by Suzanne van Rooyen
December 7th 2012 / Etopia Press
The world's going to end in fire…and it's all Kyle's fault.
Kyle Wolfe's world is about to crash and burn. Just weeks away from graduation, a fire kills Kyle's two best friends and leaves him permanently scarred. A fire that Kyle accidentally set the night he cheated on his boyfriend Danny with their female friend, Shira. That same day, a strange new planet, Obscura, appears in the sky. And suddenly Kyle's friends aren't all that dead anymore.
Each time Kyle goes to sleep, he awakens to two different realities. In one, his boyfriend Danny is still alive, but Shira is dead. In the other, it's Shira who's alive...and now they're friends with benefits. Shifting between realities is slowly killing him, and he's not the only one dying. The world is dying with him. He's pretty sure Obscura has something to do with it, but with his parents' marriage imploding and realities shifting each time he closes his eyes, Kyle has problems enough without being the one in charge of saving the world...
Goodreads Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16060591-obscura-burning
EXCERPT:
Closing my eyes, I imagine New
Mexico burning, can almost smell it, the pungent pine, fireball mesquite, and
smouldering cacti. I should be worried about the damage the UV’s doing to my
scars, but after tonight, none of that will matter.
Just when you think it can’t
possibly get any hotter or the mercury will explode, the temperature rises just
a few more degrees. Today, Coyote’s Luck lies in a simmering mirage, hotter
than any hell imaginable.
The crush of mesquite huddling
between the tombstones offers little respite from the sun. Sticking to the
dappled shade, I thread my way toward Danny’s grave. I’m not alone.
She looks like a ghost with the
white sundress fanning around her legs, her long black hair teased by the warm
breeze. For a moment, I think it’s one of the ch’iindi made flesh, until she turns at the sound of my step.
Gabriela, her face a teary-eyed
frown. She folds her arms and returns her gaze to the grave. When did she get
so thin? She was always so voluptuous, a shorter, less saggy version of her
mother. Now she looks more like a sixteen-year-old kid, barely there in layers
of cotton.
We stand in silence, both just
staring at the grave. The rosaries dangle over the stone, tied in knots around
the stems of already dead flowers. There’s a white and blue beaded one, the one
that was attached to Danny’s bed, the one he’d kiss at night before going to
sleep.
“I miss him so much,” Gabriela says
eventually.
“So do I.”
“I blame you, you know.” She casts
me a sidelong glance.
“Maybe you should.”
She nods and sniffs and fingers one
of the blooms turned brown by the heat.
“Dead, all of it.” She tears the
petals from the stalk. “Little Maria, now Daniel.” She turns her dark eyes on
me, searching for something I wish I could give her.
“This is killing my parents. Daniel
was their only son. They’ll never have more children. Once, I had a brother.
Now I’m alone. Sister to dead siblings.”
That’s the most Gabriela’s ever
said, to me at least. I’m stunned into uncomfortable silence. There’s nothing I
can say that’ll make it right. But tonight, maybe there’ll be something I can
do.
“I wish I could make it right.” My
words sound so pathetic.
She harrumphs and digs her sandaled
toe into the dirt. “Nothing can make Daniel dying right.”
“I’m sorry.” There is nothing else I
can say without trying to explain the whole confusing story and Gabriela’s not
the type to believe in rifts in reality.
“Tell Daniel you’re sorry. He’s the
one who died because of you.” She takes a deliberate step away from me, crosses
herself, offering prayers in Spanish to the ether.
“I loved him, you know.” Maybe I am
to blame, but she makes it sound like I don’t give a crap that he’s dead.
“Obviously not enough.”
Suzanne is represented by Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency.
Author Links:
Website: http://suzannevanrooyen.com/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5306442.Suzanne_van_Rooyen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Suzanne-van-Rooyen/304965232847874
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Suzanne_Writer
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I'd probably buy My Life Next Door :)
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