Welcome to my stop on The Colony blog tour! Today I have a great excerpt from the book to share with you - and don't forget to enter the giveaway! To follow the rest of the tour, click on the banner above.
The Colony (Rasper #1)
Publication Date: April 5, 2016Synopsis:
Trust no one.
Never go out in the dark.
Always have a weapon.
Sixteen-year-old Val lives by these three rules etched on her arm. Her rules and her gun are the only things standing between her and assimilation by hordes of human-looking aliens she calls Raspers.
By day, Val gathers supplies. By night, she hides and wishes she could go back in time…before her family died…before the annihilation…before the Raspers began stalking her and demanding she join their collective.
But when the Raspers attack in broad daylight, the truth becomes startlingly clear.
They’re evolving.
A fellow survivor crashes into Val’s life. Adam’s full of charm and promises—like rumors of a safe haven—but there’s something wrong. He’s survived with no supplies, no weapons…no plans. Time is running out. With the formula for survival shifting around her, Val must decide how many rules she’s willing to break to escape the Colony.
Outside, I leaned against the wall, pulled the scarf off my face, and sucked in fresh air. There was no way I could do that again. The store had finally crossed the line between food source and garbage dump. I tried to calm my breathing.
I ducked into the alley between Dollar World and Vincent’s Pizza.
Then I heard it. No. Not possible. It was still light out.
I tightened the straps on my backpack, set the bag of supplies on the ground next to a pile of fallen bricks, and flattened myself against the wall.
A scratchy, asthmatic-like breathing filled my eardrums. The sound came closer and closer. My breaths came faster and faster.
I ducked behind an overflowing nasty dumpster and waited.
Any time now. Any. Time.
I pulled out my Glock and set my grip. It couldn’t end now, not after all I’d done to survive—the running, the hiding, the stealing…
The killing.
A guy wearing sunglasses and dressed in a brown deliveryman-style uniform turned the corner and entered my alley. I squinted, staring at his skin. It was tinged yellow. A Rasper. Crap. I glanced back, making sure the bastards weren’t cutting off my escape.
He sniffed the air, then broke into a run straight toward me. Shit. He moved fast. Faster than I’d seen them move before. I darted out from behind the dumpster.
Aimed.
Fired.
A burst of crimson blossomed across his arm. The brass casing blew back into my shoulder, the burn slicing through my shirt. My focus zeroed in on the Rasper’s right hand. Instead of a fingernail, his index finger ended in a pearl-white stinger. And he had the finger-weapon pointed right at me.
I jumped out of the way and fired again.
A direct hit to his chest. The creature went down, landing on his face. My heart plummeted. Not only had I killed another one, but the other Raspers had to have heard the gunshots—and could probably hear the booming of my heart.
I made myself approach the body and kept the gun aimed at his head. I couldn’t afford to have him spring back up like the first one I’d shot. With the toe of my boot, I rolled him over. Blood stained his filthy shirt, but his chest remained motionless. His broken sunglasses dangled over a goatee that reminded me of my dad’s. Dad was the one who’d taught me how to shoot. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.
Pushing the memory away, I jogged to the end of the alley. Nothing moved. A popping sound echoed behind me. What the hell? I turned back.
The Rasper’s jaw broke open with a crack, his lips ripped apart, and skin detached from his facial bones. All of his front teeth shot out of his mouth like darts. My mind shouted for me to run while I still had a chance, but my feet carried me back to the body.
A silver, bug-like creature the size of a golf ball crawled out of the dead Rasper’s mouth. It scuttled down his chin on six long steel legs and slipped onto the ground, avoiding the still expanding pool of blood. Holy shit.
It took all my focus to keep from screaming.
I stumbled back, watching the thing, but it turned as if it heard me move. Its front legs rubbed together in a scissoring motion and the squealing noise of metal on metal filled the air.
This couldn’t be real. Maybe I’d hit my head during one of the recent aftershocks. Maybe I’d imagined the thing. Maybe it was a frickin’ hallucination resulting from me not sleeping more than a few minutes at a time.
I closed my eyes for a second, hoping the creepy thing had disappeared. Nope. The damn bug still sawed its limbs together, the metallic song grating down my spine.
The creature shifted in my direction and I fired, my aim dead on. It flew into the air, exploded above my head, and shards of metal rained down. One sliced my right hand, and warm blood seeped across my skin.
Kathleen wrote her first story in elementary school about a
pegasus named Sir Lancelot. It had no plot or conflict, but it sparked a
dream. After serving a fifteen-year sentence in retail management, the
bulk in big box bookstores, she turned her love of reading into a
full-time career writing dark and haunting characters and stories.
She lives by the mantra that a day is not complete without tea. Lots of tea. Kathleen lives in Ohio with her husband, two boys, and two attention-demanding dogs. When not writing or editing or revising, you can find her reading, cooking, spending time with her family, or photographing abandoned buildings.
She lives by the mantra that a day is not complete without tea. Lots of tea. Kathleen lives in Ohio with her husband, two boys, and two attention-demanding dogs. When not writing or editing or revising, you can find her reading, cooking, spending time with her family, or photographing abandoned buildings.
Author Links:
Purchase:
Barnes + Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-colony-kathleen-groger/1123616313?ean=2940157893248
(5) Print copies of The Colony - Open to US/CAN only!
Thanks for hosting today! :)
ReplyDeleteOh, I LOVE strong female protagonists and survival stories. Thanks for the chance to win!
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a part of the tour!
ReplyDeleteThis has badass female written all over it!!! I'm down!
ReplyDeleteSamantha D
I think I know why he seems so suspicious lolol
ReplyDelete