PASSING
THE TORCH
by
L.L. Sanders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Mesa
Kingston's first memory of burying a corpse was at eight years old.
Back then it had been the carcass of a large lizard her dad found
that they buried in the backyard of their isolated cottage. At age
fourteen, the body of a young lady accompanied the reptile's remains,
and ever since, an accumulation of female bodies began to grow. Now,
the only way Mesa can stop the haunting screams of the dead is by
drowning them out with flames. Or is there more to the blaze than
even she can perceive?
EXCERPT;
The
wailing sirens grow louder as they approach, making the singed hairs
on my arms stand up as anticipation prickles beneath my skin. Strands
of my hair blow against my face, tickling my nose and briefly
reminding me of the life I was willingly leaving behind. No more
fussing over which shampoos and leave-in conditioners were best
suited for my hair, no more being embarrassed when the manicurist
added the dull-pink nail polish to my nails that unintentionally
blends with my natural skin tone, no more ordinary life for an
ordinary girl.
But have
I ever been an ordinary girl with an ordinary life, or was my urge to
be normal greater than my reality? That question was too obvious to
answer, and I would've chuckled at the ridiculousness of it at any
other time.
Now as I
walk farther from the cottage along the narrow trail—worn and
barren from the years of traffic—I'm hit with a devastating
realization … I can still hear the agonizing screams.
No
matter how much or how long I try to shut out the noise, I fail.
Nothing helps, not a thought, a memory, not even the smell of burnt
wood in the air can distract me from the noise. Each tactic
eventually leads me right back to the screams.
I grab
the wire of the makeshift fence with one hand, the fence my dad had
built to separate our property from the rest of the desert. It didn't
matter much. Our cottage was the only structure for many miles, built
by Grandpa decades ago near a remote lake. Even so, erecting a fence
and creating a yard may have been Dad's attempt at being normal too.
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
The L.L.
stands for Leslie Lee. I write erotic romance and
post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction under Leslie Lee Sanders.
But
horror and thriller fiction is what I grew up on, what inspires me,
and what began my pursuit to authorship. I’ve written many short
scary stories since the 6th grade. Now they’re much more mature in
general, thanks to the wide range of emotion and experience I’ve
encountered over the years.
I’m a
huge fan of horror and psychological thrillers in every fashion,
including movies, books, art, campfire tales, etc. Some of my
favorite stories are those that twist at the end or are ambiguous
with deep societal or morality themes. This includes dystopias like
Hugh Howey’s Wool, psychological thrillers like Shutter Island, and
popular and classic horror/romances like V.C. Andrews’s Flowers in
the Attic, my favorite.
All my
ideas start with a twist, which is exactly how most of my stories
end.
FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/lls4sanders
TWITTER:
https://twitter.com/LeslieLSanders
WEBSITE:
http://llsanders.com/
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i like the book's cover and the blurb..
ReplyDeletethx u for hosting :)
Thanks for hosting me today! I'll be checking in all day to answer any questions and respond to comments. Thanks for your interest in Passing the Torch!
ReplyDeleteReaders, let's discuss ... Do you enjoy surprises and twist endings in your thriller reads? Do you enjoy stories short enough to read in one sitting but deep enough to stay with you long after?
Thanks. Great title. Did you think about calling it anything else?
ReplyDeletesavewish@yahoo.com
Sherry Compton
Hi Sherry. Yes, I had other titles in mind, only because I wanted to somehow add the word "burning" to the title. lol. But I finally settled on Passing the Torch because of it's double meaning. First, the word "torch" is synonymous with fire. Second, Mesa's father is essentially teaching or training her to be the kind of daughter she is. So Passing the Torch seemed fitting.
DeleteThanks for your interest in my story! All the best.