I am thrilled to be hosting a spot
on the MYRACLES IN THE VOID by Wes Dyson Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out
my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Wes Dyson
Pub. Date: April 22, 2022
Publisher: WONDERLOVE
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 334
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org
"He used to say, 'a broken heart breaks all around it. Heal you, heal the world.'"
There once were two children,
a girl and a boy.
One could create,
the other, destroy.
Within every heart lies the power to bond or break.
On an isolated port of floating garbage called Hop, Gaiel Izz and his sister,
Lynd, never imagined they’d be able to change anything…
Not their nasty neighbors, not their hungry bellies, and especially not their
missing father.
That will change when they discover the power of myracles —
magic that either creates or destroys.
As the brother and sister set across Esa to bring their family back together,
this power will either unite them or shatter their entire world to pieces.
It will all come down to what truly lies within their hearts…
Create or destroy?
Explore the Myraverse and meet the
characters here!
Book Trailer:
Excerpt:
Chapter
One - Unforgiving Hop
THE RED TIDE is
COMING!
Water
Level Low.
SPRYT
Sightings Highly Expected.
Un-luck +
Disaster To All Who Encounter.
BLOCK
EVERYOPENING.
— Mayor
Tanning
What a
delightful sign to have hanging in front of one’s home — a mix of “watch out”
with “you’re on your own.” But that’s living in Hop for ya, a’kay?
As a floating
port in the middle of the sea, there weren’t any roads to or from Hop. On their
own, indeed. But it wasn’t always so lonely. Fifty years ago, Hop was a
bustling pitstop for the hundreds of trade ships sailing across the Domus Gulf
every year. A place to “hop” from one side of the gulf to the other. Being a
travel hub made it bursting with exotic goods and fresh ideas. But the wild
waters of the gulf were hard to predict, and they only seemed to grow more
dangerous over time. One shipwreck was enough to send thoughts and prayers, but
after ten and twenty ships washed back blown to bits, it started to nip at the
profits. Soon traders found alternate land routes that may have taken longer,
but at least weren’t so death-y.
Practically
overnight, Hop and its people were forgotten like a used hanky in a puddle.
Trapped on a floating port amid the unforgiving sea, a stagnant idea stuck to
them — anything made would just be unmade. What was to stop
anything they worked hard to build from falling to pieces like Hop did? Nothin’ lasts but salt in yer ass became
the most graffitied words on the splintering streets, a series of long planks
called “Boards.” Was there any point in shining your shoes, doing your hair,
brushing your teeth? They would all end up dirty, tasseled, and yellow. Undone,
eventually. Was there any point in building relationships, then? Nothing lasts
but the salt in their asses, indeed.
Just behind
that friendly “red tide” warning sign on Boulie Board, a skinny wreck of a home
rose from the battered planks. Its number, 76, was drawn large and wide on the
front and side in “Hopper White,” a local specialty paint whose main ingredient
was seagull poop. Nothing could be wasted in Hop, not even waste. The pieces
that made up the home had a kind of widely used look about
them, like maybe that wall had once been the barnacled belly of a rowboat, and
before that, it was a sign that said HOP: POPULATION 600. Its door was a full
fourteen shades of a should-I-touch-that sort of green and was cracked at the
bottom up to the knob. Its two sea-weathered windows were small and narrow like
suspicious eyes squinting at the neighbors. By Hopper standards, the Izz family
actually had quite a fine little nest.
The only
reason the Izz house somewhat outshined its raggedy neighbors was because of
the family’s firstborn, Gaiel Izz. Gai liked to fix things when they broke.
Something about broken objects made him queasy, compulsive even; a roar in the
belly yapping at him to make it better. As for the things he couldn’t fix, he’d
at least insist on putting a sheet of soggy newspaper over it or something. In
fact, he patched so many holes in his clothes with newspaper that it became the
dominant fabric. It crinkled as he walked.
