Forget
Me Not
Shadowflesh
Series, Book
2
Shawn
Martin
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Publisher: Vinspire
Publishing
Date of Publication: March 31, 2014
ISBN: 0989063232
ASIN: B00IKZTVUC
Number of pages: 308
Word Count: 73,500
Cover Artist: Elaina Lee
Book Description:
Fortune has smiled on seventeen
year old Aileen McCormick ever since Addison came back into her life, giving
her the love she has so desperately longed for.
That is, until a mysterious man slithers across her path and slips a
spellbinding cameo around her neck. The
cameo holds more than just the image of an enchantress who hungers for
souls. It possesses a curse that
strangles away every memory Aileen has of Addison.
Addison, a three hundred year old
fugitive from the netherworld, recognizes the wretched woman inside the cameo
and the curse she has cast on his unsuspecting love. The enchanted cameo has but one purpose: to torment Aileen with hints of love she can
no longer recall.
Aileen cannot escape the deadly
cameo. She runs for her life with the
curse only a breath away. If she truly
wants her memory back, the enchantress is all too willing to restore it. It will cost her, though. Cost her everything.
Excerpt:
Chapter
1
I couldn’t remember
the last time I had been afraid of the dark.
It seemed like a lifetime ago, when shadows and demons consumed me at
night, when the end of the world was but a breath away. That was all before I met Addison .
From the very
moment I literally fell into his arms, I had fallen hopelessly in love with
him. Hopelessly, carelessly, eternally
in love with him. And he loved me back.
Addison Wake had
become my entire life, my reason for living.
I breathed in his love and exhaled his name. My heart beat a passionate rhythm to which
only he marched. He danced into my
dreams, stealing me away into the stars at the witching hour. Since he had come back to me we had been
inseparable.
The last amber
leaves of autumn waved goodbye to the worst and best year of my life. The year I lost my home, my friends,
everything I thought I needed to live.
The year I discovered a grandmother I hardly knew. The year I found new friends. The year I fell in love.
The calendar
gloated that Christmas was less than a month away, but who cared? I looked forward to the first day of
winter. Or rather the longest night of
the year. Ever since finding out Santa
was just a figment of my parents’ imagination, I didn’t have much use for the
yuletide. But I had always loved that
long and wonderful night. Addison had already set a date for that night, promising
to take me to an air show in the day and onto the rooftop at night to teach me
the constellations.
It was kind of
embarrassing, but I had never really learned the stars. Sure, I could spot the Big Dipper and hardly
ever mistook the moon for a comet. But
that was the extent of my celestial knowledge.
Most of my time had been spent looking down rather than up, and I
regretted that. Just one more regret in
the long list I had been working on in my seventeen years. But all that was changing, and Addison was helping me one regret at a time.
To say I
appreciated everything he had done for me would be an understatement. He taught me how to drive a stick. He trusted me with his deepest, darkest
secrets. He saved my life. He fell in love with me, maybe even more than
I had fallen in love with him. If that
was possible.
Mere words could do
no justice for how I felt about Addison . But that didn’t stop me from trying to tell
him, or show him. I poured my heart out
into haiku almost daily. I swirled his
initials into the thighs of my worn jeans in three colors of permanent
ink. I learned to say “I love you” in
twenty-one languages.
My most recent
declaration of love cost me an entire paycheck.
I purchased a star. Not the Hollywood kind starlets walked across in stilettos. An actual star, in outer space, where no man
has boldly gone before.
Bonnie Fay and
Nicola had completely different reactions when I confessed what I had
done. Bonnie Fay wrinkled her nose and
squinted at me, forcing the kind of smile that told me I was lame. “Sounds kinda hokey,” she had said in her
southern drawl. “Sugar, if you’re gonna
tease him with something he can’t have, don’t let it be a star.”
Nicola, the polar
opposite to everything calm and conforming, had a completely different
reaction. She ached a sigh, crossed her
hands over her heart, and fell backwards onto my bed. “That is just so…” She took a breath and clicked the heals of
her combat boots. I prayed she’d say
something other than “hokey.” “So…
romantic.” Then she wiped away a hint of
her sentimentality before it had the chance to smear her dark eye make-up. She had spent too long applying deadly Goth
to have it ruined by a girly tear.
Yes, I bought my
boyfriend a star. It was a little star –
I didn’t make that much money – cleverly hidden in the Scorpius
constellation. The website informed me
the little speck could be seen near the horizon using a telescope the size of a
small skyscraper. But the heavenly body,
now and forever known as “Addison Wake,” was indeed there. It was my gift to him, a little piece of
eternity that would smile down upon us every night until the stars all went
out.
Okay, it was a
little hokey.
But what could I
have given to Addison Wake? He wasn’t
exactly like the other boys at Redcliff High.
