Frost by Kate Avery Ellison
(The Frost Chronicles #1)
Publication date: March 28th 2012
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult
Synopsis:
In the icy, monster-plagued world of the Frost, one wrong move and a person could end up dead—and Lia Weaver knows this better than anyone.
After monsters kill her parents, Lia must keep the family farm running despite the freezing cold and threat of monster attacks or risk losing her siblings to reassignment by the village Elders. With dangers on all sides and failure just one wrong step away, she can’t afford to let her emotions lead her astray. So when her sister finds a fugitive bleeding to death in the forest—a young stranger named Gabe—Lia surprises herself and does the unthinkable.
She saves his life.
Giving shelter to the fugitive could get her in trouble. The Elders have always described the advanced society of people beyond the Frost, the “Farthers,” as ruthless and cruel. But Lia is startled to find that Gabe is empathetic and intelligent…and handsome. She might even be falling in love with him.
But time is running out. The monsters from the forest circle the farm at night. The village leader is starting to ask questions. Farther soldiers are searching for Gabe. Lia must locate a secret organization called the Thorns to help Gabe escape to safety, but every move she makes puts her in more danger.
Is compassion—and love—worth the risk?
Excerpt:
My brother Jonn raised his head from the yarn in his lap at my entrance. He looked just like me-lanky limbs, a narrow, shrewd face framed by pale, red-blond hair, a stubborn sweep of freckles across his nose and cheeks like speckles on a bird's egg. We were twins, and we looked it.
"Where's Ivy?" I swept my gaze across the main room of the house. Dried laundry draped across my great-grandmother's furniture, laundry my little sister had been supposed to fold and put away before I got home. A curl of anger kindled in the pit of my stomach-we were barely making quota, the winter storms were upon us, and she wasn't even keeping up with the basic chores I gave her. She was almost fourteen-she was old enough to do her share of the work.
Jonn raised his eyebrows. "I haven't seen her all afternoon. I thought she was with you."
A little piece of my insides froze at his words. Our eyes met and held, and a million wordless things passed between us. I went back to the door and opened it.
Darkness was falling along with the snow. I hadn't seen my sister in the village, and she hadn't been in the barn. It was a small farm-just a round clearing in the woods, really. There was no sign of her in the yard. I shouted her name, but the wind snatched the word from my lips and flung it away. The Watcher Ward rattled above me, and the sound was like bones shaking.
My heart beat fast. My lungs were suddenly empty. I took a shaky breath and then exhaled slowly before turning to my brother.
"I'm going out to find her."
Jonn looked at the fire. I knew he wouldn't argue with me-he wasn't the type to voice disagreements, especially not with me-but his whole face tightened and his lips turned white. "The Watchers..."
"It's too early for Watchers to be out," I said. "There's still light left. Besides, nobody's seen one in months."
That was a half-lie, as their tracks were spotted almost every week crisscrossing the paths or wandering around the edges of the village where the border of snow blossoms was planted to keep them out. But it was a half-truth, too. We hadn't seen them recently.
But Jonn and I knew better than anybody that there was still a risk.
"I'm going," I said.
He didn't reply, but I could tell by his expression that he was furious that he couldn't go. He wasn't mad at me. It was just the way things were. There was no point in wasting time talking about it, so we didn't.
I pulled on my cloak again and struggled into my heavy boots with the snowshoes for walking on top of the snow. Opening the front door, I threw one final look over my shoulder at Jonn before ducking back out into the wintery evening.
It had grown colder since I'd been inside, or maybe that was just the wind stealing the warmth from my body. I padded through the dusting of snow that covered everything, cupping my hands over my mouth to call her again. "Ivy!"
Most of the time fear was just like a rat in my belly, gnawing and gnawing a hole in the same place day after day whenever I'd let it. But now the rat had turned into a lion, and it was tearing me apart from the inside out. I reached the edge of the yard, where the trees formed a wall of brown and green, and I stopped. The wind shivered through my hair.
"Ivy!" I screamed again.
She was always wandering the farm with a dream in her eyes and a song in her mouth. She had a head full of thoughts about things that didn't matter and never would, and she didn't have an ounce of sense when it came to our survival. I wrapped both arms tight around my middle to hold in the fear, and I sucked in another breath to call again when I heard it, lost against the wind.
My name.
About the Author:
I live in Georgia with my wonderful husband and two spoiled cats. When I'm not writing, I'm usually catching up on my extensive Netflix queue, reading a book, giggling at something funny online, or trying to convince my husband to give me just ONE bite of whatever he's eating.
Learn more about my writing and books at my blog, find teasers for upcoming works on my Facebook page, and subscribe to my new releases newsletter to be notified of new novels as soon as they hit stores!
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