EXCERPT
After shaking the blanket open and snapping it to the ground, I sat in the middle of it with my knees crossed and the notebook and Psymeter2.0 in front of me. I synched the device to my cell and sent the recordings to U-18 HQ. I once again noted the date, time, and GPS location on the pad. It looked like I was taking scientific readings. It was utterly a cheat. I studied the land around me, noted a wildlife cam pointed at the pond, the remains of the kudzu-buried, tumbledown buildings on one edge of the property, and spotted the foundations of an old house near them in the pines across the pond. The brick showed signs of a long-ago fire. To my right, was a better-kept lean-to filled with farm equipment, a small tractor and gardening tools, all looking functional and which were secured with massive chains.
Placing my palm on the ground, I took a cleansing breath, blew it out, and relaxed.
Instantly I could tell that something wasn’t right, and in a way I had no immediate name for. The ground was . . . maybe sick, infested with something, some kind of parasite or illness. The earth beneath my palm felt cold, icy, not to the touch, but to the spirit, which wasn’t something I could easily explain to other people. It felt sick and murky and restless. As if it was dying, dying in pain. Alone and afraid.
I sent a soothing pulse of calm into the land, searching for the cause of the illness. Reaching down into the earth. I found the water source for the pond, an underground, degraded concrete pipe that ran along the low hill about halfway to the crest. The pipe system capped a spring there and collected the water, sending it down, through the pipe and into the pond for collection, probably for former use by farm animals. It was a slow trickle of water, and ran off on the far side, through another, smaller pipe, and into a gully. I dove deeper into the land. Below the surface of the hill, near the springhead, was an up-thrusting slab of granite angled toward the sky, driven up and broken during some unimaginable earthquake in the far past. It was now shored in place by accumulated layers of shattered rock and compacted soil all around the slab, softening its contours, creating the hillock.
GIVEAWAY!
There is a tour-wide giveaway for 5 copies of CURSE ON THE LAND, 2 sets of the Soulwood novels (BLOOD OF THE EARTH & CURSE ON THE LAND), and a $25 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Giveaway runs October 17th to November 12th. If you’d like to share, the Rafflecopter code is below.
About CURSE ON THE LAND:
Before Nell Ingram met skinwalker Jane Yellowrock, she had no one to rely on, finding strength only in her arcane connection to the dark woods around her. But now she has friends in the newly formed PsyLED team to keep her grounded — even if being part of the agency responsible for policing paranormals comes with dangers of its own…
After training at the PsyLED academy, Nell returns home to her woods to find the land feeling sick and restless. And that sickness is spreading. With the help of her team, under the leadership of agent Rick LaFleur, Nell tries to determine the cause. But nothing can prepare them for the evil that awaits: an entity that feeds on death itself. And it wants more….
CURSE ON THE LAND (Nell Ingram #2) | Faith Hunter | Roc Mass Market Paperback | $7.99 | 352 pages | November 1, 2016 | ISBN: 9780451473325 | Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28953491-curse-on-the-land
Purchase links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451473329
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/curse-on-the-land-faith-hunter/1123638786
Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Curse-Land/Faith-Hunter/9780451473325
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Faith_Hunter_Curse_on_the_Land?id=fxKICwAAQBAJ
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/curse-on-the-land/id1082582265
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/curse-on-the-land
REVIEW
I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley for an honest review.
Curse on the Land (A Soulwood Novel)
About Faith Hunter:
Faith Hunter, fantasy writer, was born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. She writes three Urban Fantasy series: the Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock, a Cherokee skinwalker who hunts rogue vampires. The Soulwood series, featuring earth magic user Nell Ingram. And the Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban, post-apocalyptic, fantasy series featuring Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage. (There is a role playing game based on the series, ROGUE MAGE.)
Under the pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action-adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has 30+ books in print in 29 countries.
Hunter writes full-time, tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, white-water kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their rescued Pomeranians to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.
Find Faith online at her website FaithHunter.net, her blog, on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.