To be perfectly clear, he was nothing at all like anyone on this mortal
world. Addison
was a phantom, a fugitive from the netherworld, casually walking among the
living as shadowflesh. He willed his
dark, mysterious ether into the tall, lean embodiment of perfection. An immortal soul, yet vulnerable shadowflesh.
And no, I didn’t
need my head examined… or maybe I did.
To show my love for
Addison , I had to think of something as
unique, something as ageless as he.
Haiku hadn’t cut it. And it
wasn’t like I could burn him a CD of my favorite music and expect it to mean
anything in a year, or a decade, or a century.
But a star, it would be forever.
And when that long
and wonderful night finally came and Addison
showed me the constellations, I would surprise him with his star, pointing to
the part of the sky where the tiny speck was supposed to be.
I had no idea how he
would react. Maybe he’d shrug or look at
me as if I had lost my mind. Or maybe
he’d arch one eyebrow higher than the other over his smoky blue eyes and kiss
me. It would be cold, December nights
get that way, so he would undoubtedly drape his leather flight jacket over my
shoulders and wrap me in his strong arms, and I would kiss him back like I had
never kissed him before, like I would never kiss him again. And perhaps that would be the night. The night.
I no longer feared
the darkness. As a matter of fact, I
looked forward it. The longest, darkest
night of the year waited for me, and that should have been my happily ever
after. But fate can be a funny, cruel
thing.
About the Author:
His day (and night) job is being a firefighter. Aside from rescuing cats in trees and removing burnt pot roasts from ovens, he spends his time finding the hardest way to do the simplest of things. The rest of his time is spent weaving words into another installment in the Shadowflesh Series. Visit www.shadowflesh.com for a look into the author and his work.
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Interview:
Please welcome Forget Me Not author Shawn Martin to Diane's Book Blog.
What is your favorite part of the story, Forget Me Not?
In Forget Me Not, the second book in the Shadowflesh series, I really took great
pleasure in the scene where Addison and Aileen are alone on an island under the
stars. Addison feels as if Aileen has
betrayed him, and Aileen still can't exactly remember who Addison is. He points to a constellation and tells her
it's Corvus, the raven who told Apollo of his lover's betrayal.
The scene came to me
serendipitously. I wanted to more than
tie the story together; I wanted to weave it together. You'll read in Forget Me Not that there are several references to the darkest,
most mystical bird of them all—ravens.
And all those references seemed to come together in that one scene. Ahhh!
How long did it take
you to write (name of book)?
If you were stranded
on a desert island which of your characters do you want by your side?
If you could be best friends with one of your
characters, who would it be?
Nicola. She's a girl who doesn't conform to society
because, quite frankly, she and society aren't really on speaking terms. Nicola is tough, covering herself in black,
and refuses to let anyone see her vulnerable side with the exception of her
closest friends. Nicola listens to the
sad sounds of coffee house rock and reads Jack Kerouac, trying to find the
workings of the universe in both. She
and I have a lot in common.
What inspired you to write your first book?
My first book, Shadowflesh, kind of fell out the
darkness and into my lap. It originated
from a made-up ghost story that really didn't have much of a beginning or much
of an end. Just a middle. Following an injury where I was laid up in
bed for a while, I decided to commit the story to paper. In no time, I pulled the beginning and the
end from the depths of my imagination, and I even added healthy dose of
vitality to the middle. In a matter of
months, I had completed my first novel, inspired by the solitude of an injury.
What is your favorite
book that you wrote?
Who or what inspired
you to be a writer?
What books have most
influenced your life?
Who is your favorite
author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
What is your typical day
like?
Few of my days are
ever what I'd call typical. But for me,
I suppose diversity is par for the course.
Let me pick a day—or rather two days—at random to tell you about. After jumping out of bed, I put in a light
jog, eat a lighter breakfast, and jump into the shower. It's time for work. In addition to being a writer, I am also a
firefighter. It keeps things
interesting. When I report to my fire
station, I spend the next twenty-four hours training, responding to
emergencies, or simply standing by for that big fire to come roaring in. At the end of my shift, I suck down a pot of
coffee, get in a quick workout, and find my way to the keyboard to add a few
pages to the next installment in the Shadowflesh
series. This is actually something new,
writing during daylight hours. So far,
so good. As afternoon hits, I usually
don't find things to do; I let them find me, whether it's friends or
activities. Then night comes, and I find
my way back to the story at hand. My
mind is free during those hours, free to wander in my story's world.
Do you have anything specific that you want to
say to your readers?
Your imagination is
something that science can neither measure nor see. It's a mystery, really. It dwells within your mind, but often takes
that spiral staircase down to your heart.
Your imagination is alive, and in order to thrive (like most living
things) needs to be fed and see the light of day and allowed to roam free. Never let your imagination starve or wither,
and the best way to do that is by picking up a book and consuming every word.
A big thanks to Diane's
Book Blog. It's been a lot of fun, and I
look forward to reading some of your reviews of Forget Me Not.
Giveaway:
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