By Gwyneth White
323 pages
13th June, 2012
Everyone has a soul mate. But what do you do when your soul mate would rather give his soul to the demons than be with you?
Seventeen-year-old Erin has a problem. Seth has been hers forever, but now an ancient curse is tearing him away. And the demons who invoked it will stop at nothing – even murder – to claim him as their own.
How can she win against a curse so binding that it has damned countless others to this same fate – an eternity alone?
The answer lies in the past. To find it, Erin and Seth must risk all, travelling back in time to a dangerous world where love is forbidden, and life – and death – hang on a pledge.
Follow Erin and Seth as they travel to ancient Shenaya and confront the curse that has plagued their families for millennia. Caught in a war between the Angelic Guardians and the Gefallen, the disembodied dead, they must fight to keep their souls in tact and their love untainted.
- Goodreads.com description
Meet the main characters: Seth and Erin!
Despite the heat, Seth
felt icy. Dread could do that to him. Or so he had recently discovered. Deep
breathing usually calmed him, so he sucked in a lungful of desert air and told
himself to relax. It didn’t help. By the time he’d walked from the aircraft to
the immigration hall he’d ripped off a jagged piece of thumbnail, already
bitten raw. He handed his US passport to the Botswanan border official, and,
after a frown, and a stamp, he joined the crowd at the baggage carousel. Botswana
in southern Africa was the last place on earth he’d ever have picked for a
holiday destination. But he wasn’t here on holiday. Not even close.
His backpack was slow
in coming. Tired from his long-haul flight from New York, he leaned against the
wall and closed his eyes. Almost as if to mock him, the hated vision that had
brought him to Botswana burst into his mind. In an instant he was back in
ancient times, watching a man he knew only as Gideon. As usual, Gideon was huddled
on a windswept hill with his band of hopeless soldiers, waiting to be
slaughtered by a huge army gathered in the valley below.
Seth snapped his eyes
open to stop the battle from waging in his mind. It wasn’t that he was
particularly squeamish; he’d watched enough movies to iron clad his stomach
against gory visuals. But no movie had ever left him icy with dread the way
Gideon’s battle did. And the reason for that was simple. The moment the visions
had started, he had known that the war, fought so long ago in a place he’d
never heard of, was far from over. And, as reluctant as he was, he too was
being enlisted to fight in a cause he didn’t understand or want.
He forced himself to
focus on the present: Erin, who waited for him in the arrivals hall; his
brother Kyle, whom he’d come to Botswana to visit; Kyle’s expedition to find
the Lost City of the Kalahari . . .
He ripped off another
piece of fingernail. Thinking about the search for the Lost City was almost as
bad as the war-vision. I hope Kyle never
finds the damned place. He slapped his hand on his thigh. Enough! Grabbing his backpack off the
carousel, he set his face into a smile and strode into the arrivals hall.
The first hurdle was
finding Erin. She was due to arrive an hour earlier on a flight from Cape Town
in South Africa, one of Botswana’s neighbours. He’d never met her, although
they had spoken over the phone once. Then she’d described herself as “a short,
seventeen-year-old (a year younger than him) with a mass of ginger hair.” She’d
sounded nice. Meeting her was the one ray of brightness in this otherwise dark
picture.
He stopped to scan the
crowd. A petite girl with shoulder length, reddish-blonde curls, dressed in
skinny jeans and a purple blouse, immediately caught his eye. It had to be
Erin. Nice legs. What’s it with girls that they always under-sell themselves? He
studied her face with his artist’s eye.
Vermeer would’ve killed to paint her. Suddenly wishing he didn’t look so
grimy after his three plane-changes, he walked over to join her. “Hi, I’m Seth.
You’ve got to be Erin. My brother’s just married your sister Izzy.”
“And after only
knowing each other for about a week.”
Her dimpled grin was
infectious, making him crack his trademark crooked smile. “Madness.”
“Mysterious.” Erin
cocked her head to one side, seemingly appraising him. He knew he had been
accurate when he’d told her he was tall and dark-haired. But what he had failed
to mention was what girls had often said they liked about him: his strong,
angular face, softened by expressive brown eyes. He watched her eyes rove over
his grey Muse: Resistance t-shirt, taking in his broad shoulders and chest. From
there they darted down his black camo-pants to his boots. Amused by her blatant
assessment, he cocked his head to one side, watching her. Suddenly Erin giggled
– was she embarrassed? – and picked up her bag.
“We’ve yet another
plane to catch. My fourth in the last twenty-four hours,” Seth said, hoping to
explain away his rumpled appearance. “To a place called Maun.”
“So we do. Let the
adventure begin.”
***End of excerpt***
Now that you've read the excerpt, are you excited for it? I know I am! :D
Fara
