Juniper Grove Book Solutions Presents: Mystical High by Lisette Brodey and GIVEAWAY!
Author: Lisette Brodey
Published: October 7th, 2013
Publisher: Saberlee Books
Word Count: 72,700
Genre: YA Paranormal
Content Warning: Mild sexual content and non-gratuitous profanity
Recommended Age: 14+
Synopsis:
In Mystekal, a small, dying town in the Southern California desert, only 75 students attend the old, sometimes creepy high school dubbed “Mystical High,” where strange things have been known to happen. Jessie Dalworth and Jinxsy Patterson are juniors and lifelong best friends. At home, Jessie deals with the pain of an absentee mother who has abandoned the family for the lure of Hollywood; Jinxsy contends with a 17th “birthday present” she never wanted or expected.
Meanwhile, at school, the unexplained activity begins to escalate when Jinxsy keeps seeing a long-haired guy in the hallway checking her out. Jessie can’t see him, but her younger brother, River, can.
Then, in English class, a stapler mysteriously flies off teacher Eve Carrow’s desk, hitting a student in the face who has just mouthed off to her. The beloved teacher is in the unenviable position of having her brute of a father as principal, so she hates sending any student to his office. As Principal Ernest Carrow begins to terrorize Eve and others more openly, something or someone unseen decides that it’s payback time.
School is getting stranger, and Jinxsy and Jessie are faced with mind-boggling changes in their home lives that complicate everything. When a string of shocking events expose explosive secrets, decades-long mysteries are finally revealed.
Excerpt
from Mystical
High
by Lisette Brodey:
Eve
Carrow, Mystekal High’s English teacher, glanced at the giant wall
clock as Jessie and Jinxsy slipped into their seats seconds before
the bell.
“Welcome,
you two. I wasn’t sure you were going to join us today. I like to
be fashionably late at parties sometimes, but school is a different
story.”
The
old bell sounded loudly.
Jessie
opened her notebook, grabbed To
Kill A Mockingbird,
the current class book, from her backpack, and sat upright in her
chair. “See? We’re on time. Ready to go.”
“Yes,
you are.”
Jinxsy,
still fumbling through her backpack, looked at her friend, then at
her teacher. “Jess had a mishap with her locker. Cut her finger.”
From
the back of the room, Taylor cackled. “Yeah, it took her ten
minutes for Her Vampiress to suck a few drops of blood and ten more
minutes for the Jinx to calm her down.”
Jessie
turned abruptly in her chair. “You are so exaggerating, Taylor.
Keep out of my business.”
“Your
boring
business.” Taylor ran her fingers through her blond and purple
hair. “No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend when the biggest part
of your day is a little boo boo on your finger. Waaaaaaaah!”
Eve,
though usually of the sweetest demeanor, slammed a book down on her
desk. “Taylor Dennison. Stop. Now. Everyone else, face front.” As
she looked around the room, her angry look softened. “Okay, who
wants to begin our discussion about Boo Radley?”
Sophia
Chavez raised her hand. “I will.”
“Thank
you, Sophia. Please go on.”
“Well,
I know the kids made up a lot of stories about him, but it’s only
natural, you know? I mean, he never came out of the house. There were
creepy rumors, like how he stabbed his dad in the leg with scissors.
If I heard that about someone, I would be thinking the same way that
Scout, Jem, and Dill did.”
Eve
nodded her head in agreement. “It’s very easy to assume all kinds
of things when we don’t know the truth.”
“So
why is that, Ms. Carrow?”
“Well,
Sophia, I think it’s because as human beings, we like answers. If
an answer can be looked up or found out, most of us will choose that
route. But when the answer to a question isn’t readily available,
we tend to make things up, to satisfy our inquiring brains. It’s
not a good thing to do, but human beings engage in this practice
quite liberally. What do you think of my assessment?”
Jessie,
with little animation on her face, responded to her teacher’s
question. “I think you’re right.”
Taylor
yelled from the back of the room. “Why? Because people talk crap
about your hermit crab aunt?”
Jessie
turned and glared at Taylor. She bit her lip so hard it almost bled.
She knew that if she responded, the words would be ugly ones she
wouldn’t want to be heard saying.
Eve
was furious. “Taylor, that was positively uncalled for. And just
plain cruel. I’m being extraordinarily generous by not sending you
to the principal’s office. But one more outburst and I won’t
hesitate.”
Silence
fell over the room. The principal of Mystekal High was Eve’s
father, Ernest Carrow. He had been the principal since Eve herself
was a student. The only person who seemed to tolerate him at all was
his secretary, and he seemed to like children as much as picnic goers
like ants.
