I'm so excited to announce that my debut novel, ONE, will be published on June 11, 2013!
Add ONE to Goodreads here.
Follow ONE on Facebook here.
Preorder ONE here.
Here's the synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey would love to be able to fly, or even drift along like a freaking ghost - too bad all she can do is float up and down. When almost everyone else is a Super, with at least two powers, or a Normal, with none, being a One is the worst kind of in-between.
All Merrin has ever wanted is to land an internship at the Biotech Hub. She busts her butt in AP Chem and salivates over news of Hub President Fisk’s experiments, hoping she can get close enough to his research on the manifestations of superpowers to finally figure out how to fix herself.
Then she meets Elias VanDyne, another One, and all her carefully crafted plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch, their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other. Merrin’s over the moon - Elias is as good at kissing as he is at helping her fly. Better yet, her mad chemistry skills land her a spot on the Hub’s internship short list.
But when the Hub kidnaps Elias, Merrin discovers The Hub’s sick experiments could take away even their measly single powers - Fisk’s interest in Ones like them might even be lethal. If she stands up to Fisk, she not only risks Elias’s life, she’ll also destroy her chances of ever finding a way to fly solo – of ever being more than a One.
And here are the first couple pages:
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| Cover art by the incredible Nathalia Suellen! |
Add ONE to Goodreads here.
Follow ONE on Facebook here.
Preorder ONE here.
Here's the synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey would love to be able to fly, or even drift along like a freaking ghost - too bad all she can do is float up and down. When almost everyone else is a Super, with at least two powers, or a Normal, with none, being a One is the worst kind of in-between.
All Merrin has ever wanted is to land an internship at the Biotech Hub. She busts her butt in AP Chem and salivates over news of Hub President Fisk’s experiments, hoping she can get close enough to his research on the manifestations of superpowers to finally figure out how to fix herself.
Then she meets Elias VanDyne, another One, and all her carefully crafted plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch, their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other. Merrin’s over the moon - Elias is as good at kissing as he is at helping her fly. Better yet, her mad chemistry skills land her a spot on the Hub’s internship short list.
But when the Hub kidnaps Elias, Merrin discovers The Hub’s sick experiments could take away even their measly single powers - Fisk’s interest in Ones like them might even be lethal. If she stands up to Fisk, she not only risks Elias’s life, she’ll also destroy her chances of ever finding a way to fly solo – of ever being more than a One.
And here are the first couple pages:
Most nights, and some mornings before
sunrise, I sneak to the back of the shed and I practice. I push myself off the
ground, telling my body to go weightless, and hover. An inch, two, six, a foot.
I stay there for seconds, then minutes.
I can’t generate enough tension between
my body and the air to take a step - can’t even make myself drift. I’d give
anything to be able to float along like a freaking ghost.
It’s the same for all of us. Most
Ones start with an ability everyone thinks will turn into a superpower. A
really fast runner might have muscles that can’t take the strain. Or a kid who
can stretch an arm out really far will wait days for it to pull itself back
into place. They put up with getting teased at Superhero High, waiting for
their Second – in those cases, enhanced muscle power or elasticity - to show
up. While they do, that One power starts to fade. There are still shimmers of
it, but after a while the kid quits trying and the One fizzles into
nothingness.
Then their parents ship them off to
Normal High, like mine did.
Here’s my secret: I never quit trying.
For a long time, I tried to move. Once I
tried so hard my muscles strained, then burned, then ached, then trembled, and
I hovered there behind the shed, weeping and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes,
until Dad came looking for me. Then I collapsed on the grass.
I’ve watched all the old-school cartoons
about misfit superhero kids that just need to work on developing their powers
in order to totally rule. But I’m not a freaking X-man. I know I can’t work on
my One power hard enough that it becomes something better, something more. And
it’s not like I can magically give myself a Second.
I know. I know.
But my body whispers to me. It tells me
I can fly, if only I’m brave enough, strong enough, determined enough.
This morning, standing in our weedy
backyard surrounded by a chorus of crickets, the house’s view of me blocked by
the ancient shed with chipping red paint, I go weightless. It
happens so fast that I feel like I’m being pushed upward. My heart jumps.
Maybe...
I try to move, try to resist the air, or
push it and…nothing. I’ve been practicing so much that I’ve gotten fast at
going light. So I’m a speedy floater. Great.
Nevertheless, I smile when I have to
will some weight into my body, to keep from floating above the plane of sight
of the shed. I definitely cleared three feet this time, and the slanting roof
dips lower than that. Four years of hard work, and I can float an extra two
feet.
Maybe by the time I’m eighty, I can say
“hi” to the folks taking hot air balloon rides at the Nebraska State fair.
I sigh and trudge back to the house,
being careful to dry the dew from my shoes before heading in to get ready for
my first day at Normal. 
