Short
blurb:
During Earth’s Second Ice Age, Yardley Van
Dyke promised her dying mother she'd care for their family by growing food in
their greenhouse. Her family dynamics
change when her dad’s fiancé pushes him to sell it. Hoping to prove her intergalactic garden works
in space, Yardley joins a shuttle going to the planet Venus. She knows the show-off captain, Marchand
LaFond, her brother’s best friend. He’s
a thief.
Buy links A BRAND NEW ADDRESS:
http://www.amazon.com/A-BRAND-NEW-ADDRESS-INTERVENUS-ebook/dp/B00KC86N2O
Chapter One excerpt:
From the living room Dad’s voice
charged its way to the front porch swing. He and his fiancé were at it again. Just
terrific.
Hunkered under a fur-lined quilt,
Yardley Van Dyke’s head pounded, worsened by the frigid air. As if trapped in a
vise, pain squeezed hard from both temples. On the swing she faced forward with
her back against the house. Against them. Between them. With their fight on its
fourth day, they battled over her late mother’s greenhouse.
Yardley tended it all day, every
day.
His fiancé, Pinky Hazelton, wanted
to sell it and move into the Biosphere with its profits. Powerless with her at
the top of the pecking order, her mouth strained. Around Pinky, she forced it
into a straight line.
Why did Dad ignore her promise to
her dying mother? For three years, she’d grown food for the family. Mom’s
hodge-podgy structure protected plants against the freeze of Earth’s second ice
age. Yardley met the challenge of gardening in the frigid hinterlands, but
without a surplus to sell, she had the low pro of a subsistence gardener. She
reined in ideas to maximize sunlight although her latest effort worked.
Discarded Mylar balloons reflected
light. With fifty mounted, she pinched fewer dead leaves. Under the quilt she
balanced a basket of peas on her lap, proof of success from her dirt-candy
world. Yardley took a pod, tore down the string, and dumped peas into the
basket.
Inside the cabin Pinky screamed,
“Time is running out.” Timeliness, a variation of her hammering technique,
arose with every current event.
“I’ll think on it.” Dad’s voice
razzed like a trombone.
“Better be quick.” As Pinky squawked
about the essence of time, the trombone cranked louder and louder. Their
bombardment sent Yardley a wakeup call.
Her hands shook, and she stopped
shelling for one reason. She predicted their routine. Dad blew a gasket before
giving in. After that, Pinky won.
He yelled, “Stop needling me,
Pinky.”
Hearing a smash, Yardley jerked
upright. A crashed dish against the wall? She had no idea what would come next.
A flipping of a table?
His fiancé screamed, “Yeah? Put this
in your data bucket. An ice cap moves south.”
She imagined Dad’s face turning beet
red as he fumed just short of a gasket-blow.
Rubbing one side of her head, she
faced the frigid combination of family tension and the twenty-second century
ice age. Their now quiet cabin in Newport Beach, California sat in an Arctic
spruce forest with northern Siberian climate suffering an annual drop of five
degrees.
“Cold, colder, and about to be
coldest.” Pinky filled the vacuum with truth, but was timing immediate?
“You know, Pinky. While I tested you
out, you took over.” Dad’s off-topic roar revealed bitterness, but he’d come
around to her side.
“Good thing I did. Want to sit on a
polar ice cap? It kills everything that’s not dead.”
Sick of listening to them, Yardley’s
gaze shifted to the porch steps. With the inclement weather, they’d turn slick.
She’d slip and spill her peas if she stepped down them to walk the path to the
greenhouse. Not quite done shelling, a syrupy voice came through the rough-hewn
triple-plank wall.
“I don’t want you dead, sweetheart.”
Pinky’s wear-down entered its completion stage.
An icy gust blew strands of hair
across Yardley’s face. She groaned and let it be. If she moved her hands, she’d
spill the pods. Her thoughts shot from the greenhouse issue to a parallel
problem. Without the greenhouse, she’d be a non-contributing eighteen-year-old
still living at home. Pulling the quilt over her head, she preferred the
ice-age temperature to hanging out with them.
Using a chipmunk voice on herself
cheered her up. Yardley, there’s no work for you. Run along, won’t you?
Inside the cabin Pinky fueled her
hissy fit with a nightmare. “Oh, Robert,” she said, “I had a bad dream.”
Pinky’s premonitions often came in this form. “If we stay here, we’ll die of
full-body frostbite.”
The chipmunk squeaked in her mind. Bit
of a cold snap.
