Tour Stop ~ Sapphire by Bryan Alaspa - Excerpt & Giveaway

Bryan W. Alaspa is a freelance writer and professional author of both fiction and non-fiction. Having lived in Chicago almost his entire life, he spent a few years living in St. Louis. Bryan's writing first began when he sat down and wrote a three -page story on his mom’s electric typewriter in the third grade. It’s been all up-hill since then!

With over 20 books in both fiction and non-fiction genres available, you can find most of them at Amazon.com with few books just for your Kindle and iPad users. Be sure to check them out.

A blogger for some time, you can learn about upcoming books as well as various author events Bryan is involved in.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Romance, Paranormal

Publisher: SalGad Publishing

Release date: June 2, 2013

Amazon

Book Description:

Jimmy Parker is a typical high school student. Unpopular with the girls and picked on by the boys, he’s just trying to survive long enough to escape the tiny Pennsylvanian town of Knorr. With Jimmy and his friend, George, heading to the school dance, they expect nothing but the usual ritual humiliation from their peers. But when a girl in a brilliant blue dress enters their lives at the side of a lonely old bridge…everything changes.

Her name is Sapphire, and she is the most alluring girl that Jimmy has ever met. Yet, there is something strange about her; something different. Why has he never seen her at school? Why does she only want to meet up near the bridge? And why does everybody keep warning Jimmy to stay away from her?

Before long, Jimmy is plunged into a decades-old mystery. The town of Knorr has many secrets; some held by powerful men. Men that would do anything to keep them from getting out. Something dark happened one night in Knorr, and now Jimmy is a part of it whether he likes it or not.

And Sapphire holds the key to understanding it all.

Jimmy discovers that his bond with the mysterious girl creates a unique power between them. A power that bridges time, space, and even dimensions. It is the one thing that could save them both.

Because sometimes the most powerful force on Earth is love.

Praise for Sapphire:

“A superb, well written story with a 50 year timeline. Initially a ghost story that turns into a mystery that becomes adventure and investigation turns again into a whodunit.” ~Robert Drake, Amazon Reviewer

“I was drawn to this book for the cover and it had been recommended to me by friend who knows my love of Western PA. I thought this book really captured the rural feel of a teenager's life and just as I was feeling a little complacent about it, Jimmy and George meet up with Sapphire on the river bank and the story really takes off.” ~Mary H., Amazon Reviewer

“A story of mystery and murder. A chilling, ghostly tale. An account of the pains and joys of youth, a romance, a love story like no other.” ~Daniel Cheely, Amazon Reviewer

Excerpt

Jimmy stood in front of the full-length mirror and did not like what he saw. The sleeves were too short. The white cuffs of his shirt stuck out from the sleeves of his jacket. Any dork could see that. Unfortunately, most of the student body at Knorr High School already thought of him as a dork. The last thing he wanted was feeling that way during his senior prom. However, here he was, looking at an image that could only be described as “dork.”

“No one will notice,” said his mother from behind him. She was hovering over his shoulder like a specter. She was smiling and proud. “You can take it off once you get there, and no one will even be paying any attention. Everyone will be too busy having a good time to care what you’re wearing.”

Jimmy sighed and tugged uselessly at the jacket’s sleeve. “Mom, you just have no clue.”

She came forward and hugged him. Then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Jimmy felt even more like a geek.

“I’m not supposed to,” she said. “Mothers are not supposed to have a clue.”

“Why couldn’t I have rented one?” Jimmy asked for the nine-hundredth time that afternoon.

“You know why,” she said, turning her back and fussing with something out of his sightline. “We can’t afford it. Your uncle had this perfectly serviceable tuxedo and it’s a shame not to use it.”

She reappeared beside him in the mirror, her hand on her hip. Her mouth was a tight line. Jimmy knew that poking at the nerve that they were not a family of means was a low blow. He had seen that look before. This was the same look she had given him as a kid when he wanted a toy that was just too expensive. It was the same look she had given him when he begged her for a cell phone. And he saw the exact same look from her whenever he talked about needing a car.

