Title: Ashes & Ice
Author: Rochelle Maya Callen
Released: February 4th, 2013
Genre: Young Adult
Blitz Host: Lady Amber's Tours
She is desperate to remember.
He is aching to forget.
Together, they are not broken.
But together, one may not survive.
Jade wakes up with no memory of her past and blood on her hands.
Plagued by wicked thoughts, she searches for answers. Instead, she finds a boy who doesn't offer her answers, but hope. But sometimes, when nightmares turn into reality and death follows you everywhere, hope is not enough.
LUST. LOVE. LOSS. Sometimes, all that is left are Ashes and Ice.
He is aching to forget.
Together, they are not broken.
But together, one may not survive.
Jade wakes up with no memory of her past and blood on her hands.
Plagued by wicked thoughts, she searches for answers. Instead, she finds a boy who doesn't offer her answers, but hope. But sometimes, when nightmares turn into reality and death follows you everywhere, hope is not enough.
LUST. LOVE. LOSS. Sometimes, all that is left are Ashes and Ice.
HELP FUND THE ASHES AND ICE AUDIOBOOK AND TRILOGY
Join the Event Page below,
or click on the Indiegogo image to go to the Fund Site!
EXCERPTS
Jade
Jade
The girl’s glassy, dead eyes stare into me, through me,
pierce me with a fierce urgency, with a wicked accusation. The blood is still
on my hands.
Red hair, blue eyes, a constellation of freckles on pale skin. She was fragile
and innocent, a lovely thing. That is what I think until I see the gashes on
her wrists and throat. With her blood spilling out, she looks delicious. She’s
mine. Possessiveness shocks me, stabs into me. I run, tearing away from a
craving I don't understand.
Breathless, I grit my teeth and run harder, faster.
My feet pound against the earth, away from the lifeless body and toward the
lights of the city lingering on the horizon. Rot and death linger in my
nostrils. Unscarred skin stretches taut over my freezing bones. Echoes of an
empty memory reverberate in my mind, taunting me. The ice chases me, clutches
me, and bites at my heels, sending shivers up my spine. The ice wants me back,
but I run forward, toward the lights, toward the heat, toward a world that
burns me, because I have no other choice.
The lights are so close. Heat scalds my skin.
Images race through my mind, paralyzing me. I skid to a stop, my boots digging
into the mud. The vision’s blurred edges materialize into solid shapes.
I gasp.
A new horror rakes my insides. Desperation propels me forward; the pictures
nagging at my seams threaten to tear me apart.
Scorching fire licks over my skin. In my vision, I contort like a vile, ugly
creature, eyes as black as decay. My frame hunches over the small, dead girl,
like a demon looming over a defenseless child. Her blood drips from my mouth.
I lick my lips and taste only salty sweat.
I run, desperate to trample the vision under my feet, to crush it deep into the
ground.
I refuse to believe the image, refuse to acknowledge the monster within me
demanding to be unleashed—and the possibility it has already been unbound. An
unrelenting tide of fear washes over me. Past the denial, the fear, and the
hope, I think I can still taste her.
The cold stillness inside me cracks open just as the lights of the city slam
into me.
Connor
Tears burn. I never realized it before, but they do. Tears reach down my throat
and settle in my gut until the pain cripples me. I clutch my stomach as I look
into the casket. His face doesn’t even look the same. Bloated like a Mardi Gras
float, discolored like a mannequin. This isn’t my father.
But it is.
If I have learned anything in my short life, it is this: funerals are bullshit.
People dress in carefully pressed black suits. Parents give me “meaningful”
nods as if that could ease the grief. It doesn’t.
Then there are the kids from school, the ones dragged along by their parents.
People drag their kids along as if filling the church was a necessary thing. As
if the more pews filled somehow expedite the dead’s trip to heaven. I doubt it
does. Maybe some of the girls went shopping to buy just the right outfit so
their cleavage to respectability ratio was just right, or their ass to
waist ratio was cinched properly.
People sit in the pews dressed in their finest let’s-go-pay-our-respects-to-the-dead-guy-we-never-knew
wear, smacking the gum in their mouths, cupping cellphones so they can LOL any
comment buzzing in, and drumming their fingers because the pastor is
going on too long. All they want to do is go home, sneak in a make-out
session with their girlfriends, eat their dinners, and maybe catch a 7 o’clock
movie.
I hate these kids. The ones who stare at me, roll their eyes, and yawn. The
ones who trip me at school and slam me into lockers. The ones who sit in a pew,
contributing to the headcount, while I sit up here in front, holding back the
tears fighting to make their appearance. I swallow them down. I won’t cry. Not
here. Not with these people.
Dad’s funeral should be an empty church with mom, his three brothers, and me.
It should be the five of us having a messy, sloppy, sobbing affair where we
cling to each other because we are all we have left. The marble floors should
be slick with our tears. It isn’t. We sit here, straight backed, completely
composed as if death is just a passing expiration date and our small,
insignificant world has not been split open and left gaping.
***
I’m in my room, staring at the ceiling. The funeral service was hours ago.
The house feels empty and cold. I hear a stifled whimper from down the hall.
Mom.
Probably crying into a pillow so the house can’t hear, but it can. It seems
unfair she can’t wail aloud, so loud the house’s hundred-year-old studs
tremble.
She doesn’t. I don’t either. We cry in our own rooms, remembering a man who
will never be here again.
The house creaks. Maybe it feels the weight of our grief, maybe the floorboards
are buckling because the burden is too heavy.
I ache, desperate to forget the long battle with cancer, the blood sputtering
out of his mouth with his last words—what where they? I can’t remember because
the fear in his eyes overshadowed anything he said. Now the loss. I don’t want
to feel this loss. Some divine entity has taken dull scissors and cut out a
piece of my life and now I have jagged scars to remind me I lost too much. Too
much.
I want to forget, because it hurts to remember.
I bury my head in the pillow, hoping to suffocate the memories, to choke out
the pain.
Check out the Book Trailer:
I absolutely loved this book. From start to finish it was exciting and I was sucked in deeper with each flip of the page.
Connor is such a sweet character. My heart went out to him and I just wanted to reach into the book and give him a hug. I was glad when he and Jade became friends. Their friendship grew stronger as the story continued and I was hoping they'd fall madly in love and live happily ever after, but of course nothing is ever that easy.
Jade faces many obstacles. She knows nothing about her life and does just about everything she can to find out the truth, leading to a few hazardous situations.
A million questions arose, as I read this story. The main one being, exactly what is Jade? When her true identity was revealed I almost flipped because it gave the story a unique spin, and so many of the mini mysteries througout the story finally made sense.
Callen does a brilliant job of keeping the suspense alive right to the end. And wow, what an ending! My heart was shattered by the time I put this book down.
I cannot wait for the second book. I need to know what lies in wait for Jade and Connor, and I'm excited to get to know Giovanni a little better.
It deserves...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connect with Rochelle
.jpg)
