Young Adult/Paranormal Romance/Mystery
Date Published: Feb 18, 2014
Publisher: Ingramspark
2015 Readers' Favorite Gold Medal Winner for YA Mystery
2015 RONE Award Finalist for YA Paranormal
2015 New Apple Top Medalist for Young Adult Ebook
Chosen as one of 400 for the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for 2014!!!
Rising Tide will sink its fangs into you, keeping you awake into the wee hours of the night
Could Maura's life get any worse? ...turns out it most certainly can.
Isolated and sheltered by her lonely mother, Maura's never been able to make friends. She seems to drive her classmates away—except for the odd times they pay enough attention to torture her—but she doesn’t understand why. Maura considers herself to be a freak of nature, with her unusually pale skin and an aversion to the sun that renders her violently nauseous. Her belief is only worsened by the fact that almost everyone around her keeps their distance.
Even her own father deserted her before she was born, leaving Maura alone with her emotionally distant mother, Caelyn. Even though Maura is desperate for answers about her unknown parent, Caelyn remains heartbroken and her daughter can’t bring herself to reopen her mother’s wounds. Or is there a more sinister reason Caelyn refuses to utter a word about her long-lost love?
When a cruel prank nearly claims Maura’s life, one of her classmates, Ron, rushes to her rescue. Darkly handsome & mysteriously accepting, Ron doesn’t seem to want to stay away, but Maura is reluctant to get too close, since her mother has announced she’s moving the two of them to Vancouver…nearly 3,000 miles away from their hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania.
If life wasn’t already challenging enough, Maura begins to experience bizarre, physical changes her mother seems hell bent on ignoring, compelling Maura to fear for her own life. Vicious nightmares, blood cravings, failing health and the heart-shattering loss of Ron—as well as the discovery of a tangled web of her own mother's lies—become obstacles in Maura's desperate quest for the unfathomable truth she was never prepared to uncover.
Excerpt:
There was no shock strong enough to stop me then. Just a
greedy, driving impulse pounding through every cell. I was hungry, and I wanted
beyond all wants, to eat. A red film pervaded my eyes, turning the world
crimson. My pulse screamed inside my head, exiling all other sound. And the boy’s blood called to me, drawing me down to
my knees on the ground beside him.
“Maura!” From somewhere very far away, part of me
acknowledged Ron’s voice. The reverberation was enough to draw me up, up, up
from where I was, at present, drowning in gluttony at the taste of blood. Not
quite enough though; I continued to lap at the side of the nameless boy’s head.
“MAURA!!” Ron’s voice was much more forceful then—a force to
be reckoned with—and rife with shock. But he didn’t settle for shouting at me.
I felt him behind me, hooking his hands under my shoulders and jerking me to my
feet in an instant.
He whirled me around, roughly, and I found myself staring
blankly into his face, trying to focus. “My god! What are you doing?!!” He was
shouting at me, his face not an inch from mine, but I still couldn’t come
around from my bloodhaze completely. I wanted to shove him away…violently…and
reattach my mouth to the bloody wound at my feet.
“Stop! Leave me alone!” I fought against him until I saw
Shane coming through the door after us. He stopped short and stared at me, his
mouth gaping open with shock, fear in his eyes. Ron pushed him back inside,
slamming the door in his face.
He turned his attention back to me and shook me forcefully.
“Maura.” My name came out a rough whisper. “What’s wrong with you?!!”
He wiped the back of his right hand across my mouth. The
left came up after to cover my mouth and nose, attempting to sweep away the
bloody mess with his fingers. I heard from that small, not-in-control part of
my mind again. A tiny voice wondering exactly what was happening. The part in
control didn’t care about anything except his exquisite scent. He smelled
better than the pizza, better than the boy’s blood… I struck at him,
precipitously, like a viper. He narrowly avoided the sink of my teeth into his
skin.
I had to give Ron credit; he only looked frightened for a
moment. In the slice of an instant, he composed the look on his face, bravely
took another spit-laden swipe at the corner of my mouth and jerked the door
back open.
He hauled Shane out by the front of his shirt and then slammed the door shut—that time
in Merina’s astonished face—once again.