“No one wants that.” Dad’s tone
warmed up.
Yardley’s throat tightened. She
swallowed a lump of raw emotion but refused to cry or give into defeat. She
listened to Dad’s steady voice as he brought up hidden expenses at the
Biosphere. “Selling the greenhouse might get us in, Hon. But can we afford it
long term?”
Right on, Dad. Don’t give up.
“Sweetheart, we need a contract.”
Within the cabin, the drama queen spoke matter-of-factly. “I know people at
BotGen Incorporated.”
Yardley cringed, wishing she had the
means to incorporate the pink-yappy hour. Since when had Pinky become a member
of Botany General’s inner circle? A few minutes passed, and they stopped
talking. Was smooch-kissy-face going on? Great.
Somewhere inside, her twin brother
wandered about. At times like this, Skeeter bugged the crap out of her. Nothing
about Pinky bothered him including her obsession to watch century-old movies. A
few nights ago he’d shared his crush on a girl who lived at the Biosphere. Yardley
had nowhere to go.
During the feature, BRING IT ON,
Pinky turned into a cheerleader with rah-rahs for Sharlene Mantis. Snobnoxious
Sharlene wore brand new argyle sweaters and talked about how much they cost.
Ugh. Yardley pressed a palm against her stomach. The idea of fitting in with
the Biosphere’s upper crust made her want to hurl. Didn’t Skeet know? Without
money and status, their family was low on both counts. She didn’t share Pinky’s
worship of BioGen’s tippy top, particularly Sharlene’s grandmother, Gwendolyn
Mantis. After a run-in with the octogenarian CEO, her late mother had stood up
for herself, a singular rarity.
From far away, her dog barked,
alerting her of someone’s approach. She decoded all of Honeydog’s
vocalizations, and this one didn’t imply danger. Guessing a hunter and not a
charging moose, she didn’t unsheathe her paring knife. Willing herself to calm
down, she centered her thoughts on the prize she’d won for her gardening
talent.
If her mom were alive, she’d bring
out the china plates and the linen tablecloth for a dinner in her honor. Her
inner chipmunk started up. You rock, Yardley. Your awesome prototype will
make you famous.
When? She gazed at the trees, and brittle branches danced in the
squall. Balancing on the swaying porch swing, she folded and refolded her
certificate. She wanted to crawl into its pleats and cuddle up against words
such as congratulations, bestow upon, and honor. Wiping an angry tear from her
cheek, she held the precious paper against her swelling heart. The sensation
made a gradual change into rigid pride.
Would her BotGen certificate, proof
of her accomplishment and hers to keep, lead to concrete recognition? Job
independence had to come next, the only way to be these days. The check’s
intended purpose of college tuition had to be bypassed. Dad needed the ten
thousand for expenses. Not enough to move into the Biosphere, the greenhouse sat
on Pinky’s auction block.
Author Bio:
Author Bio:
Kathleen Rowland writes
multicultural, heart-stopping romantic suspense. With an M.S. in Computer
Science, she outlines characters and flow-charts plots before weaving
fast-paced action. A regular presenter of on-line point of view classes for
Romance Writers of American chapters, Kathleen also teaches writing at her
local library in Southern California. Her publishing credits include adult
romantic suspense with Amira Press, Whiskey Creek Press, and Eternal Press.
When her grandchildren asked to read her stories, she switched to writing a new
series for teens.
Her YA/NA INTERVENUS series captures
the essence of two futuristic locals, ice age Earth and newly habitable planet
Venus. Up against powerful Botany General Incorporated, rugged protector
Marchand LaFond and intergalactic gardener Yardley Van Dyke use all the skills
at their disposal to survive. As they figure out who they are, they search for
answers, sometimes clash, fall into danger— and into love.
Coming from a long line of
storytellers, writing fiction comes naturally to Kathleen Rowland. Always
looking for adventure, she cherishes time with her husband, Gerry, whether it’s
sailing, world travel, or walking the dogs. Having raised three sons and two
daughters, they are empty nesters whose family is a huge source of pride and
enjoyment.
Keep track of Kathleen at the
following sites:
twitter @RowlandKathleen
Thanks Kathleen, I love having your book on my site,
Tina
1 comment:
Thank you for spotlighting my book today, Tina! A BRAND NEW ADDRESS is the first book of my INTERVENUS series. As a writer with a full series under your belt and embarking on another one, you know the planning required. My second book takes place on the (now habitable) planet Venus.
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