Hailey has recurring dreams featuring a purple-eyed Envoy summoning her to her death. Asher is that Envoy, one of many soul gathers accidentally trapped for the last three thousand years between the Aether and Earth. Now in her senior year of high school, Hailey has to deal with the normal pressures of homework, prom, cute boys, and choosing where to go to college. And then her older sister Holly is abducted. What secret is Fin, the cute bartender, hiding? What happens when the handsome purple-eyed man of Hailey's dreams (literally) walks into her family bar? Strange things start happening around her, but when Hailey goes off to university, the weirdness begins in earnest - not least of which is her roommate from Hell (once again, literally). The Envoys come up with a plan to get back home, but who else will have to die in the process? In the end, the real question is: "Is anything more important than love?"
From the sublime to the ridiculous, the author's writing is a melange of Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, and J. K. Rowling. The quotes at the beginning of each chapter are a nice touch and help set the tone. Hints are woven none too subtly into the text (for example, the strange scholarship offers, her mother's necklace, and the Irish dancing), and you just know these things are going to play a big part in the story. The book features an assortment of memorable characters (such as Fin, Uncle Pix, Mrs Lash, Giselle, and Asher) and delightfully quirky critters (such as tea-drinking bookworms, tunneling earworms, carnivorous trees, and Yetis). Eerie is a brilliant combination of horror, thriller, paranormal, romance, and (surprisingly) humor. I especially love the campus tour and Giselle's descriptions of Hailey's dance moves. I'm just not sure about the book title and the cover, which don't convey the humor and quirkiness inherent in the story.
Warning: ends on a cliffhanger, but this time I didn't mind. I can't wait to read more about Hailey and Fin.
About the Author
Giveaway
Enter our exclusive giveaway for a chance to win a sterling silver Irish Claddagh ring (open internationally).
Plus, enter the Goodreads giveaway for a chance to win a signed paperback copy of Eerie by C. M. McCoy plus a $10 Amazon gift card and swag (ends 31 October).
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