Wanda Loves Books: Blitz: Sanctuary by Pauline Creeden

BOOK INFORMATION

TITLE – Sanctuary SERIES – Sanctuary AUTHOR – Pauline Creeden GENRE – YA Thriller/Science Fictio n PUBLICATION DATE – Sept 2013 LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 268 pages PUBLISHER – AltWit Press COVER ARTIST – Najla Qamber

BOOK SYNOPSIS

First Place Winner of 2014 Gold Award Readers F avorite YA Horror First Place Winner of 2013 Dante Rosetti Award in Y A Fiction

What if the Biblical End Times unfolded in a way no one told you about and the rapture didn't happen b efore the tribulation began...

"Makes you afraid of the end times again." - D. M. Dutcher for Sword Cross Rocket

"Sanctuary crosses boundaries and borders and incor porates elements of all kinds of action and intrigu e, from thriller- like adventure to a post-apocalyptic tale of life a fter aliens invade. Thus it will delight readers se eking something truly different, while disappointing those who anticipate d a shallow, one-dimensional subject and story line ." - Midwest Book Review

Left Behind for the Hunger Games generation

In a heart-racing thriller described as Falling Ski es meet The Walking Dead, Jennie struggles to find a safe place for what’s left of her family. But it seems as though there is no place sacred, no place secure. First the aliens attacked the sun, making it dimmer, weaker, and half what it used to be. Then they attacked the water supply, killing on e-third of Earth’s population with a bitter contaminate. And when they unleash a new terror on humankind, the victims wil l wish for death, but will not find it...

When the world shatters to pieces around her, will Jennie find the strength she needs to keep going?</ div>

BUY & TBR LINKS

AMAZON KINDLE US –

AMAZON KINDLE CA – AMAZON KI NDLE UK – AMAZON PAPERBACK – BARNES & NOBLES PAPERBACK – GOODREADS

EXCERPT

When Jennie reached the back door, she saw them. Fo ur large dog-like creatures with pinched faces like bulldogs and lion-like manes. They snarled, and one of them leap t at the window on the top half of the door when it saw her.

Jennie jumped back and fell hard on the cold tile f loor. The bottle of painkiller bounced across the k itchen tiles. The creature slammed against the window a second time, cracking it. She blinked hard. Her heart sunk, and the hairs on her arms stood on end. A horrendous gargling howl rent the air, causing a shiver down her spine. She held her breath and waited for the creature to slam into the door again .

“What on earth?” she whispered to herself.

When the third attempt never came, she scrambled to ward the door. Blinking hard, she used the door kno b to help herself stand. Out the cracked window, her mother w as still out of sight, but the last of the dogs hea ded across the field behind her backyard.

“MOM?” Jennie called out.

The rumbling faded, and the vibrations in her chest receded with the dogs. She pulled open the door an d rushed onto their back deck. “Mom, where are you?”

When she reached the banister, she looked over the side. Her mom lay sprawled with one hand on the lat tice. Blood gushed from Mom’s leg and her opposite arm. Jennie’ s ears rang and flooded with every beat of her hear t.

Jennie didn’t know how she got to the second floor of her house, but she found herself shaking her sle eping father. How had he slept through the rumbling? “Outside, it’s M om...”

Her father leapt from the bed. Mickey, her little b rother, lay asleep and undisturbed. Dad ran down th e stairs and outside in his flannel pajama bottoms and white t-shirt. He scooped Mom up to his chest and carried her inside . Blood stained his shirt in crimson.

“Jennie, call 911!” Her father had said it at least three times before it finally registered in her br ain.

She pulled the cell phone from her pocket, but it r efused to connect. With a groan, she grabbed the co rdless from the wall receiver, glad her heart stopped pounding in h er head so she could hear.

“All operators are busy at this time,” a mechanical voice deadpanned, “Please stay on the line, and th e next available operator will take your call.”

“They have me on hold, Dad. Should I hang up and tr y again?” She held the phone in both hands away fro m her face.

“No, just stay on the line.” Her father lifted the shredded jeans from Mom’s leg. “It looks like a sha rk bite. What on earth happened?”

Jennie took in the damage through tear-filled eyes. A huge chunk was taken from her mother’s calf, exp osing the fibrous tendons that covered the bone in her leg. A bloodst ain grew on the beige couch. Was she going to die? Panic rose up.

“What happened, Jennie?”

“I...I...They looked like lions, or dogs, or someth ing. The rumbling shook the whole house...I tried to go outside to get Mom, but—” A sob blocked her throat.

Her father grabbed a throw pillow and held it again st the leg. Mom’s exposed forearm laid across her c hest in much the same condition as her calf.

“Grab me the duct tape.”

Jennie suddenly remembered the phone, put it back t o her ear, and headed to the hall closet. She reach ed for the shelf above the jackets and grabbed the junk basket next to the toolbox.

“Please stay on the line. An operator will be with you shortly.”

She shoved the phone in the crook of her neck and f ished through the box. Half the contents dropped ar ound her feet. Who cares? When her fingers wrapped around the silv er duct tape, a short-lived relief sent prickles do wn her arms. But the urgency gripped her chest in less than a heart beat, and she threw the junk basket on the ground w ith the rest of the items.

“Hurry, Jennie!” her father called from the living room. “And turn on the TV. Maybe they’ll have somet hing about what’s going on.”

She handed her father the tape and turned toward th e TV. The mechanical voice on the phone came throug h again, followed by more easy listening.

When she clicked on the TV, the shouting and wailin g began before the picture warmed up on the screen. A sideways picture of New York City broke through, with the sh aky voice of the newscaster voicing over.

“What we are watching now – I can’t believe it – is live footage of Times Square,” the newscaster’s vo ice paused for a deep breath. “We’ve lost our man on the scene and h is camera man to what appears to be some kind of ne w alien creature. Just a short half-hour ago, the doors to the ship that hovered above Central Park opened and these dog-like creatures flooded out.”

Jennie couldn’t pull her eyes from the screen. She straightened and dropped the phone on the hardwood. The battery popped out and skidded across the floor.

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AUTHOR BIO< /span>

Pauline Creeden is an award-winning author, horse t rainer, and overall book ninja. She becomes the mai n character in each of her stories, and because she has ADD, she w ill get bored if she pretends to be one person for too long.

Armored Hearts, her joint effort with author Meliss a Turner Lee, has been a #1 Bestseller in Christian Fantasy and been awarded the Crowned Heart for Excellence by InDtale Magazine. Her debut novel, Sanctuary, won 1st Plac e Christian YA Title 2013 Dante Rosetti Award and 2014 Gold Award for First Place YA Horror Novel.