“I spent a lot of time getting the shirt and pants to fit you,” she said. “I did the best I could with the jacket. If you want, you can spend the night at home with me instead of going at all. So, either deal with this situation the best you can or don’t go. I really don’t care.”

She cared. Jimmy knew she cared. She and his father had worked their fingers to the bone to provide for Jimmy. The family had never gone hungry. They had never been without clothes. They may have shopped for their new school wardrobe at Goodwill, but they had clothes. They may have eaten more macaroni and cheese than others, but they were never hungry. Their car may have been rusted through and coughed out oily blue smoke, but they always got where they needed to go. The house may have been run down and it may have been in the part of town most of the other kids avoided, but they always had a roof over their heads. Then his father had died, suddenly, a few years ago. The pain was always there, behind Jimmy’s eyes, lurking around every corner. His dad had done what he could to make sure his family was cared for, but it had not been easy. His mother worked very hard.

Jimmy smiled his crooked smile. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I appreciate it, Mom. Come on, it wouldn’t be a weekend if I didn’t complain about something.”

His mother’s face softened and then her smile returned. Jimmy managed to turn away, searching for the bow tie, before she could plant another kiss on him. He was only willing to be gracious up to a certain point. He found the tie and fiddled with it for a moment. When he turned back toward the mirror his mother was fiddling with something behind him again. He affixed the tie and straightened it. He took another look. His image still said “dork,” but he had lived with that image for a long time.

Before too long he would be elsewhere, and all of the things he had gone through in high school would be over. He could live with looking like a dork for another night. Besides, he was going with his best friend George, anyway, so things couldn’t get too bad.

“When is George getting here?” his mother asked.

“About five more minutes,” Jimmy said.

“I wish you two had managed to find some nice girls to ask,” his mother said.

“Mom, there isn’t a girl in Knorr High School that would be caught dead attending the senior prom with Jimmy Parker or George Howell,” he said as he adjusted his tie one more time. It immediately went crooked again, and he decided that the tie really didn’t matter.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” his mother said.

Jimmy turned to face her. “Mom, trust me on this one. George and I are not the most popular kids in school. In fact, we are far from it.”

She reached out and pinched his cheeks. This was the one thing worse than the kiss on the cheek. One thing was certain: his mother had some kind of cheek fetish.

“But you’re such a smart, nice kid,” she said.

Jimmy snorted. “Mom, even in your day the smart and nice kids were not the popular ones in school, were they?”

She put her hands on his shoulders. “I found your father in high school. He was smart and nice.”

“He also played football,” Jimmy said.

“He was the kicker,” she said. “You know, back in the old days when dinosaurs walked the Earth, and your father and I were young.”

“Kickers still wear uniforms,” Jimmy said. He paused to make sure his hair looked OK one more time. The cowlick towards the back of his head was still there despite the industrial strength hair gel he had put in there.

Just then, the phone rang. Jimmy’s mother vanished into the kitchen and Jimmy turned back to the mirror and adjusted his tie for the millionth time. He also tried to plaster his hair down, but to no avail. He sighed. He was always going to look this way, right?

“Jimmy,” his mother said, returning to the bedroom. “It’s Jesse.”

Jimmy smiled. Jesse was the town’s librarian. The library was small, but filled with wonder, as far as Jimmy was concerned. It overlooked a river and was surrounded by touristy attractions, but inside it was all books and musty smells. Jimmy had buried himself there when his father died and Jesse had taken a kind of liking to him. It may have been a stretch to say that Jesse was a father figure, but their relationship was pretty close. Jimmy ran to the phone.

“Hey, Jimmy! Are you looking sharp in your suit?” Jesse asked.

Jimmy laughed. “Jesse, I would not look sharp wearing a suit full of razor blades.”

“Come on, you know that isn’t true,” Jesse said. “I’m sure you and George will have a good time. Maybe try to get up the nerve to ask a girl to dance.”

“I wouldn’t put money on that,” Jimmy said. “I’m betting most of the girls there arrive with dates.”

