Thunderstone by Barbara Pietron Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway!

Thunderstone by Barbara Pietron
Genre: YA paranormal romance
Published: November 12, 2013

Sneaking out at night, driving without a license, and falling for a guy weren’t things fifteen-year-old Jeni expected to do while visiting Lake Itasca, Minnesota.  Then she meets Ice, the local medicine man's apprentice.  Suddenly, her simple family gathering becomes an exciting – and terrifying – week of self-discovery.  At first Jeni doesn't believe Ice's claim that she can touch the spirit world and has somehow released a mythical underwater monster. However, she's forced to reconsider when a teen swears a monster killed his father while fishing on the lake. Just as she comes to accept truth, Jeni finds she is the only one who can imprison the monster, making her the creature's next target.  She'll need immense faith in her newfound ability to put herself in harm's way and face down the monster.  And even if she succeeds in delivering the local population – and Ice – from the creature's wrath, there is no guarantee Jeni will escape with her own life.

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Excerpt

The old cellar she'd fallen into was maybe eight foot square. Jeni trained her light on a tunnel dug into a side wall. It looked as though it had caved in. The site provided a reason for the smell of fresh dirt and confirmed what she’d determined earlier - someone had been here recently. She shuddered.  

     A shovel, tarp, and rope lay near the tunnel as well as a few empty plastic bottles and food wrappers.  An old stove or furnace occupied the far wall. In the corner nearby lay the cloth that got her into this predicament in the first place.

     The statue had better be in it.

     Convinced she was going to be okay, Jeni rose shakily to her feet, testing her range of movement. She knew she’d feel thistomorrow. Crouching down, she covered the cloth with her hand and closed her fist.  She groaned out loud.

     Nothing. It was empty.

     She made a quick survey of the rest of the area, hesitantly checking behind the furnace and under the tarp; kicking around in a mound of dirt in case the statue was buried.

     Mission failed.

     Time to get out of here.

     Jeni clenched her light in her teeth and reached up to the opening. She grasped the ledge and attempted to haul herself up. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. It might have been possible when she was ten and could make it all the way across the monkey bars, but not today.

     Relief that she’d survived the fall had overcome her other fears momentarily, but they returned quickly along with the edge of hysteria.

     Jeni approached the furnace and gave it a shove with both hands. It didn’t budge.

     She couldn’t get out.

     Now she started to freak out.

     She frantically flashed her light around. The only other idea she had was to pile dirt under the opening.  Just enough to make her tall enough to climb out.  She grabbed the shovel and went to work. The scraping sounds were almost comforting in the muffled stillness of the cellar.

     Jeni froze with a load of dirt on the end of the shovel. She thought she heard something.

     The rustle of leaves.

     Animal?

     Hungry animal?

     Psychopathic serial killer?

     Dirt rained off the end of the shovel and she noticed her arms were shaking. 

     As the sound grew closer, Jeni became convinced it was a person walking. Her heart fluttered crazily because she knew who it was.

     It was not a kind stranger who happened to be walking through the woods in the middle of the night and would rescue her.

     The swishing of leaves picked up pace. And grew nearer.

     It was the statue-stealing, tunnel-digging, cellar occupant, and Jeni had to assume the person would not be happy to see her here.

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About the Author

After years in the corporate world, Barbara found herself with a second chance to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up.  Her lifetime love of books and the written word returned one answer: writer.  Drawing from her experience with technical writing, she began by writing non-fiction magazine pieces and achieved both regional and national publication.  Her success encouraged her to complete a novel.  She learned much from her first manuscript, critiques, books, contests, and blogs.  In 2012, her novel Thunderstone, was a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and won a critique by Publisher's Weekly.  A few months later, she was offered publication by Scribe Publishing Company.

 Barbara has a few other novels in the works, including a Thunderstone sequel. If she's not reading or writing, Barbara likes to walk, garden, and sew.  She works in a library and lives in Royal Oak, Michigan with her husband, daughter, and their cat – who often acts like a dog.

Find Barbara online:

Website | Facebook 

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