Welcome to my stop on the Blind Spot official blog tour! Today I have a fantastic 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.
Blind Spot
Author: Laura Ellen
Genre: YA Contemporary Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: June 10, 2014 (paperback release)
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Description:
There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.
Seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni’s body
floated to the surface of Alaska’s Birch River six months after the
night she disappeared. The night Roz Hart had a fight with her. The
night Roz can’t remember. Roz, who struggles with macular degeneration,
is used to assembling fragments to make sense of the world around her.
But this time it’s her memory that needs piecing together—to clear her
name . . . to find a murderer.
This unflinchingly emotional novel is
written in the powerful first-person voice of a legally blind teen who
just wants to be like everyone else.
Revelation
Winter stopped hiding Tricia Farni on Good Friday.
A
truck driver, anxious to shave forty minutes off his commute, ventured
across the shallow section of the Birch River used as an ice bridge all
winter. His truck plunged into the frigid water, and as rescuers worked
to save him and his semi, Tricia’s body floated to the surface.
She’d
been missing since the incident in the loft six months ago. But
honestly, she didn’t come to mind when I heard that a girl’s body had
been found. I was that sure she was alive somewhere, making someone
else’s life miserable. Maybe she was shacking up with some drug dealer,
or hooking her way across the state, or whatever. But she was definitely
alive.
On Easter morning, that changed.
The body of
seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni was pulled from the Birch River Friday
night. A junior at Chance High School, Tricia disappeared October 6
after leaving a homecoming party at Birch Hill. Police believe her body
has been in the water since the night she disappeared.
I couldn’t
wrap my brain around it. Tricia was a lot of things, a drug addict, a
bitch, a freak. But dead? No. She was a survivor. Something — the only
thing — I admired about her. I stared at my clock radio, disbelieving
the news reporter. Ninety percent talk, AM 760 was supposed to provide
refuge from my own wrecked life that weekend. I thought all those old
songs with their sha-lala-las and da-doo-run-runs couldn’t possibly
trigger any painful memories. I guess when a dead girl is found in
Birch, Alaska, and you were the last one to see her alive, even AM 760
can’t save you from bad memories.
While the rest of Chance High
spent Easter Sunday shopping for bargains on prom dresses and making
meals of pink marshmallow chicks, I lay on my bed, images of Tricia
flooding my brain. I tried to cling to the macabre ones — the way I
imagined her when she was found: her body stiff and lifeless, her brown
cloak spread like wings, her black, kohl-rimmed eyes staring up through
the cracks in the ice that had been her coffin all winter. These images
made me feel sad and sympathetic, how one should feel about a dead girl.
Another image kept shoving its way in, though. It was the last
time I’d seen Tricia. The last thing I remembered clearly from that
night, minutes before she disappeared. She and Jonathan in the loft. It
made me despise her all over again. And I didn’t want to despise her
anymore. She was dead.
What happened to her that night? And why
couldn’t I remember anything after the loft, not even going home? All I
had were quick snapshots, like traces of a dream: Jonathan’s body
against mine; arms, way too many arms; and Mr. Dellian’s face. Puzzle
pieces that wouldn’t fit together.
I’m used to piecing things
together. My central vision is blocked by dots that hide things from me,
leaving my brain to fill in the blanks. My brain doesn’t always get it
right. I misinterpret, make mistakes. But my memory? It’s always been
the one thing I could count on, saving me time after time from major
humiliation. I can see something once and remember it exactly — the
layout of a room, the contents of a page, anything. My visual memory
makes it less necessary to see, and I rely on it to pick up where my
vision fails.
How could my memory be failing me now?
I
went over that night again, much as I would with my vision, putting the
pieces together to make something sensible and concrete.
But the more I focused on those tiny snippets, the farther they slipped from my grasp.
Then “Copacabana” started playing on the radio.
I
slammed my fingers down on the power button to stop the lyrics, but my
mind went there anyway. A replay of the day Tricia did a striptease
during lunch. The day I helped her buy drugs...
Laura Ellen writes YA contemporary mysteries and thrillers from her
home in Arizona, while also freelancing as a manuscript consultant for
aspiring authors. She has a MA in Children’s Literature and began her
career as a teacher in both Language Arts and special education.
Diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration as a teen, she drew upon
her own experiences with vision loss to write her debut YA thriller
Blind Spot, an emotional and suspenseful page-turner. Laura is
represented by Jill Corcoran at Jill Corcoran Literary Agency and is part of the Sleuths, Spies, and Alibis blog crew. Want to know more about Laura Ellen? Go to www.lauraellenbooks.com or catch her on twitter @lauraellenbooks or Facebook.
Available now at these fine retailers in eBook and Hardcover, and in paperback on June 10th 2014!
One Winner will get signed copies of
BLIND SPOT and DEAR TEEN ME as well as a BLIND SPOT swag pack that
includes, gum, magnet and magnifying glass bookmark.
Open to US Only | Must Be 13 + to enter.