“You just never know,” Jesse said. “I had a pretty amazing time the night of the big dance when I was your age. And I ended up going with a beautiful girl, to boot. You need to be a bit more positive.”

A honk came from outside. This was followed shortly by a sound that was only slightly quieter than a Howitzer shell going off in the living room. George had arrived with his car. The engine settled into a low rattle as the car set about trying to shake itself to pieces again.

“Yo, Jimmy!” came the bellow from the car. That could only have been George leaning out the driver’s side window. George was not known for being subtle.

“That sounds like George,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Jimmy said.

There was a pause. It seemed like there was more to say, but anything else would have crossed some line between them and that line was still held by Jimmy’s father, even though he was gone.

“You be careful tonight, Jimmy,” Jesse said. “Come by the library when you can and tell me all about it or give me a call tomorrow.”

“I will,” Jimmy said, and paused, then added. “Thanks for calling.”

“You bet,” Jesse said.

Then he was gone, and Jimmy ran back to the bedroom. His mother was there with her hands to her throat in an unconscious anxious gesture she often did, looking as if maybe she had been crying. His mom appreciated how Jesse looked after him, but the pain of losing his father was still there. Jimmy smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Another honk came from outside, so Jimmy had to move.

Jimmy tried to move past his mother, but she grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him back and looking him full in the face again. She smiled, and, much to Jimmy’s consternation, he saw tears swimming in her eyes. She was about to give him some sort of speech about how proud she was of him. It would be similar to one she had given him when he had first gotten the scholarship to attend Clark University.

“Be careful,” she said instead, her voice quavering. “And have fun.”

Jimmy smiled. This time, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. He left quickly just because he did not want to see her cry. He ran down the hall and through the living room.

Jimmy bolted through the door and heard it bang shut behind him. George was hanging out the window of his car, his tuxedo jacket already tossed in the backseat. He had a huge grin on his face, his hair already wild and windblown from driving with the window down.

“Come on, the party awaits!” he yelled in the rather odd way of speaking that George had and that so marked him as an outsider, and leaned back into the car, reaching over the passenger’s seat to unlock the door.

“What’s it waiting for?” Jimmy asked as he opened the large, rusty door with a loud screeching sound.

“Us, my man,” George said as Jimmy planted his ass on the passenger seat and slammed the door. “It is waiting for us.”

Jimmy laughed. “You do live in an amazing fantasy world.”

George leaned around the passenger seat to peer out the back window as he shifted into reverse. “You should move into my world, my friend,” he said. “Plenty of room, and the fun never stops.”

Jimmy laughed again. He thought that maybe it would be a night to remember, after all. Once Jimmy was situated in the passenger seat, as often happened when he was with George, Jimmy’s own form of speech slipped into the oddly formal way that George spoke.

“Then lead on, sir,” he said. “Lead on!”

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Tour Stop ~ A White Room by Stephanie Carroll (Excerpt)

Description:
At the close of the Victorian Era, society still expected middle-class women to be “the angels of the house,” even as a select few strived to become something more. In this time of change, Emeline Evans dreamed of becoming a nurse. But when her father dies unexpectedly, Emeline sacrifices her ambitions and rescues her family from destitution by marrying John Dorr, a reserved lawyer who can provide for her family. 

John moves Emeline to the remote Missouri town of Labellum and into an unusual house where her sorrow and uneasiness edge toward madness. Furniture twists and turns before her eyes, people stare out at her from empty rooms, and the house itself conspires against her. The doctor diagnoses hysteria, but the treatment merely reinforces the house’s grip on her mind. 

Emeline only finds solace after pursuing an opportunity to serve the poor as an unlicensed nurse. Yet in order to bring comfort to the needy she must secretly defy her husband, whose employer viciously hunts down and prosecutes unlicensed practitioners. Although women are no longer burned at the stake in 1900, disobedience is a symptom of psychological defect, and hysterical women must be controlled. 