One special
night, this industrious fifteen-year-old was lying motionless on the floor in one
of the home’s damp upstairs bedrooms. His right ear was practically suctioned
to the floorboards as he listened carefully for any signs of movement
downstairs. He’d been listening so long his ear had become a bright, throbbing
mushroom. This night, he’d embark on his most ambitious fixing project yet — his
twelve-year-old sister, Lynd.
While Gai
may have been on the floor, he wasn’t out of bed. The floor
was both of the Izz children’s bed. Many, many things floated by Hop in the
strong currents, like sunken ship junk or garbage from far off Electri City on
the mainland. But few were “cozy” materials for them to scoop out and use to
make bedding. Since nothing came in or out of Hop, if a Hopper wanted something
new, they’d best grab a scoop and pray to Zeea that whatever they needed
happened to be floating by that day. Gai once scooped an armful of braided
anchor rope and wove it into a nice blanket. He looked over at Lynd sleeping on
it, snoring like a ship headed out to sea
— Twaahhh! Peaceful
as she seemed, her little hands kept pulling at the fraying edges of the rope-blanket,
almost like tearing it apart soothed her as a babe suckling their thumb would.
She was definitely not a fixer like her brother. Truly, she was quite the
opposite.
Gai hadn’t
heard a peep or a creak downstairs for quite some time and began to imagine
their mother, Mape, had fallen asleep in her favorite rocking chair again. He
then carefully studied his sister’s breathing. Slow and steady. Lynd’s asleep, too,
he thought. It’s now or never.
The boy
crept over to their narrow window. As usual, Mamma Mape heeded the mayor’s
spryt warning outside and boarded up their windows nice and twice, like a good
Hopper. He dared not risk yanking them open and letting the briny night mist
blow in and wake up his sister. All he wanted near the window was a single piece
of wood he’d hid above the pane — a reach too high for either Ma or Lynd to
find. Pulling it down, he remarked just how new this forearm-
sized chuck of wood was. It didn’t have nail wounds from its time as a post or
curly grooves where worms had eaten it. It didn’t smell like rot. It was the
least Hop-like piece of wood he’d ever seen. It was even delicately curved —
perfect for his plan to fix Lynd. But it was only part of his plan.
Gai stuck
the wood into the waist of his pants and quietly scurried to the only other
opening in the Izz household — the toilet. Or, in Hopper terms, the “dumper.”
The floorboards creaked as he entered the small room with a generous hole cut in
the floor for elimination of all kinds. Gai could hear the whooshing water directly
beneath. Sometimes it splashed up at him if the chop was particularly rough. He
peered down into the wet darkness, and his stomach churned like the sea. Did he
absolutely have to fix Lynd tonight? After all, he could easily just curl back
onto his floor-bed and no one would know a thing. Should he use the bathroom
first? His sister snored so loudly and abruptly in the next room — Twahh-twahhh! —
that he nearly wet himself right there out of fear. He exhaled, hoping his
fears would sort of just blow out of him. “I have to. For Lynd.”
Getting
through the dumper hole was the easy part. Finding his footing in the nasty,
molding jungle of posts that held up Hop below was indeed a trick. It was
sticky and slippery in all the wrong places. This area was called the “Under
Board,” and it was nowhere anyone ought to be. It was closer to the dangerous
water, smelly as a dead cod, and who knows who could be sneaking around in the
dark with him? And let’s not even mention the chances of getting a splinter.
But Gai believed his plan was worth the risks. His sister needed help. He went
carefully and only breathed in with quick mouth-gulps. In about twenty gulps,
he found his way under the house and back up onto Boulie Board proper, gasping
for what counted as fresh air in Hop.
He’d made it
out of the house. He’d actually done it. He was outside in the middle of the
Hop night for the first time ever. And he was alone. It was time to find
the ingredients he needed for his plan to work. Leaning near
the front door of 76 were two long nets — scoops, as they were cleverly called
— about three times his height. He snatched one and tippy-toed to the Board
edge, listening for anything that wasn’t the sound of rushing water. There were
plenty of characters to encounter in Hop’s darker hours — nosey neighbors,
thieves, rival scooper gangs, spryts even. Anything was
possible. “Definitely should’ve used the bathroom first.”
