Welcome to our Grand Finale celebrations for the amazing
In our final post, we'll look at two of Ofelia's standalone novels,
Silent Woods and
Eight Feet Of Magic. We also have our author interview and one more chance to win one of her books.
First up,
Silent Woods
Blurb:
Do you believe in myths and ancient creatures?
Daniel has never felt the need to leave the city behind, so when his husband suggests a camping trip for their holiday he agrees with reluctance. Even before they step out of the car, Daniel has the feeling of something being wrong. Something about the forest is turning his stomach into knots.
He wants nothing more than returning to the safety of their home, and when their five-year-old son goes missing his fears turn into full-blown panic. What awaits them in the depths of the forest is far more sinister than anything Daniel ever could have imagined. Will they be able to find their son before it's too late?
Excerpt:
Anders came back about twenty minutes later. By that point I’d managed to go through every possible—and impossible—scenario in my mind.
“Nothing,” he panted with an edge of panic in his voice. My husband did not panic—he never panicked—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him panicky. He was my safe haven, the solid rock I’d built my entire foundation on.
“What?” I couldn’t keep my voice from breaking.
“Shh.” Anders wrapped his arms around me and Maja, holding us tight.
“What do we do now?”
“Try to stay calm,” he said with a wobbly smile. “You call the police.” He took Maja from my arms—I hesitated before letting go of her. “Tell them were we are, and what’s happened.”
I dialled 112 with shaking fingers, telling the all-too-calm lady on the other end where we were, and what had happened.
“Stay put,” she told me. “The local police are on their way.”
I hung up, and sat down on the ground. A tear slowly trickled down my cheek. Where was my little boy? Anders slumped down next to me.
“I’m so sorry.” His voice was cracking, and he avoided my gaze. “I swear, it never even crossed my mind that there could be any danger. It was sixty yards, at most. I could almost see you.”
I nodded. What could I say? I didn’t know what to say. He’d let our son out of his sight in the middle of the forest. A kid used to the city. What had he been thinking? But I didn’t want him to feel worse than he already did—so I kept my mouth shut. Help was on the way. The police would know what to do. This could hardly be the first child lost in the woods.
****
The inspector standing in front of me was a greying man, with kind eyes, and a potbelly. He’d introduced himself as Inspector Ahlqvist and started asking us about Axel. “Does he know what to do when he’s lost?”
“No,” I managed to answer in a shaky voice. “He’s not used to the forest, he doesn’t know anything.”
“He knows to hug a tree,” Anders interjected. “He knows to stay in one place and shout or bang a stick to a tree trunk.”
“He does?” I looked amazed at Anders. I didn’t know that.
Anders rolled his eyes in an attempt to make me feel better. “Yeah, he does. What do you think I teach them when we’re in woods?”
“I don’t know.”
The policeman smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure he’s fine. He hasn’t been gone that long, and we have plenty of daylight hours left to find him.”
Again my lungs refused to cooperate, and my stomach turned into knots. The thought of my son alone in the forest at night made me want to throw up. Anders heard my breath hitch, and gathered me in his arms. I hid my face in the crook of his neck, not wanting Maja to see my tears.
“Shh. He won’t be out there alone at night. I won’t let that happen. We’ll find him, and we’ll bring him home. I swear, Honey. No harm will come to him.”
I wished I could believe him—I wished he believed his own words, but I felt the trembling that betrayed his calm voice. He was trying really hard not to break down. He was the one that held it together, he always comforted me when things got hard.
“Do you have anything of his here with you?” Ahlqvist asked.
“No,” I said, wiping my cheeks. “We weren’t planning on being away from the campsite very long. We just brought some water and snacks.”
“It doesn’t matter. The dogs are trained to find people without ever having smelled—”
“I’ll run back to the campsite and fetch something,” Anders interrupted. “It won’t take long.”
Ahlqvist gave him an understanding smile and nodded, seemingly aware that Anders needed to do something rather than just sit around and wait.
Why hadn’t I thought of those GPS things that Anders had talked about? If I had, then we would have found him by now. All of this felt unreal. My son was missing. I kept expecting him to come running up the hill, or jump out from whatever hiding place he’d found, laughing at us for not finding him. But he’d been missing for an hour; no five-year-old played hide-and-seek for an hour. He was truly lost. And this past hour had been both the longest and the shortest of my life. My universe had altered, and I had no control over it. Over anything.
Get the book:
The 2nd book in today's line-up,
Eight Feet Of Magic
Blurb:
There is still magic to be found. Even in the bleakest of places.
Hank Goodenough has spent his entire life in the smoggy streets of London trying to keep his head down and not to get noticed. Not an easy feat when you’re the tallest one in the room and have a brass funnel protruding from your head. When he finds himself laid off work once again, his dad wants to drag him away on a crazy quest. Before he can figure out how to get out of it, he finds himself on a steam-driven airship in search of Odin, the old Norse God and sharing a room with Captain Elazar Steel, a man strutting around on one high-heeled boot and one peg leg.
Steel doesn’t care that the winks, smiles, and small touches he and Hank share might get them hanged once they land on the ground again. He is determined to show Hank there is magic in the world and that there is no better place to be than on his balloon ship steering towards the Arctic Circle.
Excerpt:
They hurried along the narrow alleys of London, squiggling through crevasses and small openings until they could see the River Thames. The entire time Hank tried to ignore the uneven clinking of one high-heeled boot and one wooden or maybe a metal leg. It sounded wooden but who’d have a wooden leg when they could get a rather elegant prosthesis in metal? The ones Hank had seen, admittedly there weren’t many, were beautiful. Sleek, smooth shapes and cleverly designed in copper or brass. He wasn’t much of a mechanic, but he could think of a few things he’d want to add to a copper leg.
“Ah, there she is.” Steel stopped right in front of him, and Hank was too wrapped up in his head to halt in time.
“Huh…oh, sorry.” Hank gripped Steel’s shoulders to steady him.
“Sorry, Captain.” The words were clear and yet Steel didn’t seem to notice Hank holding on to him. Demetrius, on the other hand, gave a silent wail and Hank feared he’d have to hear about it later.
“Isn’t she beautiful?”
