Hi, YABCers!
Today we’re super excited to present a sneak peek from Mimi Cross’s SHINING SEA, releasing May 24, 2016 from Skyscape. Check out information about the book below, the sneak peek, and a giveaway!
SHINING SEA
Seventeen-year-old Arion Rush has always played the obedient sidekick to her older sister’s flashy femme fatale—until a mysterious boating accident leaves Lilah a silent, traumatized stranger. As her sister awaits medical treatment with their mother, Arion and their father head to his hometown in Maine to prepare a new life for them all. Surrounded by the vast Atlantic, songwriting is Arion’s only solace, her solid ground.
Unexpectedly, Arion blossoms in the tiny coastal town. Friends flock to her, and Logan Delaine, a volatile heartthrob, seems downright smitten. But it’s Bo Summers—a solitary surfer, as alluring as he is aloof—that Arion can’t shake. Meanwhile, Lilah’s worsening condition, a string of local fatalities, and Arion’s own recent brushes with death seem ominously linked…to Bo’s otherworldly family. As Arion’s feelings for Bo intensify and his affections turn possessive, she must make a choice. How will Arion learn to listen to her own voice when Bo’s siren song won’t stop ringing in her ears?
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Here’s the sneak peek!
GOODBYE
Tuneless humming is coming from the bedroom next to mine. I’ve always been the better singer, no secret. Even before I could talk, I sang. To me, singing feels like . . . flying.
As a little kid I sang in the church choir, later on in the choruses at school, and about six months ago I started writing songs—not that I’d call myself a songwriter yet. My first gig was last week, down in the Mission District. Standing on the spotlit stage of the black box perfor- mance space, I played one long set—twelve tunes total—while hipsters watched with crossed arms.
Performing in front of an audience is a good way to tell if your songs are finished.
Or not.
The song I’m trying to capture now definitely falls into the not
category.
I give the guitar a soft strum—a ghost of a chord slips out. Playing the haunting notes a little louder, I listen for the melody. It’ll come, eventually, but we’re leaving any minute.
Not just leaving . . . moving.
“Do you know,” I whisper sing, “where lost things go?”
In the next room Lilah falls silent. The lyrics tangle in my throat.
My fingers fumble, then jerk—playing a rhythmic pattern atop a single minor chord: one and two, one and two. Words tumble out of me. “Saint Anthony, can you come around? There’s something lost, and it
can’t be found.”
Saint Anthony—is he the one?
A quick Google search on the laptop perched at the end of my bed tells me he is. Saint Anthony is invoked as the finder of lost things. Pulling my guitar closer, I play the line over and over.
“Arion? You up there?”
Dad. After shoving the laptop into my backpack, I shut the guitar in its case and head into the hall. Hands full, I stand in my sister’s doorway.
She doesn’t see me.
Even as thin as she is, even with the ever-present dark shadows beneath her eyes, Lilah is beautiful. Her features are regular and in proportion. Mine . . . are slightly exaggerated. Nose longer, lips fuller. Now, without music to distract me, the tears I’d vowed not to cry fill my eyes. Brown eyes. On a good day, they’re hazel. Maybe.
There’s no mistaking the color of my sister’s eyes. Bright blue. Her hair is black and shiny, cut straight across her forehead and blunt at her shoulders in a way that has always made me think of Cleopatra, but especially since the accident, when she became a mystery to me. Lilah no longer tells me her every thought. She can’t.
My sister blinks her bellflower eyes now, and for a split second— seems to focus on me.
But the illusion vanishes just as quickly. I swallow around the lump in my throat, wondering for the millionth time if she has any idea what’s going on.
Her bed is up against the window. In the distance—over a nearly invisible San Francisco Bay—the Golden Gate Bridge hovers in fog. Sitting down beside her on the bed, I lay a hand on one of her legs—feel
bones, atrophied muscles. A raw feeling spreads through me, like a dull blade is scraping the underside of my skin.
“So . . . guess it’s time for goodbye.” I take a deep breath in, let it out slowly—which doesn’t help at all. “I’ll see you in Rock Hook Harbor. Dad’s one-horse hometown . . . Sounds happening, huh?” My attempt at lightheartedness fails completely. The words drop like bricks.
Leaning in, I kiss her cheek.
She turns away, as if looking toward the ghostly water. Or, is she looking at the water? Or just staring blankly?
I so want it to be the former. The doctors say it’s the latter.