Gai lowered
his scoop into the strong currents below. “A’way, Zeea. Gimme some luck.” His
handle bent three times with fresh catches before he pulled it out. “Balls at
ya,” he huffed, pawing through the dripping net. “All watermoss.” The boy
plucked out a small crab from the tangled watermoss. “Well, there’s a nice
crabby for Emilie in here, at least. More than we scooped earlier—”
“Ya snuck
out to get pet food?” someone spoke behind him.
Ahh! Gai dropped everything but the crab
and spun around with it in his hand like its tiny claws were a weapon. Pinch, pinch. In
the dim light, his not-at-all-sleeping, absolutely-faking-it sister stood
chest-high to him. Her wavy hair was dark as the night around her, so she was
all cheeks and eye-whites. “Lynd.” His shoulders relaxed. “I thought ya were
asleep? Get back inside.”
“I know.”
She sighed. “Finally had to fake snore to get ya to leave . . . Did ya
just wee yer pants?” “No! What? Never! What?”
“But durin’
that thunderstorm—”
“I told ya
that was the rain leakin’ through the roof !” He came close to
whisper. “How’d ya even know I was gonna sneak out?”
“I didn’t.”
Lynd reached for his newspaper-patched shirt and crinkled it. “But ya sound
like a rat chewin’ on garbage when ya move.”
“Ya think
yer so smart,” he huffed.
Gai then
noticed a thin sliver of wood gripped tightly in his sister’s hand. It was
about the length of her foot and as thick as a finger. She was mindlessly
playing with the splintering edge the same way she did with her blanket.
“At least ya
listened to Ma,” he said. “Always bring somethin’ to snap when ya leave the
house. Just in case.”
She ignored
him and looked at the crab, “Gaiel Izz, the good boy, snuck out for the first
time. To get Em pet food?”
“Yeah,” he
lied, stone-faced.
Lynd bent
the tip of that piece of wood in her hand off with her bare thumb. Snap!
The boy
flinched, “A’kay. A’kay. Don’t get mad. Please at ya.”
“Waitin’,” she sung, rocking on her heels.
“Keep yer
voice down,” he whispered. “I’m just lookin’ for some‐ thin’, a’kay?”
“I knew it,”
she said, pointing to Mayor Tanning’s red tide warning sign. “Ma said the
sign’s about spryts comin’. Yer out to find one without me, ain’t ya?”
“Spryts?” he
scoffed. “No. I’d like to live.” “What’s so important, then?” Lynd
whined.
“Get. Back.
In. Side,” he said with all the older-brother-authority he could fake. “Wait,
how did ya get out?”
“All I had
to do was break those boards over the window,” she said proudly. “I pulled
apart that rope blanket ya made me and climbed down.”
“Ya don’t
say.” Gai wiped off a layer of Under-Board muck from his arm. “Anyway, get back
in. I won’t tell ya again.”
Snap! She broke off another piece of the
wood in her hand. “Fine.” Gai tossed the crab back into the water. “I’m not out
here for food. I’m not out here for spryts. What’s tomorrow?” Lynd smiled
wide. “My birthday . . .”
“A big one.”
He fanned out both his hands. “Yer gonna be thirteen fingers old.”
She grabbed
one of his hands and closed it. “Ya still talk to me like I’m only five fingers.”
“Still got
the claws out?” He turned his back to her and sat down, dangling his feet over
the edge of the Board. “All’s a’kay. I didn’t scoop what I need to make yer
present anyway.”
“Ya risked
sneakin’ out . . . to make me a present?” Lynd sat next to him and
wrapped her arm all the way around to his other shoulder. “Thanks at ya! I love
it — will love it. Whatever it is. What is it?”
“Will ya
keep yer voice down? I don’t wanna think what’ll happen if someone finds us out
here.” He pointed down, “Someone could crawl right up from the Under Board and
grab us.”
“A’kay. . .”
“And yer
stabbin’ me with yer broken wood.”
