Welcome to the Hidden Book Blitz, organized by
Xpresso Book Tours Today I have an excerpt and a tourwide giveaway for you to enter.
About the Book
Title: Hidden
Author: Megg Jensen
Series: Dragonlands #1
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Date: January 2014
The mystery enshrouding Hutton’s Bridge is as impenetrable as the fog that descended at its borders eighty years ago. Each year, three villagers enter the mist searching for answers. No one ever returns.
Then a dragon falls from the sky to the town square, dead—the first glimpse of an outside world that has become nothing more than a fairy tale to Hutton’s Bridge. Except to Tressa.
Tressa grew up with Granna’s stories of the days before the fog fell. When Granna dies, leaving Tressa without any family, Tressa ventures into the fog herself, vowing to unravel the foul magic holding Hutton’s Bridge captive.
What she discovers beyond the fog endangers the lives of everyone she loves.
About the Author
I've been a freelance parenting journalist since 2003 and began writing YA novels in 2009. I live in the
Chicago suburbs with my husband, two kids, and our miniature schnauzers, Ace & Tanu.
For more information on me please visit my website at http://www.meggjensen.com
EXCERPT FROM HIDDEN
By Megg Jensen
Death
lurked in the air that afternoon. Tressa sat by Granna’s bedside, clasping hands with the
woman who at ninety-three had outlived her entire generation.
“You are
leaving tomorrow, yes?” Granna’s liver-spotted hands shook. The rough-hewn walls seemed to
close in. Tressa knew Granna didn’t have much time left. She wanted to squeeze out every second
she could with her.
The smell
of tonic and medicine hung in the dark room. When the curtains were drawn,
Granna’s eyes watered.
Adam, the village healer, said sunlight would help Granna, but Tressa knew the
truth. Granna would leave her soon, leave the village, taking the only
first-hand knowledge of the outside world with her. The tales of the outside
world – a place no one in Hutton’s Bridge had seen since Granna was just a child. Not since
the fog had descended on the borders of their village.
“Yes,
Granna. You chose me, remember?” Tressa stroked Granna’s hair with her free hand. The silver
strands were still soft. “Me, Sean, and Connor.”
Granna
nodded. “Yes, yes, I remember now.” A gasp preceded each breath, struggling
against the inevitable finality of life. “You’re the only girl eligible this year.”
Tressa’s eyes dropped to the floor strewn
with straw, the hem of her long, cotton dress sweeping it every time she moved.
She was eligible only because she’d never conceived. After three years of coupling, not one
baby to show for it. Not even a failed pregnancy. The girls who did achieve
pregnancy were never forced to leave. They were safe, protected. Tressa had
felt the cold breath of death breathing down her back every time she didn’t conceive.
“But,
Tressa, it is your destiny to leave the village.”
Tressa
held back a sigh. Granna was about to die herself. Why would she want her only
great grandchild to follow her in death? No one who ever entered the fog
returned to the village. It was as much of a death sentence as Granna’s failing health.
Tressa’s palms began sweating. A tremble
skipped up her arms to her chest where her heart pounded out an irregular,
nervous beat.
Granna
took another deep breath. Without looking at Tressa, she said, “The fog. You
must leave. It is your destiny.”
Tressa
managed to force out a small laugh. Granna’s grave expression didn’t fool. “Granna, don’t you want me to live a long life,
like you have?”
Granna
shook her head. “Beyond the fog there is a life for you. I have seen it.”
No one had
the gift of sight in her village. Granna claimed once there was magic. It was
one element of her stories that made the outside world seem so desirable.
Tressa would give anything for a magical potion to save her great grandmother.
Instead, they could only rely on Adam’s knowledge of healing.
“But I was
supposed to live to watch you leave. I saw it. I believed it would happen.” She
took another breath, shallower this time. “I don’t know if I can hold on until
tomorrow.” Granna’s
eyes flashed with anger. She held out one frail hand. An owl flew through the
window, landing on Granna’s fingers. The fog’s undulating fingers caressed the tree’s limbs.
“That’s my Nerak.”
The little
owl hooted in response.
“You take
care of Tressa, Nerak. Help her to see the truth.”
The owl’s head bobbed, then it flew out the
window and sat in the tree.
Tressa
leaned down, kissing Granna on the forehead. Granna always said the downy owl
had magic. Tressa had never seen it do anything other than the other trained
birds in the village. Tressa sat up again. Granna was cold, too cold. Her skin
paled into a gray pallor. Her blue eyes lost focus, gazing somewhere over Tressa’s shoulder.
“I love
you, Granna,” she said.
“I love
you too, my sweet Tressa.” Her voice rattled. Granna’s eyelids fluttered, then closed with
a finality only accompanied by death. One last breath expelled, but her lungs
didn’t take in another
whiff of air.
Tressa
laid Granna’s
hand on her stomach. Taking a step back, she took one last look at the woman
who had loved her every moment of her life. Tressa’s mother died in childbirth and her
father had left through the fog. Like all of the others, three a year for the
last sixty-seven years, none of them returned. Two hundred and one souls lost
to the fog.
Tressa was
next.
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