A novel of madness and secrets, A White Room presents a fantastical glimpse into the forgotten cult of domesticity, where one’s own home could become a prison and a woman has to be willing to risk everything to be free.

An Insane Woman Battles Furniture in Stephanie Carroll’s A White Room

Author Stephanie Carroll will be checking Lost to Books periodically for the first week of this post to answer any questions readers may have so post away in the comments!

I racked a clean dish and lathered the next. A loud thud made me jump. Then I heard noise from above, creaking sounds, as if someone were traipsing across the parlor. I let my head fall back and stared at the ceiling. It had to be John. I placed the wet dish on the stack, picked up my ivory lamp with the tall cylindrical glass cover and cautiously scaled the stairs. I always moved with wariness while in the house alone, for I feared disturbing something. At the top of the stairs, I looked down a dark hallway.

I hadn’t opened the doors, in case John returned quickly. If he’d been home, he would have left open the door to whichever room he was in. None were ajar.

“Jo—hn?” It felt like hollering underwater. I cleared my throat and took a breath. I was preparing to raise my voice when pounding on the second floor stopped me. I turned my eyes up and listened, too frightened to move. Was it John? Was it the beast?

A clanking noise came from the parlor. I saw the glow of the lamp on the doorknob, hesitated, heard clacking, and inched over.

I grasped the knob, twisted it, and pushed the door open.

It opened to reveal that all the furniture in the parlor was moving,dancing. The winding appendages of the bizarre tables and chairs were actually twisting and twirling. The legs were flailing, and the statues and pictures were sashaying. I dropped the lamp, and the glass cylinder shattered on the floor. My disturbance did not halt the wooden beings’ frenzy. I thrust my hands out. “Stop!Stop! You must stop!” The furniture continued to dance as if I didn’t exist. I looked around at the chaos and tried to think of the appropriate action. I needed to stop this. John could return at any moment. “Stop!” I screamed as loud as I could to cut through the clanking and flailing. “Stop! Stop! Stop now!”

They refused to respond, and an unbearable sense of urgency rose within me from deep in my abdomen. I screamed and grabbed at the snaking extremities. I took hold of the leg of a chair and snapped it off. With the sound of the chair’s limb breaking free, an unquenchable need to demolish these rebellious objects began to boil in my gut. I bunched my hands into tight little rocks and experienced my own detonation. I picked up a statuette and hurled it at the wall. I kicked over a table, and all the bric-a-brac crashed to the floor. I stomped down on the legs of the table I’d knocked over, breaking all but one off. I continued seeking out the most frail furnishings and tearing them limb from limb. The entire room fell into a hush. I seized a detached extremity and waved it in the air. “Do you see? Do you see what I can do to you?”

The room sat motionless, as if nothing had happened. Had it not? I scanned the parlor and saw the disarray that had resulted from my thrashing. My heart skipped. John would be home soon. 

I couldn’t allow him to see it. What would he think? What a cruel and evil trick the furniture had played on me. Quickly, I ran about the room and turned chairs and tables upright and gathered the smashed pieces of bric-a-brac together. I scuttled and tripped on my skirt. I swiftly removed the broken table, dismembered pieces, and shattered porcelain and ran down the stairs to stow them with my melancholy in the basement.

As I set the rubble down in a corner, I heard thumping again. 

I dashed upstairs and into the parlor to find the furniture at it again, only this time instead of merely dancing, the pieces were running amok. The bastards knew I would be the one to suffer the consequences. They didn’t speak it—they couldn’t, being only furniture—but I knew they were calling out in an uproar, “Do you see? Do you see what we can do to you?”

I watched as one reached out and tipped over a potted plant, scattering soil everywhere.

“No!”

A twirling vine from a cabinet slid up the wall, lifted off a mirror and let it crash to the floor.

“You wretched things!” I scrambled to pick everything up. I moved from place to place standing tables up, positioning chairs to face the proper direction, and gathering shards of porcelain and glass. I picked up trinkets and statuettes and put them in their places. Every time I cleared something from the room, I returned to worse. Every time I put something right, I whirled around to find it all wrong again. “No, no, no.”

