Welcome to my stop on the spotlight tour for POWERLESS! Today I have some fun guest posts to share with you - along with an excerpt and a fantastic giveaway!
Powerless (The Hero Agenda #1)
Author: Tera Lynn Childs & Tracy Deebs
Genre: YA Paranormal
Release Date: June 2, 2015
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Description:
Kenna is tired of being "normal."
The only thing special about her is that she
isn't special at all. Which is frustrating when you're constantly
surrounded by superheroes. Her best friend, her ex-boyfriend,
practically everyone she knows has some talent or power. Sure,
Kenna's smart and independent, but as an ordinary girl in an
extraordinary world, it's hard not to feel inferior.
So when three villains break into the lab
where she interns, Kenna refuses to be a victim. She's not about to let
criminals steal the research that will make her extraordinary too.
But in the heat of battle, secrets are
spilled and one of the villains saves her life. Twice. Suddenly,
everything Kenna thought she knew about good and evil, heroes and
villains is upended. And to protect her life and those she loves,
she must team up with her sworn enemies on a mission that will redefine
what it means to be powerful and powerless...
“You never answered my question. What are you doing down here so late?”
Those bright blue eyes sear into me as he takes a step back. “I have to go.”
His sudden evasiveness makes me suspicious, so when he starts to move past me,
I sidestep into
his path. “Excuse me,” I say, “but this is a secure level. Are you even authorized to be down here?”
“My dad,” he says, scowling at me. “He’s a security guard.”
A security guard? The facility might be so big
that I can’t keep track of everyone who works in every lab, but I know
all the guards by name. Especially the night guards, since I’m usually
the last one here.
Travis and Luther are on duty tonight. Travis
and his wife just had their first baby, a girl named Tia. Luther is old
enough to be my great-grandfather and he never married.
I take half a step back as my suspicions turn to concern. “Who’s your dad?” I demand.
This guy definitely has the look of a villain.
What if he really is one?
He glances nervously over his shoulder. “He’s—”
I shake my head and start to walk away before he can finish the lie.
He reaches for me, but I shrug him off. My heart is beating way too fast. This could go way bad, way quick.
“Please, just listen.” He waits until I’m
looking him in the eye before he continues. “You know me,” he says, his
voice taking on this weird, hypnotic tone. “We’ve met before.”
His eyes start to burn brighter and brighter.
Oh crap. He must
be a villain, and one with a psy power. The vilest kind. Fear and anger
collide inside me as I wonder what to do about him trying to mess
with my head. How to play this? I can’t exactly tell him I’m—
Suddenly, the floor beneath my feet shudders
violently, knocking me off balance. I lurch forward into
Dark-and-Scowly’s arms. He catches me, grabs my upper arms, just as a
concussion wave of air and sound hits us.
That sounded—and felt—like a bomb went off in
the lab. If we weren’t a hundred feet underground and shielded by every
protection science and superheroes can create, I’d think the
supervillain Quake had struck. But that’s impossible.
Then again, impossible doesn’t always apply in
the superhero world. After all, impossible didn’t keep Dark-and-Scowly
from being where he doesn’t belong.
Suddenly, every alarm in the facility blares. I freak.
The lab! All that
research—Mom’s and mine—is priceless. The superhero blood samples alone
are more valuable than anything else in the building.
Panic overrides judgment and I push away, but
his grip only tightens. The jerk. A little super strength would be
really useful right now.
“You can’t go in there.”
“Who are you?” I demand, struggling to get out
of his grasp. If he really is a villain, I don’t want him near me or
this lab. Not with what villains are capable of. “What have you done?”
He doesn’t answer. More pissed than ever, I fake
left and pull right. He follows my fake-out, and as his hair swings
with the momentum, I see the mark I’d been looking for earlier. Not
under his right ear like the superheroes. Under his
left.
Shit.
“You’re a villain.”
Young Adult Authors Pick Their Superpower
Tera Lynn Childs, POWERLESS co-author:
If I could have any superpower, I would want the power to teleport. I love to travel, but for me the journey is
not as exciting as the destination. Whether it’s an eleven hour
flight to London or a four hour drive to Los Angeles, getting there is
always the most painful part of the trip. If I could blink my eyes and
be in New York, Buenos Aires, or Tokyo, I’d
be traveling constantly. Not to mention the major savings in the
airfare department. Sign me up!
Tracy Deebs, POWERLESS co-author:
If
I could have any superpower, I would totally choose the ability to tell
when people are lying (or maybe I just need Wonder Woman’s yellow
lasso of truth). I am a terrible liar—and I mean terrible—which is why
it’s so hard for me to tell when people (i.e. my children or my
students, for example) are lying to me. It’s not that I’m naïve,
necessarily, just that I like to give people the benefit
of the doubt … and that has a tendency to come back and bite me in the
butt on occasion. Psomeolus, on days when I’m under deadline and I get a
call from one of my kids’ teachers, I think it would be really nice to
just be able to get to the heart of the
matter without going through an exhaustive round of prevarications and
omissions …
***
Hannah Jayne, author of THE ESCAPE:
If
I had a superpower it would be the ability to stop time. And not just
because my three cats decided to wake me up at an ungodly hour
(really, they’re just skin and fur…so they say) causing me to trudge
into my filthy living room (I’m cleaning…tomorrow), but so I would have a
few extra hours of luxury time to watch everything backed up on my DVR,
make sure I don’t have spinach in my teeth
before a big signing, and eat ice cream on the treadmill.
***
Patty Blount, author of SOME BOYS:
If
I had a superpower, it would be super healing. When I was little, my
grandmother always had a lengthy list of things wrong with her.
She'd always say, "Don't get old, honey. It hurts." As I get older, I
am developing a list of my own. Bad back, aching joints, every day it's a
new one. I wish I had the power to heal myself in seconds. Back pain?
Zap! Gone. Fall down and break a bone? Poof! Healed in
seconds. But I wouldn't want such a superpower just for me. I'd want to
be able to heal others, too. My niece is currently battling cancer.
She's only thirteen years old. Oh, I wish I could
just Zap and Poof her cancer away.
Learn more about Patty’s RITA nominated Young Adult novel SOME BOYS at
http://www.pattyblount.com/.
One fateful summer, Tera Lynn Childs and
Tracy Deebs embarked on a nine hour (each way!) road trip to Santa Fe
that ended with a flaming samurai, an enduring friendship, and the
kernel of an idea that would eventually become
Powerless. On their own, they have written YA tales about mermaids (Forgive My Fins, Tempest Rising), mythology (Doomed, Oh. My Gods., Sweet Venom), smooching (International Kissing Club), and fae princes (When Magic Sleeps).
Between them, they have three boys (all Tracy), three dogs (mostly
TLC), and almost fifty published books. Find TLC and the #TeamHillain
headquarters at teralynnchilds.com. Check out Tracy and the #TeamVero
lair at tracydeebs.com. Hang out with all the heroes,
villains, ordinaries, and none-of-the-aboves at heroagenda.com.
Social Networking Links:
Buy Links:
Tera Lynn Childs is the RITA-award-winning author of the mythology-based Oh.My. Gods. and Goddess Boot Camp, the mermaid tales Forgive My Fins, Fins Are Forever and Just For Fins, and a kick-butt trilogy about monster-hunting descendants of Medusa that includes Sweet Venom, Sweet Shadows, and Sweet Legacy. She has published two e-novellas, Goddess In Time and Pretty In Pearls, and self-published her City Chicks sweet chick lit series. Tera lives nowhere in particular and spends her time writing wherever she can find a comfy chair and a steady stream of caffeinated beverages.