In my chest, a hairline fissure I’ve fused together with lyrics and chords pops open.
“I love you,” I choke out.
She doesn’t answer. Of course she doesn’t.
Biting down hard on my lip, I stand up, trying not to feel like I’m leaving my best friend stranded. But I am. She is. Stranded. She’s been stranded, for a year.
Swiping at my eyes, I take a few steps down the hall—then turn suddenly into my parents’ room, which is mostly Mom’s room now. Dad spends the nights he’s here on the living room couch, where, after dinner—usually something complicated he’s cooked up involving lots of pots and pans—he falls asleep with the TV on. Blue screen to white noise; maybe the sound helps him. Music works better for me. Or, it used to. I used to lie in bed at night and sing. Lately, all I want to do is sleep.
Like the rest of the house, my parents’ bedroom is crowded with canvases. Filled with slashes of color and geometric shapes, each paint- ing has the name “Cici” scrawled in large letters down in the right-hand corner. Mom’s pictures pulse with unfamiliar energy, and my nostrils flare at the scent of paint fumes as I move a half-finished piece—an abstract portrait of a girl, I think—that’s leaning up against the glass door. Slipping out onto the balcony, I clutch the cold railing and eye
a moldering stack of Psychology Today magazines. Therapy is Mom’s religion.
A pair of paint-splattered jeans hangs off a chair. A handful of paintbrushes soak in a bucket. There’s no sign of Dad.
My parents are like a couple of unmoored boats. Drifting. One of the few things they agreed on this past year? The accident was Dad’s fault. A pretty stupid conclusion, really, considering he hadn’t even been on the boat. But he’s a ship’s captain. Lilah and I inherited our love of the water from him.
Water. I hate it now. Because of the water, I’m on this balcony almost every day, drawn out here as if for a long-standing appointment, some prearranged meeting between me and my broken heart. I cry here; sometimes I yell. Sometimes I write, and one day, I nearly threw my guitar over the railing.
Splintered wood, snapped strings, I’m interested in broken things. The circling song lyrics fade at the sound of Mom’s strained voice. “Arion, have you finished saying goodbye to Delilah? Your dad’s
ready to go.”
I stay another second, then scoop up a stray guitar pick from the terracotta tiles and head inside, not paying any attention to the paint- ings now, just intent on leaving before I get any more upset.
But then I’m passing Lilah’s room—and I see it.
The slim black notebook I’ve searched for probably a hundred times over the past year.
Oh, I’ve seen the palm-size Moleskine with its curled cover, seen it clutched in Lilah’s fist, watched as she whisked the small black book beneath her quilt, or shoved it between her sheets. I just haven’t been able to get my hands on it, and I’ve wanted to, desperately.
So many times I’ve seen her slip the notebook between the over- size pages of the art books that Mom insists on bringing home from the library. She’ll hug the book close then—her treasure safe inside— but she’ll never actually look at the glossy pages. Not like she looks at
that notebook. She looks at that black book like it’s the only thing she recognizes.
It’s definitely some kind of diary. Not that I ever see her writing in it, not since before. But she’s always got it on her.
Only, she doesn’t have it on her now.
Now, there it is, on the floor next to her bed. And Lilah, there she is, still looking but not looking out the window. Transfixed, it would seem, by the gray bay. As I watch, she lifts one hand, bringing her fingertips to the glass—as if there’s something out there she wants to touch.
It’s kind of amazing how I do it, how I steal her most precious pos- session without breaking my stride. How I silently sweep into the room and, bending low, snatch it up—then keep on walking like nothing’s happened. Like I’m ten-year-old Lilah herself, that time at the rock and gem shop down near the beach, trying on one sterling silver ring, then another. I’ll never forget it, how she smiled at the shopkeeper—maybe even said thank you—then practically skipped out the door, still wear- ing at least one of the rings. Once outside, she tossed a half-dozen more rings onto the pebbles that served as the shop’s front yard, so that she could retrieve them that night when the gem shop was closed, so that we could retrieve them.
Eight-year-old me, I’d held the flashlight for her. She’d given me one of the rings as my reward, but only one.
I feel bad taking the book; if I could read it and leave it, I would. But there’s no time. Through the hall window I can see Dad standing down in the driveway by the old green Jeep Cherokee, the car that will be mine once we get to Maine.
So I slide the notebook into the pocket of my backpack where it burns a hole so big I think it will surely fall out—pages fluttering like fiery wings—and slap the floor with a sound so sharp, Lilah will shud- der to life. She’ll spring up and shout at me, her old self at last.