“Oh, sorry
at ya.” Lynd shriveled a bit in embarrassment.
He sighed.
“No, lucky ya brought that thing. Or Boulie could’ve gotten a new crack in it
instead. Or I could’ve.”
“I-I don’t—”
“I know ya
don’t mean to break things,” Gai interrupted, peering down Boulie Board to the
center of Hop.
All the
Boards started in a central point and radiated out like spokes on a wheel. At
night, the center glowed faintly yellow with a few bright electri lamps. Most
Hoppers could never afford fancy Electrian toys like flameless lamps, so having
one was sort of a status beacon. Note, having high status in Hop still meant
one’s toilet was a hole in the floor.
He
whispered, “Remember the time we scooped a lamp?” “Mhm. Was the happiest I saw
Ma since Pa left,” Lynd said. “We should’ve kept it.”
“She was
right to sell.” Gai pointed to each yellow light. “Light makes ya easy to spot.
I’d rather not have any extra targets on our back.”
“Ya think Pa
could be back for my birthday, Gai?”
The boy
turned away. “I thought ya got tired of askin’ me that?” Lynd stood up.
“A’way.”
“Finally,”
he yawned. “I’m ready for bed.”
“Bed?
There’s no bed when ya got a present to make.” She offered her hand. “Let’s
head to the center. Everything that floats by collects there, so maybe we’ll
scoop what ya need?”
Gai shot to
his feet. “Have ya lost yer brains? Every spot down there is claimed by one
scooper gang or another. Ever heard of the Wicked Wikets? They’ll net us up
like clams!”
Lynd had
already started walking down Boulie while he was babbling. When he finally
finished, she whispered, “I wish ya weren’t such a sogg sometimes.”
“What’d ya
call me?” The word struck Gai right in the beating heart. Sogg. Bump. Bump.
Was that what he was? Bump. Bump. Sogg was Hopper slang
for a useless person, like when someone would scoop something they thought was
nice at first, but turned out to be all soggy and unusable. What an unforgiving
term. How could he fix being a sogg? The boy picked up his scoop and banged it
like a gavel. “Back home, now!”
Lynd
stopped. But she wouldn’t turn around. Her little shoulders rose and fell with
a sigh. “We only go outside to work.” She began sniffling. “Everything’s too
dangerous. Can’t even remember the last time Ma stepped out onto the Boards. We
can’t make any friends because—” Snap! She broke the wood in
her fist again. Snap! Then another piece. Snap!
“All’s
a’kay,” Gai said softly, gesturing with his palms open like Lynd was a wild,
bucking horse. Breaking things was some kind of release for her. When she got
upset, she had to break something. If she didn’t break
something with her hands, then something would just break around her —
hands-free. It was frightening to the boy and terrifying to their mother, who
tried her very best to ignore it. That nice crack in their front door was
Lynd’s doing, as were four more just like it inside the Izz home.
Boulie
Board’s planks began to rumble under their feet as if the waves were pounding
the Under Board. The posts rattled. Gai’s cheeks rippled. But the boy knew this
was no seaquake. It was Lynd’s bizarre destructive power boiling up to the
surface again. The boy hobbled to his sister, softly singing a song their Pa
used to play, “We’ve been here before . . .”
Lynd’s fist
loosened.
“With yer
hand in mine,” he continued.
The planks
eased their quaking. Lynd’s shoulders settled down away from her jaw.
Gai sang,
“In my heart, there’s a window. And it sees through time . . .”
Lynd turned
to him and smiled as if nothing super crazy just happened.
“See,” said
Gai. “All’s a—”
Waaahhhhhhhh! A loud horn blared from a few houses
down, followed by heavy, clanking footsteps coming at them fast. Gai took
Lynd’s free hand and led her to the edge of the Board, where they both climbed
down to hide in the Under Board.
The noisy
boots banged right above them, pounding back and forth like they were searching
around. Then, sniffing them out like a dog, they stepped right to the edge from
where the Izz kids had just climbed down. Gai and Lynd huddled tightly just
beneath and held their breath. They dared not make a sound. Finally, after a
few long beats, the boots clanked back to where they came. The boy and girl
exhaled together with relief.
