The Non Reluctant Reader YA Paranormal Spooktacular Day Eight:

Hey guys, welcome to the eight day of The Non Reluctant Reader YA Paranormal Spooktacular! I'm pleased to welcome Kathleen Peacock, author of Hemlock. First Lisa will guest post, then there will be a giveaway! So read on and prepared to be scared! And make sure when tweeting about it you use the hashtag #NRRYASpooktacular! See the schedule of the entire event and all the authors featured HERE.

Mackenzie and Amy were best friends. Until Amy was brutally murdered.
Since then, Mac's life has been turned upside down. She is being haunted by Amy in her dreams, and an extremist group called the Trackers has come to Mac's hometown of Hemlock to hunt down Amy's killer:
A white werewolf.
Lupine syndrome--also known as the werewolf virus--is on the rise across the country. Many of the infected try to hide their symptoms, but bloodlust is not easy to control.
Wanting desperately to put an end to her nightmares, Mac decides to investigate Amy's murder herself. She discovers secrets lurking in the shadows of Hemlock, secrets about Amy's boyfriend, Jason, her good pal Kyle, and especially her late best friend. Mac is thrown into a maelstrom of violence and betrayal that puts her life at risk.
Kathleen Peacock's thrilling novel is the first in the Hemlock trilogy, a spellbinding urban fantasy series filled with provocative questions about prejudice, trust, lies, and love.

Graveyard Girl

Flash Back

“Don’t you think that’s a little… morbid?” My mother stands in the middle of my first apartment and stares at the huge black and white photo hanging above the sofa.

As far as tombstones go, it’s massive—made even more so by the fact that I practically stretched out on the ground to get the angle I wanted.

I shrug and lie. “I never really thought about it. It’s just a school project.” If I told her the truth—that I thought the picture was beautiful and spent twenty dollars on a sheet of large format photo paper to blow it up—she’d worry. If I even hinted at how often I used to go to the graveyard back home—an isolated spot on the edge of town—she’d freak.

As far as parental units go, my mother is pretty understanding, but given that I've rapidly gone from an introvert with self-esteem issues to an extrovert whose been bombing her first year of college, this doesn't seem like the time to tell her about my attraction to cemeteries.

After a long moment, she lets the subject of the photo drop and turns away.

The picture ends up being the first of many.

Flash Forward

Once it occurred to me to start taking photos in graveyards, I couldn't stop. Weeks go by—even months and occasionally years—and then I get the itch to point a camera at weathered inscriptions and sightless stone angels.

When I’m writing and get stuck on a chapter or plot point, I grab my iPod and ramble down tree lined paths, past plots and crypts, while listening to Death Cab for Cutie or Matthew Good.

It probably sounds totally EMO (Death Cab for Cutie? Tombstones?), but it’s not. For one thing, I’m terrified of death. Forget going gently into that dark night: I’ll be clinging on by my fingernails, wailing and screeching. I can barely make it through an episode of Six Feet Under without freaking out.

And, yet… I love cemeteries.

I love looking at markers and inscriptions and the mementos people leave behind. An entire passage in the second Hemlock book was inspired by Celtic knot work I spotted on a grave during one ramble and a small path tucked into a forgotten corner of my favorite graveyard—an inexplicable path that seemed to go nowhere—provided the inspiration for a major plot point in another book.


Death frightens me, but cemeteries fill me with a weird sense of calm—almost like walking through white noise. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense—how can you love cities of the dead when you fear death?—but it’s my one slightly spooky quirk.

Giveaway

Kathleen has generously donated one copy of Hemlock along with some awesome Hemlock swag! Enter after the page break!

a Rafflecopter giveaway