But nothing like this happens.
Leaving Lilah. Taking the notebook. My skin ripples with guilt. But we have to go on ahead. School’s starting in a few weeks, plus Dad’s new job—they won’t hold it any longer.
And really, I have to take the book. I need to know what happened.
Out in the driveway, I crane my neck, trying to see if Lilah’s still at the window.
“Hold on,” Mom shouts from the house, “I almost forgot!”
Time seems suspended as Dad and I wait by the car, the limbo of the long ride already upon us . . .
Mom reappears holding a square box wrapped in gold paper and a purple ribbon. Balanced on top is a fat cupcake with pink frosting.
“Happy birthday, Arion.” Her flinty blue eyes soften. She hands me the awkward duo and gives me an equally awkward hug. “From both of us.”
Dad smiles, shakes his head. “Seventeen.” He’s always been a man of few words.
“Thanks, Mom. Dad.” Swallowing hard, I climb into the car with the gifts on my lap. Mom pecks Dad on the cheek, and he gets behind the wheel. As we pull away, she blows me a kiss.
Twisting in my seat, I wave—then look up at the second story. No Lilah.
My chest hurts so much—I actually glance down. But there’s noth- ing except a smear of pink icing on my shirt, where I’d leaned into the cupcake.
We’ll fly back close to Thanksgiving, when Lilah is scheduled for the operation that my parents have finally decided is her best bet: a surgical procedure to implant a device in her brain.
It’s not as sci-fi as it sounds. The battery-operated device is kind of like a pacemaker, only for your brain instead of your heart. This kind of surgery is used to treat a variety of disabling neurological symptoms, although I think whoever came up with DBS—deep brain
stimulation—was thinking of people with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, not, well, whatever’s wrong with Lilah. Her case is—entirely different. I’m not going to pretend: I’m scared. But the plan is, we’ll all be together in Maine by Christmas, so that’s what I’m trying to focus on. I’ll miss Lilah. Mom too. But I’m glad to be leaving San Francisco.
My life here . . . is on hold—except for my music. The rest is a waiting game.
We’ve all been waiting for Lilah to find what she lost. As if she can look for it.
VIEW
Breathtaking.
That’s the only way to describe the vast, endless view from Rock Hook Lighthouse.
None of the wonders, none of the famous landmarks we saw on our trip across the country compare to this view, not even our stop in Wyoming, where we hiked at the base of the Tetons, stunning snow- capped mountains that made something shift inside of me.
Unfortunately, the night we arrived here, the silver-edged moun- tains that the full moon conjured out of the dark sea made my chest tighten in terror. The crashing waves just kept coming, watery walls with sharp crests that shattered into fountains of moonlit sea spray as they hit the breakwater below the lighthouse.
That was nearly three weeks ago, and since then? Pretty much all I’ve done here at the light station is play guitar. Inside.
But today it’s almost like I’ve been pulled out here, like I just sud- denly have to climb the gazillion steps to the cast-iron gallery deck of the black-and-white-striped tower.
Now, nearly two hundred feet up in the air—
The mournful shriek of a seagull startles me, and I almost drop the heavy binoculars—the birthday present from my parents. Like I need a better view of the water.
With its slanting drizzle, this afternoon looks like every other. I’d used the weather as an excuse to stay inside, but now, dampness beads on my clothes, my hair, my skin, and I barely feel it as I lean against the slick railing with its ornate iron bars. The Atlantic heaves below me. The closely spaced bars are meant to ensure safety—only I don’t feel safe. I close my eyes. Can’t seem to bring myself to go back inside despite my discomfort.
Lilah. She hadn’t been safe. Not on that boat. And maybe . . . not on land either. Even before the accident, something was going on with her. I know that now, because of the notebook, because of its contents, which are both disturbing and deeply disappointing.
I wanted more. Wanted an answer, some way to fix things, to help her. But the notebook didn’t tell me anything, not really, despite its obvious importance to Lilah. She’d held it compulsively in her grip for the last year or kept it hidden away, but she’d written in it too, obses- sively, in those couple of days before the accident. That’s why I wanted it so badly.
I remember the way she bent over it, like she couldn’t get close enough, like she didn’t want anyone to see what she was writing, writing, writing . . .
Turns out, she’d written obsessively because she was obsessed. Obsessed with some guy she’d met here, on Rock Hook. It had to be here, because where else? The airport? The plane? Even Lilah couldn’t fall in love that fast. But a week? No problem.