Shane’s eyes slid toward me, then flicked quickly back to
Ron’s face. They stayed there.
“Shane.” Ron said his
name with calm and quiet. “This guy fell and hit his head.” He inclined his own
toward the figure sprawling before us. “Maura was trying to help him by
cleaning up the wound.” He said those words with such weight, as if he were burning them into Shane’s head with a
branding iron. “You got that? She was helping him.” When Shane didn’t respond
he shook him firmly, as he had me before. “Do you understand?”
Shane snapped out of the trance he’d seemed trapped in. He
looked from Ron’s face to my own, blinked a couple of times and then nodded his
head. He licked his lips before he spoke. “Yeah. Yeah, I‘ve got it.” He shook
his head to clear it, and Ron released his grip on Shane’s shirtfront.
At that moment, my head snapped around to the left corner of
the house at the sound of approaching footsteps. Caelyn glided into my view, as
smooth as silk in her tight black-leather
jacket. The expression on her face was enough to render my knees incapable of
supporting my weight. I slid toward the ground, but Ron hauled me back up
immediately. I tried to form words, but my vocal cords didn’t seem to be working.
My head was starting to clear to the fact that Caelyn was going to kill me,
slowly, painfully… I looked up to Ron, fully mindful he had no power to save
me.
My Review:
Maura DeLuca is just a teenage girl trying to make it
through high school and life; a loner and has no friends that want to hang out
with her. Maura has an affliction with the sun as she gets violently ill when
she is out in the sun. Lately Maura has been having a few issues with her diet.
She has started having these weird cravings like eating raw meat and blood for instance.
Her hair seems to be growing like crazy and it is healthier than it has ever
been. Maura is beginning to get worried about her health and wonders if she is
dying.
With no one ever wanting to hang with her before Maura is surprised
when this girl from school Katie wants to hang out with her but when tragedy
strikes and Maura is left for dead by her new friends she starts to figure it
all out. I just don’t get it, how can someone be so mean and cruel? How can
someone do that to another person? Maura is lucky that her new friend Ron, whom
she met in the school cafeteria, comes to her rescue.
Maura is also surprised that her mother Caelyn allows Ron to
waltz into their lives as easily as she has because she was so strict before.
Maura’s father left them before Maura was even born and this is why she is so surprised
by it. Caelyn’s soulmate walked out on her and their unborn child. But maybe
this is why she let Ron into their lives so easily she wanted Maura to experience
what she had.
With all the changes that is going on in her life and body
and with her mother being so closed up and distant she knows her mother knows
more than she is telling and Maura is a very strong and determined girl she
will find out what her mother is hiding no matter what.
I have really and truly loved following Maura, Ron, Shane
and Merina on their journeys in Rising Tide and I can’t wait to see what is in
store for them in book two Undertow: Death’s Twilight. If you have not read
Rising Tide then I would like to suggest that you give it a try. It will
keeping you turning the pages to see what is going to happen next.
About the Author
Claudette Melanson writes dark fantasy in Kitchener, Ontario with four bun babies: Tegan, Pepper, Butters & Beckett. She graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English, BS in English Education and an MA in Literature. Harboring a deep admiration of vampires since the age of five left her with the desire to eventually become one, and now fuels the creation of her favorite paranormal characters. She hopes to one day work full time as an author, since there are many, many stories playing out inside her head.
In her very scant spare time, she enjoys watching Japanese Anime and reading vampire stories...along with other genres of great fiction, as well as riding every roller coaster she encounters in both her hometown and away at signings. An advocate for good health and ketogenic eating, her favorite foods are bulletproof coffee, cashew-flour crust pizza and treats made with xylitol and almond, coconut or cashew flours.
Future dreams include a cabin boasting a roaring fire, isolated inside a snow-filled wood in the Yukon—the perfect writing spot—and the completion of dozens of future novels and stories. A Rabbit Rescue fanatic and loving bunmom, she also hopes to help rescues all over the world save many innocent lives.
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2 comments:
Thank you for posting
Thank you so much for the review & feature :)
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