Review & Excerpt: Falling by J. Bennett

Title: Falling

Author: J. Bennett

Publication: January 1st 2012 

Publisher:Endeavor Writing

Source: Author

Genre: Paranormal

Audience: 18+

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Synopsis:
The intellectual challenge of college and the warm embrace of a serious boyfriend have given Maya the wings she needs to break away from her bookish and shy reserve. Her ideal life comes crashing down when she and her boyfriend are accosted by a stranger. A stranger with glowing hands.

Maya's boyfriend is killed. She is kidnapped. Changed.

A rescue comes, but not soon enough.

Maya’s senses sharpen, her body becomes strong and agile, and she develops the ability to visually see the emotions of those around her as colorful auras…beautiful auras…tempting auras.

And then there’s the song…

Now, Maya must struggle to control the murderous appetite that fuels her new abilities, accept her altered condition and learn to trust two vigilante half-brothers she never knew she had. As she joins the battle against a secret network of powerful and destructive beings that call themselves "Angels", Maya vows to find and destroy the one who changed her.
On the bright side, at least Maya's oldest half-brother has stopped trying to kill her.

My Thoughts:  Maya was just an ordinary college student going to get something to eat with her boyfriend when her life changed and her journey as a "monster" begins. Everything is new and confusing to Maya. She has always known she was adopted but she never expected to be found by her brothers and infected by her father. Maya's struggles to control her abilities, emotions, and most importantly her appetite. This is the beginning of Maya's voyage with hunger, loss, and revenge. 

I'm thrilled that I get a chance to read the entire series and can't wait to see what is in store for my in the next book. Come back next month to see what I have to say about Coping (Girl With Broken Wings #2). 

Excerpt:

Chapter 6

“Your head,” the boy with elf eyes murmurs as he puts me into a car. Then, “this is, um, awkward.” He can only get me half in. I hear his steps moving quickly around the back of the car. He opens the opposite door and pulls me the rest of the way across the back seat.

“Thank you,” I say. I want to touch the blue glow around him. This will soothe the pain inside of me. Not pain. Hunger. Great, gaping hunger. I am shivering, still sweating. The strap of my bra has fallen to my elbow.

“Do we, uh, have a blanket in the trunk or something, Tarren?”

“Get in the car.”

I hear sirens. They sound closer than they could possibly be. Just like I think I can hear the boy’s heart thudding in his chest, but that can’t be real.

“Yeah, it’s a warm night. She’ll be fine.” The door by my head closes. I flinch at the sound. After a moment it opens again.

“Seatbelt.” He leans over me, grappling with the buckle under my back. His heart is a drum.  I hear the whoosh of air in and out of his lungs. I smell him, the sweat on him, the damp of his clothes. Glowing spirals of blue cloak his body like colored steam. I must touch the color. I am moving my arm, dizzy with even this effort but desperate. He is so close. My hands grow hot. Something is happening to them. The skin of my palms is puckering, splitting open.

“There we go.” The boy is gone. The door closes. I keep reaching up hoping to catch any lingering wisps of the glow. The skin furls back over my palm, seaming itself up into a dark X across the center. The car is moving. Every breath smells like blood. I’m giggling like a maniac, but only in my head. I shove my hands under my body, because this will somehow help. I’m still burning to death, by the way.

The driver whispers to himself, “We had him. We had him.”

The one with the backwards ball cap and elf eyes says, “Look, we got her; that was the whole point.” He turns to look at the driver. “We’ll kill Grand some other time.”

The driver doesn’t say anything, but the color ratchets around him, bright along the edges. I close my eyes, but I can still feel the skin pulling away from my palms again. 

“Your eye is swelling up,” the passenger says.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Ankle. Just twisted it a little. I’ll throw some ice on it whenever. No cops behind us. We need to switch our plates when we stop. Ditch the guns too. We left shell casings. Damn shame, though.” The passenger pulls a gun from his belt, hefts it in his hand. “My guy went through a lot of trouble to get this baby. Not that you care. Anyone can get Glocks.”

“Put that away,” the driver says. “We’ll cover cleanup later.”

The passenger turns to stare at me. I watch the delicate shades of blue pulse around him.

“We should probably get her a shirt,” he says. The driver doesn’t reply, but his eyes flick up to the rearview mirror when we stop at a light.

After a while, the elf turns to the driver and asks, “Is there any way this isn’t going to totally fucking ruin her life?”

I can’t stop shivering. My body jerks, so that I fall back painfully onto the buckle. The fire is starting to separate. There’s the part ripping up my bones and evaporating my blood, but there is something entirely different lifting out of the flames. This is an exquisite hurt, all neural and twitchy. It’s hunger, but not like a hunger I’ve ever known before. This hunger is cutting me wide open with a song, carving out its own channels in my brain and snuffing out the human parts of me.

