However Dark The Night
Philippa Cameron
Publication date: October 6th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
When Alex meets Erin, he doesn’t realize he’s fallen for her until it’s too late. And he can never let Erin find out how he feels because he’s an Oxy and she’s a Blue. In a world where the air has changed, leaving the Blues unable to breathe properly, the power is in the hands of those who can – the Oxys. Alex has much more to lose than just his heart, but how do you stop yourself from falling in love?
However Dark The Night is a contemporary novel in the Elements series. Each novel is a stand-alone book, linked by its connection to one or more of the elements – earth, wind, fire and water. However Dark The Night is linked to the element of air.
Also read The Day We Are Born, which is also a stand-alone book in the Elements series, and is linked to the element of water, and Every Move I Have Made, linked to the element of earth.
Email books@philippa-cameron.com to join Philippa Cameron’s email list to enter competitions, read free books and more!
Excerpt:
Erin said to me, “And you, my friend,
are avoiding the subject.”
“What subject?” I asked.
“You were about to
tell me what it’s like to be you.”
I took a deep breath,
letting it out while I gathered my thoughts.
“I guess it’s
easier,” I eventually said. “Not having to worry about getting air. But I still
have to do the same math homework as you at the end of the day...”
She gave me a
lopsided smile.
“Okay, I get it,” she said. “You’re one of
those ‘we’re all exactly the same underneath’ people.”
“Something wrong with
that?”
“No,” she said with a sigh. “I only wish
those damned men from the war had never invented those damned gases that did
this to us.”
She paused. “And I wish I was like you. That
I wasn’t one of those who couldn’t adapt to the new air.”
“Hey, but Erin,
there’s so much out there now that you don’t have to worry about the air...”
“That’s not what I
mean, you idiot. I mean, there is so much more I could do to help people if I
didn’t have to keep worrying about where my next breath was coming from.”
I didn’t know how to
respond to this so I changed tack.
“To be fair,” I said,
“I’m sure the powers-that-were wouldn’t have touched those gases if they knew
what would happen. And, well, for the British anyway, they thought it would
help them win the war against Germany.”
“What are you now, an
historian? Then you’ll also know those gases killed more people than the Great
War, in countries that didn’t even know there was a war going on. And the gases
are still killing people.”
“Well, hardly anymore,” I responded.
“You say not everyone adapted to the air, but everyone did. Everywhere – well,
indoors, anyway – is oxygenated. That’s adaptation, too.”
Erin cocked her head
at me and chewed on her lip, before saying, “Actually, I never thought of it
like that.”
As the frustration drained from her face, a
little color returned. A pink smear over the pale blue complexion.
She said, “Damn,
you’re good.”
I frowned, confused. “Good at what?”
“Making me feel like
an idiot.”
“What? No, that’s not...” I see the crooked
grin again, and I stop. “You’re teasing me, right?”
“Right,” Erin agreed.
“But you are good at arguing a point. Ever thought about joining the debate
club?”
“Not
really...Wait, you’re teasing me again?”
This time the grin
reached both sides of her mouth. “I could do this all day...”
Luckily for me,
Erin’s stop is next, but no one seems to be getting off.
“What’s happening?” I
asked.
“Stupid
bus door won’t seal with the stupid bus shelter,” she said. “Don’t worry, we
can go on to the next stop if we can’t get off here.”
She lightly punched
the side of the seat we were standing next to, but her words had none of that
gentleness. “So sick of this. They don’t give a damn about us. They don’t fix
anything or maintain anything. They want to get rid of us.”
I surmised that
“they” were the government, headed up by the Oxys. I knew having to oxygenate
buses, and bus shelters, and homes and schools and offices and every other type
of building, was what was crippling our economy, but I couldn’t believe our
government was trying to get rid of the Blues. It wasn’t trying to let half our
population die. I wanted to say something, but with a hiss and a loud snap, the
pneumatic
door finally opened and the line moved.
In the bus shelter,
Erin dug in her bag and pulled out a canister attached to a cannula. The
canister she strapped around her upper arm and the ends of the cannula she
inserted into her nostrils. She breathed in and out a couple of times. “Oh,
that feels good,” she said. “Bus air kills me.”
And then we walked
out through the revolving door and into the air that could actually kill
her.
Author Bio:
A little bit about me: I'm Philippa Cameron, the author of three Young Adult books. I love reading Young Adult novels. And books from other genres too. Any of them. All of them. Good thing, then, that I'm also a librarian..
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