Carrow
was the wealthiest man in Mystekal and owned a large percentage of
the real estate, both commercial and residential. He didn’t need
the salary he earned as Mystekal High’s principal, but he liked to
control people, and being in charge of everyone at the school helped
him to do just that.
Even
though she couldn’t stand sending students to her father’s
office, Eve hated making empty threats even more. She despised him,
and sending a student for discipline meant that she had to deal with
her father as well. She would have to endure a lecture about how she
wasn’t able to control her class or how she had failed to mete out
proper discipline. Eve pretended not to hear Taylor’s last remark
and prayed she would not step over the line again. At least for the
remainder of class.
“Would
you all please take out your class assignment for this week? We’re
going to share.”
Cade
Swift raised his hand.
“Yes,
Cade?”
“Do
you mean the paper you asked us to write on who we thought Boo Radley
really was? The one where you wanted us to write a description of how
we saw his life inside that house?”
“The
one and only.”
Cade
bit his lip. “Uh, would you mind calling on me last?”
“Since
when are you shy?”
“I’m
not. But after what you said to Sophia I’m thinking maybe I need to
rewrite my paper.”
Taylor’s
boyfriend, Santino Vega, laughed. “Dude, don’t you mean write
it. Period.”
Cade,
the dark-haired boy known for his smiling eyes was quick to respond.
“No, Vega, I mean rewrite it.”
Eve
Carrow was intrigued. “Why do you want to rewrite it, Cade?”
Cade
looked embarrassed and responded more softly than usual. “Um, I
think maybe I was too judgmental. Just want to do it over.”
Jessie
looked admiringly at Cade, then at her best friend. Jinxsy knew
Jessie had a crush on him but had been denying it. Jessie’s glance
confirmed that she was ready to admit it. But whether or not she was
ready to seek out Cade’s affections was an entirely different
story.
Eve
Carrow smiled. “Actually, Cade. I’d like you to read your paper
as you wrote it and then tell us how you’d like to change it.”
“Oh,
man. Do I have to?”
The
class giggled and Jessie’s eyes grew wide with anticipation.
“As
your teacher, I would truly appreciate it.”
“Read
it, dude. Then tell everyone how you’ve gone soft on Radley.”
Eve
looked sternly at the class loudmouth. “Mr. Vega, I can only
surmise by your comments that you would prefer to lead the class into
this exercise. By all means, why don’t you
go first?”
Santino
looked angry. “Listen, Ms. Carrow. I think it was really a stupid
assignment. I mean, Harper Lee already wrote the character. There’s
no point in us rewriting the dude. Sorry, didn’t do it and I’m
not gonna do it. Any questions?”
As
Santino’s words fell on the shocked class and the disrespected
teacher, a gust of desert wind rushed through the open window, blew a
small stapler off Eve Carrow’s desk, and sent it flying through the
air before it landed sharply on Santino’s mouth.
“What
the —?” Santino wiped the blood from his mouth.
As
the class focused on the freak accident, Eve looked out the window
and noticed that it was a very still day. The sagebrush was not
moving. There was not even the faintest trace of wind.
About the Author:
Lisette Brodey was born and raised in Pennsylvania. After high school, she moved to New York City where she attended Pace University and studied drama. After ten years in New York, several of them working in the radio industry, she moved to Los Angeles, where she held various positions at Paramount Studios in Hollywood and CBS Studio Center in Studio City, CA.
Back on the East Coast, she worked for many years as a freelance writer, specializing in PR and the entertainment industry. In 2010, she returned permanently to the Los Angeles area.
Her first-published book, CROOKED MOON (General Fiction) was published in both the trade paperback and Kindle editions in 2008. Her first-written, second-published book, SQUALOR, NEW MEXICO (Young Adult/General Fiction) was published in the Kindle and trade paperback versions in 2009.
Her third novel, MOLLY HACKER IS TOO PICKY!, a romantic comedy, was published December 1, 2011. The author blogged as her character, Molly Hacker, for over a year. All blogs can be found at www.mollyhacker.com.
In January 2013, the author edited and published a book of her mother's poetry (written 50 years earlier) called MY WAY TO ANYWHERE by Jean Lisette Brodey.
Lisette's fourth novel, MYSTICAL HIGH, is the first book in her YA Paranormal Desert Series trilogy.
Giveaway Details:
There is a tour wide giveaway. Prizes include the following:
- $35 Amazon Gift Card (INT)
- Print copy of Molly Hacker Is Too Picky! (US only)
- Print copy of Squalor, New Mexico (US only)
- Print copy of Mystical High (US only)
- Tote bag (US and CAN only)
Thanks for the giveaway :)
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