Welcome to the Official Blog Tour for Ava Morgyn's Resurrection Girls! Today, on our tour stop, we have a promo post featuring an exclusive excerpt!! Not only that... there's a cool tour-wide giveaway! So... Check it out and grab your copy now!!! Follow the tour, HERE!
Genre:
Young Adult
Fantasy/Magical Realism
Publish Date:
October 1, 2019
Publisher:
AW Teen
Synopsis:
Olivia Foster hasn’t felt alive since her little brother drowned in the backyard pool three years ago. Then Kara Hallas moves in across the street with her mother and grandmother, and Olivia is immediately drawn to these three generations of women. Kara is particularly intoxicating, so much so that Olivia not only comes to accept Kara's morbid habit of writing to men on death row, she helps her do it. They sign their letters as the Resurrection Girls.
But as Kara’s friendship pulls Olivia out of the dark fog she’s been living in, Olivia realizes that a different kind of darkness taints the otherwise lively Hallas women—an impulse that is strange, magical, and possibly deadly.
*Excerpt*
“I’m Kara,” she said after a few moments. “My mom said you’re the same age as me.”
I didn’t remember telling Rhea Hallas how old I was, but maybe I had. Kara and I were two opposite poles of the teen spectrum. I seemed to be developing a little behind the curve, and she seemed to be developing a little ahead of it. I found it hard to believe we would be in the same grade. “I guess. I’m sixteen.”
“Do you have your license yet?”
“Just last month.” I took an after-school driver’s education course that met in the tech class in the back of our school. I drove myself to get my license when it was over, my dad dozing in the passenger seat. I hadn’t driven much since then though. “You?”
“Nope. Just a learner’s permit. Moving kind of threw everything off.”
I nodded.
“So what does everyone do around here? For fun?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t know. Fun wasn’t in my repertoire anymore. I had friends once. Maybe not like Kara, but girls who cared about things like nail polish and what movies were playing at the mall. Girls who giggled and shrieked and whispered behind backs. Girls who knew how to have fun. Those girls left me in the dust after Robby died when fun moved beyond my reach. They whispered about me now and giggled when they thought I couldn’t hear. I shrugged and made a noncommittal noise.
Kara seemed unhindered. She reached into a pocket of her nonexistent shorts and pulled out a sucker, like the kind they give you at the doctor’s office after getting your shots. She held it out to me but I shook my head. Within a heartbeat she’d unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth. “You know some guy hung himself in our house?” she said around the lollipop.
I looked up to see her smiling, a bulge in one cheek, her face awash with dark fascination.
“Yeah. I know. It was a long time ago.” I tried to focus back on the street.
Her eyes went far away, like she was considering something. We walked for a few long moments like that—me, Kara, the lollipop, and her thinking so loud it was practically audible. My sneakers thudded against the pavement. Kara’s feet were black underneath when she’d lift them to take another step. Everything about her was the opposite of subtle.
Finally, she plucked the candy from her mouth and held a hand out to stop me. Already, her tongue was turning a vulgar crimson. “What was it like?”
“When Mr. Dearing hung himself?” Was she serious? “I don’t know. Tragic?”
Kara’s face was sharp in the afternoon sun, her long lashes glinting in the golden light, her eyes boring into mine without reprieve. “No. When your brother died.”
I wanted to be angry—should have been. It was rude, too personal, sensational. But it was also the most honest, most direct thing anyone had said to me since Robby’s funeral. It was the only real conversation I was capable of having. Everything else was a script.
“You know when you’re awake really early in the morning and it’s just before dawn? And for a few moments, everything gets really, really still and really, really quiet, like the whole world is holding its breath for the sunrise?”
Kara nodded.
“It was like that. Only, the sun never rose.”
She took a step toward me on the street, overwhelming my senses. Suddenly, I was aware of her knock-off perfume and the cherry smell of her sucker, the red stain forming between her lips where it had been moments before—the devastating presence of her filled up the spaces around and inside me.
“Are you still doing it?” she asked.
I was paralyzed by her gaze, the heat emanating from her skin, her fascination with me. “What?”
“Holding your breath?”
In that moment, I exhaled.
Praise for Resurrection Girls
“Ava Morgyn's passion and tenderness shine like a candle, guiding readers through the darkness of Olivia's story. Her compelling characters are made all the more real by the eerie undertow of myth. A beautiful, deeply emotional debut!”
–Sarah Porter, author of VASSA IN THE NIGHT and NEVER-CONTENTED THINGS
"Resurrection Girls is a powerful examination of grief and loss, captivatingly woven with magic and ultimately hope. A compassionately rendered debut."
–Emily Duncan, NYT Bestselling author of WICKED SAINTS
"RESURRECTION GIRLS is a heartbreak of a book, where love and loss writes letters to the strange things that lurk in the darkness. It's a stunning story that blends the inexplicable and the beautiful with the bittersweet."
–Rin Chupeco, author of THE BONE WITCH and THE NEVER TILTING WORLD
"A raw, poignant, unflinching examination of grief and healing wrapped up in a compelling story. Resurrection Girls is a brilliant debut."
–CJ Redwine, NYT Bestselling author of THE SHADOW QUEEN and the RAVENSPIRE series
"The lovely, assured prose draws on ancient archetypes and a lingering sense of dread to pave the way for a strange but satisfying conclusion ... Morgyn’s supernaturally tinged debut is a heartbreaking but hopeful exploration of death and grief."
–Kirkus Reviews
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**About the Author**
Ava Morgyn is a long-time avid reader and writer of young adult fiction. She studied English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX, and now lives in Houston—city with the most rain, best food, and worst traffic—with her family. When she isn’t at her laptop spinning darkly hypnotic tales, she can be found making fairy houses, talking to her crystals and plants, hunting for delicious new vegan recipes, or bothering her dog. She also blogs regularly about the devastating journey of child loss at ForLoveofEvelyn.com.
Stay connected with Ava Morgyn
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***The Giveaway***
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