Title: Metallic Red
Author: Jennifer Ann Shore
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Vampire Suspense
Book Blurb:
Mina Byron wants to be just like every other high school senior, but as one of the only half-human, half-vampires in existence, she’s far from normal.
After having the first eighteen years of her life dictated by whatever is best for the vampires around her, she wants to embrace her humanity.
When her uncle, the vampire King of Appalachia, agrees to send her to a private high school and integrate into the culture of the living and breathing, it’s not without sacrifice on her part. As she attempts to find herself, love, and friendship in the human world, she has to reconcile the future he has planned for her in the vampire one.
Excerpt:
If I were fully human, my negotiation skills would make me something of a legend, like a diplomat bargaining for the release of POWs, a lawyer campaigning for prison reform, or a drug kingpin working a global supply chain. Instead, I used my talent — honed after reading, watching, listening, and researching anything that could help my case — to go to high school.
From everything I understood about humans, most eighteen-year-olds would be celebrating the freedom earned with age and experience, not campaigning to follow a bell schedule and do homework, but I missed out on those things and so many others.
I didn’t have friends, just associates of my family and the businesses who weren’t interested in what I watched online or read about in a fiction book. Rather than running around at recess or playing in the mud, I spent most of my childhood sitting silently in meetings or studying on my own.
I had no curfew, no inside jokes, no real meaningful life and experience to speak on, and I craved it, just like I craved blood.
For months, I wore my parents down. At first, I merely posed the idea, and then I talked in hypotheticals. After that, I started leaving school brochures around the house.
My mother tended to indulge my questions and curiosity about being human, and I expected her to take my side or at least to understand why I wanted to explore the human side of myself. I’d spent the past eighteen years being surrounded by vampires or no one at all.
When it came down to it, though, she stayed silent beside my father, who saw no benefit and made it clear. Each time I asked, I tugged at the invisible thread of his patience, attempting to unravel a reaction into something I could leverage, but he remained stoic. Typical vampire.
“My answer will not change, no matter how often you attempt to do so,” he said darkly against the natural light of our kitchen.
Once again, I rehashed my argument, all the details of the preparation and benefits of my integration with humans, while he poured blood from a bag into my favorite mug.
“And when is the last time we had any information on or allies with the local young, human population in our area?” I added, digging for anything that might sway the decision in my favor.
He slid the nearly full cup across the counter into my open palm. “Why would I need a teenage ally?”
“Because in some cases, teenagers have the power to sway adults,” I said, taking a sip to hide my smirk.
I thought it entertaining, but I appeared to be the only one.
“Your self-interest reveals your naïveté, Mina,” my father said evenly. “Do you understand what kind of risk you’d put us in each and every single day? You’ve done your research and have an argument, I’ll admit that, but it’s rife with your own selfishness. You do not have the level of discipline required to endure it.”
“To endure what?” I asked, staring him down across the kitchen counter.
“Humans.”
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Why is your featured book a must-read?
Metallic Red is a fresh take on the vampire genre. Mina is a half-human, half-vampire who wants to lean into her human side after being raised by vampires. It’s a story of self-discovery that includes romance and a bit of blood.
Giveaway –
Enter to win an e-book bundle of all 23 books featured in the Young Adult Bookish Event:
Open Internationally.
Runs September 7 – 11, 2020.
Winner will be drawn on September 18, 2020.
Author Biography
Jennifer Ann Shore is a writer and an Amazon bestselling author based in Seattle, Washington.
She has written multiple fiction novels, including "New Wave," a young adult dystopian, and "The Extended Summer of Anna and Jeremy," a young adult romance.
In her decade of working in journalism, marketing, and book publishing, she has won numerous awards for her work, from companies such as Hearst and SIIA.
Be sure to visit her website (https://www.jenniferannshore.com) and follow her on Twitter (@JenniferAShore), Instagram (@shorely), or your preferred social media channel to stay in touch.
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