Excerpt!
“Warren! Shhh, Warren!”
It’s Cobra’s voice. Solma hadn’t realized the Whisperer was still here. She wonders if Mamba is here, too, unwilling as he was to let Cobra out of his sight. Solma shuffles to the edge of her bed and fumbles for her leg, accidentally catching it with her elbow. It clatters on the wooden floor.
“Earth’s sake, Solma!” Bell growls. Warren screams louder, and suddenly there is sense in his cries.
“It’s eating us!”
Horror uncurls in Solma’s belly. She can’t breathe. Where’s her leg? The sound of his terror ricochets around her brain and she thinks she can hear bee tremolo underneath. How is that possible? She needs to get to him. Where is her leg?
A candle flame hisses to life and suddenly Solma can see. She squints against the brightness, snatches her leg and glances up to see Warren clutching the sides of his head, fingernails digging into his flesh. His back arches, his leg kicks, face red with pain and fury. Tears stream down his cheeks. He screams while Cobra tries to stop him hurting himself.
“It’s eating us!”
No time. Solma lurches from the bed, leg still in hand, and kneels beside Cobra. Mamba is nowhere to be seen but Bell hurries over with a damp cloth and tries to press it to Warren’s forehead. He fights her.
“Warren! Warren!”
He screams again. Solma cups his chin in her hands and tries to stop him from bashing his head against the floor. He moans, his terrified gaze meeting Solma.
“The nest, Sol!” he gasps, and bee-terror buzzes in Solma’s head again, as if she can hear Blume’s fear echoing through Warren. “You have to go! Now!”
Author bio:
Rebecca has been obsessed with two things since she learned to walk and talk: stories and animals. Luckily, the two seem to be very compatible. Rebecca writes stories set in strange worlds filled with bizarre creatures, strong female characters and magical powers. She started her writing career as a poet, performing all over the country and publishing her first collection, Octopus Medicine, with Two Rivers Press in 2017.
In addition to writing, Rebecca is also a teacher and, in 2018, decided that she wanted to write quality books for the young people she works with. Her books tend towards themes of respect for the environment, protecting the planet and the new generations challenging the old to face up to their mistakes.
She lives in Reading, UK, with her unusual family, which includes herself and her partner, a friendly little mini-lop rabbit (called Cleo) and a gregarious and feisty quaker parrot (called Maya).
Solma is a fighter. Trained by her village Steward to protect their community from the predators of their harsh world, she is fierce and loyal. But how can she protect her friends and family from crop failure and starvation? With flying insects extinct for over a century, nowhere on the forsaken continent of Alphor is safe and Solma is terrified her little brother, Warren, will be one of the next to die. The villagers cling to life, waiting for the Earth Whisperers—mysterious nomads with a strange magic that helps plants grow—to arrive.
But then Warren finds something. Something impossible. When the first bee in a hundred years crawls out of the earth, Warren forms a strange bond with the creature and Solma fears he might have a new power. One that leaders of Alphor would kill for. As she and Warren fight to keep the bee secret and safe, word of this miracle sweeps the continent. Allies and enemies alike descend on the village. Some demand the bees for themselves, others want to destroy the colony to level the odds. When words become threats and then violence, Solma and Warren are caught in the conflict, and now it isn’t just the bees in danger.
When whoever controls the bees controls the world, how will Solma and Warren know who to trust?
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Rebecca has been obsessed with two things since she learned to walk and talk: stories and animals. Luckily, the two seem to be very compatible. Rebecca writes stories set in strange worlds filled with bizarre creatures, strong female characters and magical powers. She started her writing career as a poet, performing all over the country and publishing her first collection, Octopus Medicine, with Two Rivers Press in 2017.
In addition to writing, Rebecca is also a teacher and, in 2018, decided that she wanted to write quality books for the young people she works with. Her books tend towards themes of respect for the environment, protecting the planet and the new generations challenging the old to face up to their mistakes.
She lives in Reading, UK, with her unusual family, which includes herself and her partner, a friendly little mini-lop rabbit (called Cleo) and a gregarious and feisty quaker parrot (called Maya).
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