“Mrs.
Shakk,” Gai said. “Our favorite neighbor.”
“Why does
she have to use that yellin’ horn?” Lynd plugged her ears. “Makes my head wanna
explode.”
“Satisfied?”
Gai waved her to the edge. “Let’s get home quick before someone else comes. Or
you get upset—ugh—before someone else comes.”
Lynd stayed
leaning in the crux of two beams.
“A’way,
Lynd. Ya gotta admit this is way more excitement than anyone promised ya when
ya went to bed.”
She grasped
the wood tightly in her hand. But did not break it this time. “A’kay.”
“Wow.” Gai
gently put his hand on her shoulder. “Pa’s old fiddle song really calms ya up,
yeah?”
Lynd only
offered a tiny smirk.
As the boy
began his climb back up to the Boulie, two more stomping feet rushed toward
them again. Who knew the Boards were so busy at night? Gai ducked back under
and waited for whomever it was to pass.
Clink. The person dropped something just as
they were walking above Gai and Lynd. “This rotten old sachet,” a woman said,
picking it back up. “Everythin’ else in this world’s got a hole in it, ‘course
this does too, she says.” The woman then walked down toward the center of Hop,
muttering, “Zeea, I pray this is worth it.”
“Gai,” Lynd
whimpered. “That was Ma!”
“What?” He
tried to peak through the spaces between Boulie’s planks. “What did she mean
‘worth it’? What’s she doin’?”
“She never goes
out!” Lynd smacked his shoulder. “We have to follow her!”
“No, Lynd.
We’re goin’ home.”
She scoffed
and paused, glaring at him. “Yer such a sogg. What if
somethin’ happens to her?”
Bump. Bump. The sogg remark. That made two times.
A fist-sized lump formed in his throat. Where did she get an idea like that? Bump.
Bump. He looked at the wood still clutched in his sister’s hand. All
that destruction nonsense started the night Pa left. Was that why he was a
sogg? Because he couldn’t fix her? He was trying. He did his best to fix
everything that broke in the house due to her strange power. He was even
sneaking out to make the perfect present, one that actually might calm Lynd
when she needed it. Maybe then the destruction would stop. He could patch up a
few cracks, but what else was he supposed to do to fix Lynd? Bump. Bump. Put
a piece of news‐ paper over her?
Lynd turned
and said, “What if somethin’ happens to her like P—”
“Stop!” Gai
accidentally shouted. He went to cover his mouth but then puffed out his chest
instead. “Ya won’t keep up with Ma, jumpin’ on the dinky ones.” He leaped from
beam to beam as a monkey moves through tree limbs.
She giggled.
“Lead the way, wetleg.”
About Wes Dyson:
Wes Dyson is
a creative marketer and dog-daddy of four Pomskies living in Western MA. He
loves classical music and earthy, grass-tasting tea.
Website | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub
Giveaway Details:
1 winner
will win a $25 Amazon Gift Card, International.
3 winners will receive an eBook of MYRACLES IN THE VOID, International.
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
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7/1/2022 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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7/2/2022 |
IG Spotlight |
Week Two:
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7/3/2022 |
IG & TikTok Spotlight |
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7/4/2022 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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7/5/2022 |
IG Spotlight |
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7/6/2022 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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7/7/2022 |
Excerpt |
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7/8/2022 |
Excerpt |
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7/9/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Three:
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7/10/2022 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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7/11/2022 |
Excerpt |
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7/12/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/13/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/14/2022 |
IG Review |
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7/15/2022 |
Review |
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7/16/2022 |
IG Post |
Week Four:
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7/17/2022 |
Review |
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7/18/2022 |
IG Spotlight |
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7/19/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/20/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/21/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/22/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/23/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Five:
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7/24/2022 |
TikTok Review/IG Post |
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7/25/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/26/2022 |
IG Review |
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7/27/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/28/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/29/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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7/30/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Six:
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7/31/2022 |
Review |
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