Finally, I couldn’t take anymore. I fell to my knees, covered my face with my hands and screamed. “Stop! Stop! I’m begging you—please stop!”

“Emeline?” A calm but curious voice broke through the insanity.

Nothing around me was in motion. There was only me, a lifeless parlor, and John’s voice. I opened my eyes, lifted my head and peeked through my hands to see his lanky form standing in the open doorway, his cheeks twitching and his eyes bulging. “What happened?” He sounded oddly concerned.

I looked up, stunned. I lowered my trembling hands from my face and clasped them at my chest. My mouth hung open but could not form syllables.

He stared.

“I—I tripped?”

“You tripped?”

I nodded ever so slightly.

He pointed. “You have blood on your face.”

I lifted my hand to my left cheek and felt a wet slick but no pain.

I noticed a slit in my sleeve that revealed a little blood-speckled

flesh. “Uh—I—I cut myself.”

John observed the room—furniture tipped over, chairs facing every direction, dirt strewn across the floor, little piles of broken porcelain and glass throughout. He may have suspected my dishonesty.

He bent down and picked up a rounded fragment of a vase.

My eyes darted to and fro in panic. I realized how I must have looked, on my knees in the middle of the room, panting, with a red smear across my face, a cut arm, surrounded by wreckage. “It was an accident.”

He rubbed the broken porcelain with his thumb. “Well, I’ll be in the library.” He turned and walked out.

I looked over my shoulder at the destroyed parlor, everything limp and lifeless. “Damn furniture.”


—Quoted with the permission of the author.

A White Room is Available in Print $14.99 and

eBook $3.99 (Kindle, Nook, Sony, e-pub)

Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Sony - Kobo - Inktera - Smashwords - Apple’s iBooks

About the Author

As a reporter and community editor, Stephanie Carroll earned first place awards from the National Newspaper Association and from the Nevada Press Association. Stephanie holds degrees in history and social science. She graduated summa cum laude from California State University, Fresno.

Her dark and magical writing is inspired by the classic authors Charlotte Perkins Gilman (The Yellow Wallpaper), Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden), and Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights).

Stephanie blogs and writes fiction in California, where her husband is stationed with the U.S. Navy. Her website is www.stephaniecarroll.net.

A White Room is her debut novel.

Find Stephanie Carroll

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Follow the Blog Tour!

Weds, June 19 – Oh, For the Hook of a Book:  Book Review and Giveaway (ebook)

Thurs, June 20 – Hazel the Witch:  Interview and Giveaway (Print)

Sat, June 22 – Reading in Ecuador:  

Guest Post: How to Write Suspenseful Fiction including A White Room excerpt

Thurs, June 27 – Momma Bears Book Blog:  Giveaway and

Guest Post: The Story Behind Emeline’s Mental Distress

Fri, June 28 – The Bookish Dame:  Interview and Giveaway

Tues, July 2 – I am Indeed:  Guest Post: Historical Accuracy in Historical Fiction

Mon, July 8 – Bookfari:  Interview and Giveaway

Tues, July 9 – Hazel the Witch: 

Guest Post – How to Write the Inner Thoughts of a Crazy Person

Weds, July 10 – Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers: Review and Giveaway

Fri, July 12 – Lost to Books:  Guest Post TBA and Giveaway

Mon, July 15 – A Writer of History:  Guest Post: Writing an Era – Where to Begin?

Weds, July 17 – Michelle’s Romantic Tangle:  Interview

Thurs, July 18 – Oh, For the Hook of a Book:  Interview

Tues, July 23 – Unabridged Chick:  Review and Giveaway

Thurs July 25 – Ravings and Ramblings:  Review and Interview

Tues July 30 – Reading the Past:  Giveaway and Guest Post:

Writing and Historical Thought - They Didn't Think Like We Did 100 Years Ago

Sat, Aug. 3 – History and Women:  Giveaway and Guest Post:

Guest Post: Victorian Women and the Mystery of Sex