October! Yay!
The Phantom Student, part two of The Phantom Series, will be published on October 16th by Cool Well Press. And as a surprise, they are including Book One, The Phantom Pilot, in the same volume. Previously, The Phantom Pilot was only available as a digital book because it was novella length rather than novel length. So now you can own both books in one volume, for one price! I will post the purchase links as soon as they are available (it will be available through Cool Well Press, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble). But for now, I will settle for teasing you with a new snippet each week. Here is the introduction toBook One, The Phantom Pilot:
What would you do if a
phantom needed your help? Would you run
screaming into the night, or would you enlist the aid of your best friend and
wade right into the ghostly fray? Find
out what happens when you read THE PHANTOM PILOT.
Synopsis
When a plane crashes behind Jason Lee’s house in 1969, he
finds himself being haunted by the ghost of the pilot. Unable to communicate with the phantom,
Jase asks his classmate, Stevie, for help. Jase thinks Stevie-girl is brave because he saw her entering the local “haunted”
house alone. Together, they discover a
way to “talk” to the pilot, and they learn that his fiancée is the
one whose spirit is trapped in the haunted house. Now they must find a way to free her from the
malevolent shadow-man who is holding her captive so that she and the phantom pilot can
cross over to the other side, together.
I just finished reading THE PHANTOM PILOT and it
was such a great book! It's a fast read and beautifully written. The characters
are interesting and compelling and in Ann Swann's heroine, "Stevie,"
we meet a dynamic character who reminded me of a young Katniss Everdeen from
The Hunger Games (sans the emotional instability and psychosis!).
The book zips along and is exciting and scary at
times and has a really great ending. I recommend this for all ages. Really
looking forward to reading more of Ann's work!
“Ann
Swann took me back in time! The characters were so easy to identify with. As a
retired Jr High reading teacher, I would have loved using The Phantom Pilot as
a class novel. So many teaching and learning activities could be used with this
novel. I loved it and cannot wait for the sequel.”
I loved this book. My son read it first and told
me it was REALLY good! So I bought it for the Kindle App on my phone. From page
one it was so hard to put down. It was very well written and the story line left
me wanting more! I was so sad when I finished the book. I can't wait to read
more books by Ann Swann!
Now, here is the introduction to the second book in the series, The Phantom Student (remember, both books are in this volume):
Evil never skips a generation. . .
When Stevie and Jase befriend Derol Pavey, a new student with Tourette Syndrome, strange things start to happen. The phantom of a little girl begins haunting Stevie. But the little phantom never sticks around for long. She seems to be showing Stevie something, but by the time Stevie and Jase figure out what she is trying to show them, it is almost too late. They are forced to follow the little girl to school--the abandoned Crossroads Elementary School--where they discover that the phantom student has been trying to protect Derol who is being tormented for being different. What goes around, comes around, and on a dark and desperate Halloween night, Jase and Stevie learn just how deadly bullying can be.
Prologue
To us, 1970 was a time of beginnings, but to the country, it was a time of endings. National guardsmen ended the lives of four students at Kent State College. A hundred thousand marched on Washington to end the war in Vietnam, and in England, Paul McCartney announced the end of The Beatles. It was also the year Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin both ended their lives through drug overdoses. It felt as if the whole world was in turmoil.
Our homeroom teacher said not to let the weight of the world stop us from being open to new experiences. In fact she said it was more important than ever that we should be open-minded. I wondered if she’d gone radical on us. For a moment I thought she might pick up a sign and start chanting.
Come to find out, she was simply prepping us for a new addition to our eighth grade class at Crossroads Junior High. His name was Derol Pavey and he had something called Tourette Syndrome.
Chapter One
“What’s up?” Jase’s voice was low, but then he was never very loud. Guess that’s why we got along so well.
I smiled up at him. “Not much.” I shifted my books from the crook of one arm to the crook of the other. “What’s up with you?”
Jase grimaced. I could tell he wanted to say something.
I elbowed him in the ribs as we made our way across homeroom to our desks in the back corner. “Why are you making that face? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing really,” he replied, his usually clear green eyes clouded and mysterious. “It’s just that, well. Have you heard about Janis Joplin?”
That got my attention. I loved Janis Joplin. Jase had accidentally caught me wailing away to one of her records one afternoon when I was supposed to meet him in front of my house. When I wasn’t outside, he just opened the screen door and came on inside. He said he could hear my yowling as soon as his feet cleared the threshold. After that, I always locked the front door before singing my Janis tunes.
