The Hanging Night
Sasha Hibbs & Christina Hooker
(The Threads of Fate, #1)
Published by: Evernight Teen
Publication date: December 15th 2023
Genres: Romance, Young Adult
When a sad turn of fate takes Josephine Blair to the small town of Bridgeport, West Virginia, she meets and falls for the devious and cunning Caius Duke. Her life blooms in both wonderful and terrifying ways.
Together, Josephine and Caius discover they have something deeper and more intense than true love. While theirs is a love spanning centuries, what they don’t realize is the stronger their relationship becomes, the more some unknown evil is trying to tear them apart.
A captivating tale of eternal love, vengeful curses, and a power that can make or break them all, The Hanging Night will pull you in, making you wonder how we are all tied together, and if the ties that bind are truly meant to last.
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EXCERPT:
You know you can’t see the air, and you don’t have to see it to know it’s there—it just fills the space, and you’re grateful (whether you realize it or not) because if it didn’t fill the space, you’d suffocate.
That’s how I knew she was in the room.
I had my head down, searching through magazines, when what I can only describe as a heat chill rippled in me, causing me to shiver and the skin on the back of my neck to tingle. When I heard the cooler door pop open, I stopped breathing and stayed perfectly still, hoping this wasn’t the day I got arrested for shoplifting … for stealing stale food and one lousy, domestic beer, no less. If I had to go to jail, I wanted it to at least be for something worth it—money, jewelry, a car. FYI: I’ve never stolen any of those things or anything like that—only necessary or completely useless items, which I know is paradoxical. Let me explain: I’d take a plastic bobble-head of an off-brand, generic Batman or a sandwich before I’d take something sentimental or valuable to an individual—it’s just how I roll, ya know? And only from stores. Like, I don’t want your shit, but if it’s some dumbass thing on a shelf in a Dollar General, it’s fair game, and of course, like I said, I learned to be my own chef at a very young age. And can I really be held responsible for what I do when I am hungry? Isn’t that a famous candy commercial these days?
I wasn’t startled when she spoke, but expectant, and resigning myself to the fact that I was busted, I turned to face the girl. When I looked at her, all I saw was sadness. There wasn’t a stitch of makeup on her face, but she didn’t need any because even in sadness, she was striking. The circles under her eyes were so dark and deep, they almost echoed, but her brown irises were flat, like something was missing in them—a spark, maybe, and at the very end of her left eyebrow, there was a tiny, pink crystal. I immediately loved it—it gave her an edge no girl I’d seen in this boring ass town had. Her espresso-colored hair was knotted up in a bun with frizzy strands sticking out everywhere, which, though messy, was somehow endearing. Overall, she looked defeated, though, like all the air had been let out of her balloon. So, despite the circumstances, despite me being caught, red-handed, stealing my dinner, I immediately wanted to make her smile. So, I made jokes, trying to be cool. I’m not really into labels.
“Put those back!”
“C’mon. They’re five-day old pepperoni rolls. You’re going to pitch them anyway. I’m hungry.”
She seemed to contemplate for a moment, tilting her head and looking at me, taking me all in, trying to figure me out. Her shoulders relaxed a little, and she let out a quick breath, seeming to judge that I wasn’t a threat. “And cigarettes? I know old people do, but what teenager smokes these days? News flash. They’re bad for you. And if you’re only hungry, what about the beer and the magazine?”
“Uh … after dinner entertainment?” I asked, trying to justify myself.
She reached out and grabbed for the 40oz beer I had, and as her hand brushed mine, my brain short-circuited. Ice formed around each of my ribs, cracking then melting, and in that moment, I felt the color red splash through me. She paused, momentarily looking dead into my eyes, and somehow, I knew she felt it too. Our hands had to have only touched for a nanosecond, but it passed in an eternity. The intensity—our brains somehow sharing the same image, as if connected by some weird fiber optic cable—was overwhelming, and I gasped, but the rest of my body was paralyzed as I got stuck in this strange moment with her. But for as quickly as it came and as long as it lingered, the cable snapped, and the moment broke, and the world spun in real time again. My body jerked at the sharp snap back to reality, causing me to yank my hand back, and when I did, the beer exploded in foam and glass shards at our feet, a kind of drunken mosaic.
Author Bio:
By age 5, Sasha Hibbs' favorite movie was Gone With the Wind. By age 12, she completed her 7th grade book report on the sequel, Scarlett. By 18, she met and married her very own Mr. Rhett Butler and as it turns out, she never had to worry about going back to Tara to win the love of her life back. Fortunately, he stuck with her.
With a love of all things paranormal, the ambiance of the South with its gigantic antebellum mansions and canopies of Spanish moss, and a love for her husband's rich storytelling of blacksmiths and the mythology surrounding their origins, it wasn't long until the world of her debut novel, Black Amaranth, was born.
When not working her day job as a nurse, you can find Sasha dreaming of her next beach trip, reading the latest YA novel, and drinking more white chocolate mocha than she should.
Sasha lives in mountainous West Virginia with her husband, Tim, and their two daughters. She is currently hard at work on her next novel.
Author links:
Website / Instagram / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter
--Christina: I’ve always been captivated by stories and words, but not with the speaking of them (as I'm little more than a foul mouth with appendages), just with the reading and writing of them.
In 2020, I made my dream of writing a book a reality, and in 2023, my first collaborative novel is releasing!
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