Not that she wrote anything about love. The book’s first entry, if you can call it that, is a string of complaints. Verbal eye rolling, basi- cally, about having to go to Maine at all, let alone for an entire week with nothing to do while Dad did whatever he was doing. Visiting the harbor, seeing old friends—it’s clear from what she wrote that Lilah
had no idea that Dad was looking for work. I don’t remember if I knew or not. I was at music camp at Sonoma State that week, a program my sister wouldn’t lower herself to attend.
Mom was part of a group exhibit downtown, so she didn’t go on the trip either. It was just Lilah and Dad, gone and then back, Lilah with her new appendage, the black Moleskine.
Lilah was never into journaling—that’s me. But it makes sense that she might have wanted to keep a record of her trip, although more likely she was just bored. What’s bizarre is that after the eye-rolling entry, there’s only one more entry, and then Lilah’s handwriting changes. It’s definitely still her writing, but the words are much smaller, like she wanted to save space, wanted to fit as much as she could on each page.
And she did, she packed every page, filled each one with that new cramped writing.
But she only wrote one line. Wrote it over and over again.
I am waiting.
She traced each word multiple times, so that every letter became darkly impressed upon the page. The words look etched, carved almost. In places, her pen actually pierced the paper.
I remember thinking how strange it was, the way she hunched over that notebook after she got back. She wouldn’t tell me what she was writing, just laughed when I asked. She wrote feverishly, usually in the afternoon, and then at night? She went out. Snuck out. She was almost eighteen, but still. I threatened to tell Mom and Dad. She said if I did, she’d never speak to me again.
It was only a few days later, a few short days after she returned from Maine, that Lilah—
Stepping away from the railing, I begin to hum under my breath. The wind gusts, and my hair flies up around my face. I pace the ridged metal deck, circling around the tower, trying to distract myself by con- sidering the choice of activities on “the Hook.” That’s what locals call
this long, rocky spit of land. It feels more like an island—the ocean’s everywhere. At the end of every street, the view out every window.
A few short days after she returned from Maine. That’s when it hap- pened. She went out on that boat—it could just as easily have been me. The water—it could have been me. Sucked beneath the sea.
Wishing my fearful imaginings were as easily changed as a radio station, I start to sing now.
I’ve worked hard at this “game,” playing it when I need to, ever since I—ever since Lilah nearly drowned—
Hands trembling violently, I move back to the railing. Hold it tightly.
Aquaphobia. That’s what Mom says I have, but Dr. Harrison says there’s nothing abnormal about my fear. He says it’s a reaction. A result of . . . Lilah’s traumatic experience. That it’ll fade over time. But did Dr. Harrison figure this into the mix? Living in a lighthouse—is it sup- posed to help?
I lift the binoculars back to my eyes—but look away from the water.
Comprised of the lighthouse, the keeper’s house, and one small outbuilding, the light station is about twenty minutes south of the har- bor—the center of life here on Rock Hook Peninsula. The compound sits at the edge of a parcel of land designated to become a park, and next July, Rock Hook National Seashore will officially open to the general public. Tourists will invade the beach, trample the woods, and leave litter in their wake, ruining the wild beauty that stretches away to the south. And yes, it is beautiful. Even with the water all around. For now, it’s untouched, a wilderness. Breathing in the fine rain and salty mist, I scan the dunes and bluffs leading from the beach up to the woods.
The forest is sparse where it starts, then the hilly terrain becomes dense with undergrowth and trees. As the incline steepens, the land begins to show again, becoming mostly barren. Sheer granite rock faces stretch up, up, up—until finally, with rugged shrubs and tall trees
clinging to the top, the park’s most dramatic feature emerges, thrusting itself from the earth and jutting into the sky: Rock Hook Cliff.
The huge ridge goes on and on, dipping and climbing out of sight, leading eventually to the end of the peninsula. It looks like the end of the world.
Sunlight streams through a break in the clouds. I notice my arms are tiring from holding up the binoculars. I’ve gotten out of shape in the last year—I need serious exercise. Hiking might work, although I’ll probably be wiped by the time I finish taking a walk in these woods. My gaze sweeps the miles of primeval forest, made up largely of pine and birch trees. I’ll be totally fried before I even set foot on the hills that lead up to the craggy cliff.