I think that I am going to die, and I don’t want to, except that I do, because Ryan is dead, at least I think he is, but maybe he isn’t, because he can’t be. He can’t be.

The hum of the car seems so loud, and the passing street lamps blaze like sudden flares in the night.  We leave behind the highway and then the street lamps and then the other cars. I cry, but these are silent tears, hot by the time they tip over my chin. We sail through the night for a long while, and the tears eventually dwindle. All that is left is the hunger growing louder and louder in my bones.

Eventually, the car stops. The driver gets out. The door by my head is wrenched open. He grabs my shoulders and pulls. The seatbelt digs into my hips, and I cry out.

“Damn,” he mutters. He grabs my wrists in one hand and pins them against the back of the seat while he leans over and undoes my buckle. The passenger side door opens.

“Jesus, where are we? You gotta piss?”

The driver pulls me roughly out of the car. I hit the ground and curl my legs into my chest. There is only the hunger and the pain and the shadow of Ryan lingering behind the trees that edge each side of the road.

The driver pulls a gun from his waistband, and I am not afraid. The amber glow is so bright around him that it looks like some sort of unnatural fire. Everything is fire. I stare at the scar running along his jaw and recognize him. The enforcer of Avalon levels his gun at me. The blood stains across his shirt and jeans are already turning dark. In his eyes I see a cold that I would never be cliché enough to call arctic except that I can’t think of anything else. There’s a lot of blood on him.

“Tarren, no!”

Pant legs intrude into my visual field.

“She’s infected. We have to do it now while she’s weak.”

“One shot Tarren. She only got one shot. She’s like…a hybrid or something.”

“We can’t take the chance.”

“Yes we can, because, uh, because you could use her in your research. She could be, like, the key. The hybrids are always the key in, you know, stuff.”

“We’ll take the body back to Lo’s lab.”

“Cold hearted bastard! She’s blood.”

“His blood.”

“Our blood. She’s our blood Tarren.” The elf boy’s voice has gone harsh. “She’s our family, and you can pretend that you don’t care about anything anymore, that you’re suffering the weight of the entire world on your shoulders, but you’re just afraid. Fuck you. I’m not moving.”

“You done?” The gun doesn’t move.

“Yeah.” The elf takes a shaky breath. “I mean no! She could help us. Think about it.  She’ll get strong. She’ll get fast. She can fight with us. We can…”

“And the hunger?”

My protector turns and looks at me. I can hear how fast his heart is beating, the faint rush of blood as he clenches his fists. The light around him swells. So blue with sudden streaks of lavender lashing across. The song. They act as if they can’t hear the music flowing in hot torrents all around us.

“We’ll buy her rabbits,” he says finally.

“She’ll lapse and feed on humans.”

“No, she…”

“THEY ALWAYS FEED ON HUMANS.”  The enforcer’s voice echoes into the trees. He pulls in a deep breath. “You know that. She is Grand’s daughter. He’ll come after her again and by then she’ll be strong. I’ll take care of it. Just get out of my way.”

“I’m on fire,” I say for no reason. I lift myself up to my elbows with difficulty. I don’t know which one I want to prevail. A bullet would be quicker than this slow burn.

“No.” The legs in front of me step a little wider. “No,” the elf says again. “We’ve crossed a lot of lines, but I’m not going to let you cross this one. She may feed on humans one day, maybe not. Until she does, she’s an innocent, and we don’t kill innocent people. Not today. Not ever. She deserves a chance; I don’t care who the fuck her parents are. If she crosses over, I’ll kill her myself, but not today.”

The enforcer keeps his gun steady.  “Gabe,” he says.

“I’m not moving.” Gabe spreads his arms. “If you’ve got to kill her, then do it, but I’m sick of this shit. You kill me first, ‘cause killing innocent people is what bad guys do. I’m not a bad guy, and I’d rather be dead then see you turn into one.”

I hold my hands out in front of me and stare at the new dark slits running through my palms.

“Am I a monster?” I whisper. “Is that what this is?”

“No,” Gabe looks at me over his shoulder. “Well, kinda, but we’re going to help you. We’re family.”

Tarren lowers his gun. A slow descent. 

Author Bio:

J Bennett is a professional copywriter, as well as a novelist. She lives and writes in Southern California.

She also writes the blog www.ShyWriter.com

Find J Bennett online at www.jbennettwrites.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jbennettwrites. 

Works by J Bennett

Girl With Broken Wings
Falling (Book One)
Coping (Novella, 1.5)
Landing (Book Two), To Be Released Jan 2013

The Vampire’s Housekeeper Chronicles
#1 Employment Interview With A Vampire (Short Story)
#2 The Vampire Hunter Comes to Call (Short Story)
#3 Duel With The Werefrog (Short Story)