Spectacle
by S.J.
Pierce
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
***This is currently a web series!!! I’m releasing a
chapter at a time on my website at www.sjpiercebooks.blogspot.com. You can read
there or go to Scribd, download their app, and read there.***
Hunger Games meets Avatar meets
Gladiator in this spellbinding new Young Adult Science-Fiction web series by
bestselling author Susan James Pierce.
Fear can make you a target…
Two hundred years after the Great Disaster, the day
earthquakes ravaged Earth’s landscapes, humanity has finally regrouped and is
working toward a better future. But in New America – one of three small,
remaining landmasses – the threat of overpopulation makes a better future seem
bleaker by the year.
Mira (Mirabella) Foster and her parents are citizens of
New America, and with the threat of starvation and disease looming on the
horizon, a new discovery threatens to push everyone to the brink of chaos: blue
markings develop on people’s skin. Markings that are distinctive of a humanoid
alien race named Changers that secretly sought refuge on Earth years ago.
Markings that allow them to camouflage their skin, but also make them feared,
and eventually, targets of violence.
Mira’s dad is one of them.
Anger can make you a spectacle…
Banished to a treacherous, uninhabited island, a newly
orphaned Mira and her kind struggle to survive and settle into a new way of
life. Her main priority becomes seeing to Jackson’s care, her friend with
Muscular Dystrophy, and tending to her garden as a way of distracting herself
from the pain of losing everything she loved. But just as she’s adapting to
this new life, their Elders approach her with a plan to insert themselves back
into New America to uncover a conspiracy. A conspiracy, they believe, that
includes the presidency and landed them on the island, costing many Changers
their lives, including her parents’.
In a world where staying on the island means a possible
untimely death, as does risking her life to uncover a horrible secret that
might one day set them all free, which one will she choose? And if she chooses
to help, can she tame her anger over their mistreatment long enough to make
sure their plan goes off without a hitch? Because, after all, the last thing
her kind needs is to make spectacles of themselves, and as she knows all too
well, both anger and fear have a perilous knack for destruction.
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I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling.
Dad covered them with glow-in-the-dark stars for my tenth birthday. I think of
leaving for the mountains and I’m filled with a mixture of agony and relief. In
a way, I don’t want to leave this place; memories of my father, as painful as
they can be, are everywhere and it’s all I have left of him now. But in
another, I want to start fresh, even if we have to live in huts or caves or
whatever they’re planning on doing. The thought unnerves me a little, like any
unknown thing, but it’ll be good for mom to leave here and be around others.
And I’ll be able to see Jacks and Luxxe more; I desperately need their company.
A knock on the front door startles me. It
was too loud to be Jacks or Luxxe. A man shouts through it, but I can’t make
out what he’s saying from here. Our dog is going wild.
Mom stirs on the couch and I wait to see if
she’ll get it.
The man shouts again, and her feet patter
my way. She finds me erect on the bed with my covers wrapped around me in a
cocoon. Her eyes are huge white saucers, and she presses her finger against her
lips to keep me quiet before she shuts my door and sprints away.
Alone in my room, I hide inside the space
between my bed and the wall and snatch a book of Robert Frost poems on my
nightstand, hugging it close for comfort. To distract myself, I try to recite The Road Not Taken but can’t focus
enough to do so. My heart gains speed as panic courses through me. Whoever is
on the other side of the door has her worried. Are we in danger? I’ve never
wanted my dad more than I do in this moment. This isn’t right. He should be
here to protect us. If I wasn’t so scared, I’d pay more attention to the anger
writhing inside me. I hope whoever took him from us is dead. I hope they’re
gone for what they did.
The man shouts louder this time and bangs
three times on the door. I still hear our dog, but where’s mom? I don’t hear
mom!
After an eternity, she shows up again with
a bag slung over her shoulder and points to my cracked window. She wants to
escape. But where would we go? I nod silently and stand, slipping the book into
my waistband.
A
loud bang rattles our apartment, and the living room door hurls into the
kitchen. Splinters of wood lie in its wake. In one swift movement, mom snatches
me by the arm and heaves the window open the rest of the way.
The thumping of loud boots fills our
apartment, and to keep from screaming out, I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds.
The men in uniforms, they’re here for us.
All proceeds from pre-orders are going to a local kid
named Brayden who has Muscular Dystrophy.
Brayden
is a smart and witty twelve-year-old boy, who loves video games and sports of
all kinds, especially football, but the only thing holding him back is that he
has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He was diagnosed on April 1st, 2010
with the disease, which will one day (possibly sooner than later) put him in
wheelchair fulltime. His mind is sharp as a tack, but his little body is giving
out daily; the more tired he gets, the more frequent the falls. Luckily he hasn’t
broken any bones (yet). He will one day need a tracheotomy to be able to
breathe and speak, and his lungs and heart are muscles that will give out just
as easy as his arms and legs. Most boys with this disease will not live into
their 20’s, and the disease claims lives daily. To help Brayden in his journey
with DMD, S.J. has pledged to donate all of her pre-order proceeds to Brayden’s
family.
Susan James Pierce has a degree in Marketing Management,
works for a Fortune 500 company in Atlanta, Georgia, and devotes her
precious, spare time to writing Fantasy, Paranormal and Sci-fi
novels.
Please visit www.sjpiercebooks.blogspot.com and sign up for her mailing list or subscribe to her blog if you'd like to hear when new books come out! Coming soon:
Iris (Novella: The Captivated Series) Available now!!!
Fight for Me (Book Two: The Captivated Series)
Please visit www.sjpiercebooks.blogspot.com and sign up for her mailing list or subscribe to her blog if you'd like to hear when new books come out! Coming soon:
Iris (Novella: The Captivated Series) Available now!!!
Fight for Me (Book Two: The Captivated Series)
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