Squinting, I manage to pick out what looks like a trail, then follow it with the binoculars until it vanishes into the green growth. Cloud- dappled sunlight hits the next beach over. Half-hidden by high dunes, the white strip of sand appears similar to the long, curving cove the lighthouse overlooks, but there’s been so much fog and rain since we arrived—sea, sky, and sand blending, horizon invisible—I haven’t had a chance to study the land below in such detail before.
Between the two beaches there’s a big jetty, similar to the seawall in front of the lighthouse. I imagine a giant tossing the black boulders . . . I adjust the binoculars. Now I can make out part of a shingled house, weathered to the soft shade of driftwood. I can’t see more. The tall sand dunes below the bluffs loom over the empty beach, blocking
the rest.
A flash of movement catches my eye. A figure, coming from behind one of the bluffs near the house that’s stayed stubbornly just out of view. A boy. A man? Whatever, some guy, maybe a little older than me.
Tall, he carries a surfboard under one arm, heading toward the water with long strides. The way he walks, the way he holds himself is so . . . different. He moves in a way that’s flowing, almost . . . liquid. His shoulder-length hair is an unusual shade of gold, the color of late-day
sun striking the sand. The wind whips the strands around his face where they shimmer.
He’s wearing nothing but a pair of black board shorts.
What is he, crazy? The water must be freezing.
The clouds change direction, swallowing the sun, turning the after- noon a deeper shade of gray. The ocean darkens in response, reflecting the steel sky, whitecaps standing out in sharp relief. Today’s low tem- perature has to be a record for the last day of August, even in Maine.
Closing one eye, I focus on the boy’s face. His jaw is set. Determined. He must be insane and—even at this distance—easily the most beauti- ful person I’ve ever seen.
A weird ache settles in my chest as I stare through the binoculars, watching the surfer catch wave after wave, riding each one to its curling end, before turning and paddling back out to catch the next. He surfs with uncanny intuition, like he’s one of the waves.
Finally, he rides the board into impossibly shallow water, and, per- fectly poised, casually steps off. In one quick crouching movement he scoops the surfboard under his arm. Then he straightens and looks up. He looks up, at me.
Goosebumps race along my arms and I drop the binoculars—they smack me in the stomach like a fist, the edge of the plastic cord slicing at the skin on the back of my neck. Grabbing them up again, I bring them to my eyes—
He’s still staring up at me, head slightly tilted to one side now, as if he’s listening to something.
Maybe he’s not a boy.
Lilah’s voice in my head: her seventeen-going-on-twenty-five voice from before the accident. I shiver. Lilah. She’d always been right about everything.
Oh God, Ari. You’re so easy. What else could he be? Trust me, once you know one . . .
And then I hear something else, something like . . . music. Flutes, or pipes, or chanting voices—I can’t tell. The distant music tugs at me somehow . . .
Still, I keep the binoculars trained on the boy. Maybe he isn’t look- ing at me—he can’t possibly see me from there. Maybe he’s staring at the sky, or a bird, anything besides me. Feeling like a complete idiot, I slowly raise my arm—and wave anyway.
Continuing to look up, he gives a brief nod. I freeze at the railing.
The wind begins to howl, and again, I hear the far-off music. Together the two create a primitive, atonal composition, music that the boy seems to move to as he pivots with aqueous grace—
And glides out of my line of vision, disappearing behind the dunes.
About the Author
Mimi Cross is an author, singer, and songwriter. Grammy award–winning artist Rosanne Cash has described Cross’s writing and singing as “Fusing delicacy and power, heart and gut. Inspiring, evocative, and refreshing.” Cross received a bachelor of music from Ithaca College and an MA from New York University and is the creator of Body of Writing, a practice combining yoga and writing that boosts creativity. Her debut novel,Before Goodbye, was published by Skyscape. She resides with her young son in New Jersey.
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The premise sounds very intriguing; it makes me want to read to find out what will happen to the silent girl.
Shinning Sea sounds like a good read ♡ Thank you
Beautiful cover! This looks like an interesting story.
The plot sounded awesome, and I dig what I’ve read — it feels textured and real to me. I think I will relate to this protagonist. Thanks for introducing me to this great new booK! Cheers, Kara S
The sneak peek already hurt my heart a little bit.
OH my! That is a captivating cover and story sneak peak! I’m dying to get this!
Wow! this author has captured an authentic voice. Love it!
The sneak peek already got me intrigued
Sounds like a very interesting read! Thanks for the opportunity!