Today we’re spotlighting S.J. Abraham’s novel, Terra Soul!
Read on for more about S.J. and his novel, an excerpt, and giveaway!
Meet S.J. Abraham!!
As a child raised in the Southwest United States on the border of one of the largest oil fields in the country, S.J. Abraham was a lonely nerd. With no interest in rodeo or baseball, he spent his time reading. His heroes were fictional characters and great novelists. It wasn’t long before he started scratching out his own stories.
In recent years he has embraced his geekieness and has set to work turning his writing hobby into a career as a novelist. While he originally wrote for adults, he has since realized he is still fifteen at heart, so he now focuses on writing for Young Adults.
S.J. lives in the beautiful city of Colorado Springs, where all the exciting outdoor activities are wasted on him, though the ever-changing views fire his creativity like few things can. He spends the shreds of his free time playing with his wife, children, brothers, sisters, friends, nephews and little nieces.
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Meet Terra Soul!!
Ayla thinks she’s just a comic-book geek with photophobia until the day a space fold opens in her living room. Her father drags her through to an alien world. Her birthplace. Karanik. For the first time in her life Ayla can see without pain. She’s home. She’s where she belongs. There are just a few problems: Her dad accidentally dragged Justin, another comic-geek whose been crushing on her all summer, through to Karanik with them. Her long lost sister, Eren, thinks she’s some sort of messiah, and hates her for it. Her grandmother, Matron Beyz, the powerful and intimidating head of the clan, wants to control her every move in hopes of forming Ayla into a leader like herself. Finally, Ayla learns that a race of soul-drinking aliens that have infested Karanik have somehow reached Earth. Now it’s up to her to return and save a world that was never hers to begin with. But to do it she’ll need to come to grips with who she really is.
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Daddy stretched out his hand. Ayla stared at the man who had read her comics and painted her toenails when she was little, the man who had taught her to never be ashamed of who she was. How could he have concealed all this? It was impossible, contradictory to what she knew as truth. Soul-drinking monsters? Magic moms and alien sisters who could open portals to distant worlds? No.
Ayla looked away, searching for something that made sense and found nothing. “Please, Daddy, where are we? What’s going on?”
He smiled. “Let me show you, little sprout.”
Something about the pet name sparked a fire of red anger in her chest. It sounded so completely condescending. Ayla marched over and snatched Justin’s hand instead. “Fine. Show us.”
She felt a grim pleasure at seeing the smile vanish from Daddy’s face. He stretched out his hand to Corala, and cautiously, Corala took it. He led them out into a wide hallway decorated with intricately looped and knotted black-and-white cords. Glass lamps holding bright sparks of light hung on the walls, their light inexplicably comfortable for Ayla’s eyes.
The walls and ceilings looked like cloudy ice or frosted glass, translucent, showing glimmers of motion and light through their depths. Black tiles, smooth and dark as ink, covered the floors. Numerous doors and other hallways opened off the spiraling passage. A heavy gray silence and a thick warmth filled the vast halls, giving Ayla the impression that it was early in the morning and very hot outside.
Tall, pale guards in blue uniforms, holding long spears against their shoulders, and a scattering of other people in smocks and coats of different hues—blue and purple and black—regarded Ayla and the others with curious glances. Their height made Ayla feel average, even short, for a change. It was oddly comforting to not stick out like an improperly sorted comic.
“Ow!” Justin said, his toe catching on some uneven stone. Ayla helped him stabilize. His hand was warm and damp in hers. “Dang! Why’s it so dark?”
“I don’t know,” Ayla said. “What are you even doing here?”
“There was that bolt of lightning and all the screaming and—Ow! Sonofa!”
“I can see just fine,” Corala spoke up. “Why doesn’t this light hurt us?”
“I don’t know. It’s different here,” Daddy said.
Ayla glared at him. “Right. Because we’re on another planet.”
He just shrugged.
“You know your dad’s nuts, right?” Justin whispered.
Ayla swallowed a knot of fear in her throat. Either that or this is the most elaborate prank ever. Or …. She couldn’t bring herself to even finish the thought. I don’t know where we are, but we’re not on another planet! We can’t be.
Daddy led them onward, now and again pointing out something Ayla was supposed to remember. She didn’t. None of it. Gradually the incline and curve of the passage increased until transforming into a steep twisting stair, which wound up and up and up, until a sudden gush of warm air heralded the opening of a door. Daddy preceded them up the last few steps and out a low doorway onto a broad rooftop, tiled in an intricate mosaic. In the very center stood a tall pole, from which streamed long ribbons of black and white that fluttered overhead.
Ayla stepped around Daddy, and suddenly she could not speak. She could hardly breathe.
A pale pink teardrop, bigger than the biggest comic book moon, dominated a star-filled sky. It trailed a fan of curling, twisting vapors that faded slowly from pale violet and blue to gold and minty green. Most beautiful of all was the eerie song that emanated from the shining body. It reminded Ayla vaguely of whales singing, but this was smoother, less random, more musical. Impossibly, the song seemed to come from within Ayla as much as without, washing away her fear and worry and confusion.
The cloud of forgetfulness around her memories dissolved and left Ayla gasping. Songs came back to her. Nursery rhymes in the Old Tongue. Flashes of her mother’s face. Eren. Other children. Laughter. Ayla stretched out her arms to the sky and tried to drink it in.
“What is it? How can we hear it? It’s in space. Sound doesn’t move through space,” Justin said. She’d forgotten he was there. Forgotten his existence entirely.
“It’s an angel,” Corala answered with a laugh. She twirled beneath the unearthly light, arms outspread.
Daddy beamed. “It is the—”
“The Well of Souls. It sings the Well Song,” Ayla murmured, remembering words whispered to her long, long ago. She’d been standing in a wide open place, looking up at the sky. There had been warm arms, and a smell, sweet and pungent.
“Yes,” Daddy said, grinning. “It sings to us, calling us back to where our souls waited for our bodies to be born. To where they will one day return.”
Heaven, Ayla thought. I think I’m looking at heaven.
They stood in silence until the Well passed beyond the horizon and the song faded away. The sky went dark, shot with faint swirls of ash gray and midnight blue. The stars, more brilliant and numerous and colorful than any she’d ever seen in Colorado, cut across the sky in a band of glittering light that put the Milky Way to shame. A damp breeze filled with the smells of growing alien things, whispered across the rooftop.
“We’re really on another planet,” Justin said.
“Like, a super awesome planet!” Corala added.
“We’re really home,” Ayla whispered. “How could I forget all this?”
Terra Soul
By: S.J. Abraham
Release Date: June 24, 2016
Publisher: Geeky Writing
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*
There will be Three winners. (US Only)
First place: Signed special edition hard cover of Terra Soul, a singed copy of the soft cover to share with a friend, and two first edition comics (Cyclops #1 and Black Widow #1) to start your own comic collection just like the characters in Terra Soul.
Second place: Signed special edition hard cover.
Third place: Signed soft cover.
*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*
I’m not into the cover but I think this will be a fun read!
The cover and synopsis are very intriguing.
I love the colors on the cover! The book sounds fun.
This sounds so good! I really like the covet of the soft cover!
Wow! This sounds so unique and I’m excited for this book. The cover is perfect for the synopsis, plus I love the colors.