“What about her?” I asked, a pang of unease settling in my stomach like the cherry pit I’d accidentally swallowed when I was about five. Jimi Hendrix, who had electrified Woodstock only thirteen months earlier, had overdosed on a combination of drugs and alcohol just a couple of weeks ago. And everyone knew Janis was every bit as wild as Jimi. Maybe even wilder.
Jase looked up as several other students entered the classroom. “They found her in a motel room yesterday. She overdosed, too. Just like Hendrix.”
“Oh.” My voice was small. I couldn’t seem to say anything else. Janis was a big star. She wasn’t a friend or an acquaintance, but she was young and famous. She shouldn’t have died. She and Hendrix were both only twenty-seven years old. I hated when people just up and died without warning. It happened all the time in my little corner of the world. I guess I thought famous people should be immune to death or something. Irrational tears started in the corners of my eyes and began a lazy trek toward my chin.
Jase reached across the aisle between our desks. His hand was large and firm when he grasped my shoulder. I’d taken hold of that hand on more than one occasion when he had to help me across a ditch or even the time I had to help him up after he fell down the stairs in the old haunted Taylor mansion. But this show of concern right in front of everyone in the class, this was something altogether different.
I shrugged my shoulder so he would take his hand away.
He didn’t get mad or upset. Jase didn’t get mad. He understood me pretty well. He knew I didn’t like to be the center of attention. I smiled at him to let him know I appreciated the gesture of friendship, but I felt silly sitting there crying over someone who had caused her own demise by doing things that were illegal and stupid.
Somehow, I’d identified with Janis, that’s why I’d admired her. She succeeded even though she was different—maybe because she was different. It was as if she had taken her outcast image and made it larger than life. I could never do that, even if I did feel the same way. But I could relate to her, and I could admire her for it, and now she was gone, so I guess now I could grieve for her, too.
I might have sat there wallowing in grief for the whole twenty-minute class period except that Derol Pavey chose that moment to make his entrance.
Continued from last time ...
When
he stepped through the door and stood hesitantly in front of the class waiting
for Mrs. Flint to acknowledge him, the excitement in the room was as thick as
cream, but not nearly as sweet. In fact,
there was a sour feeling, as if every student had just run a dozen laps at P.E.
and then skipped the showers.
Mrs. Flint took a deep breath. She’d tried to prepare us, but maybe
that was part of the problem. We could
sense her uncertainty and it transferred to us as if by electrical
current. “Class,” she said. “This is Derol Pavey. He is the new student I told you about from
The Philippines.”
Ahhh, so that explained it. Not only did the kid suffer from something
called Tourette Syndrome, he also suffered the dreaded curse of being from
“somewhere else.” His skin was a dusky
bronze color and his night-black hair was shiny and razor-straight.
He peered at us from eyes almost as
black as his hair and then the oddest thing happened. His left arm flew up and he barked like a
hoarse dog. Rarf. Rarf.
Mrs. Flint grabbed his arm as if to
hold it in place, but that only made his other arm fly up. His notebook hit the floor and popped open
scattering loose-leaf paper everywhere.
Susan Jansen and Juanita Silva were
in their customary front row seats. They immediately jumped up and
began to gather the paper. They
attempted to stuff it back into the sprung clasps of the blue canvas-covered
notebook, but Derol, still barking, suddenly began to pirouette like a stout
canine ballerina. Mrs. Flint was dragged
around in a circle a time or two before she got wise and turned loose of his
arm, but it was too late. The class was
in tatters, some giggled, others gasped in shock, and some of us simply sat in
stunned and silent disbelief.
Then as if summoned by magic, Mr.
Terrance, the assistant principal, arrived and took hold of poor Derol and
ushered him, still twirling and waving his arms, from the room. We could hear them out in the hall, Derol barking
and Mr. Terrance shushing.
Janis was forgotten. Jimi was forgotten. My sadness was forgotten. Mrs. Flint flopped down heavily in her
tri-wheeled teacher’s chair and mopped at her forehead with a crumpled Kleenex
from her sweater pocket.
“That didn’t go as planned,” she
muttered. Then she seemed to remember
where she was so she leapt to her feet and clapped her
hands together smartly. “Class!” she
said. “Come to order.” She motioned toward Juanita and
Sally who were still clutching handfuls of paper. “Girls, bring
me all that and let’s try and get back on track.”
The two girls hurried to the front
of the room and turned over their treasure.
“Now,” the teacher continued. “I must apologize. I’m certain I could’ve handled that
better. Poor Derol. I’m afraid I made things worse. He really can’t help himself. We must all remember that.” She patted at her short, fluffy hair. It was obvious to all of us that she had
no idea how things had gotten so squirrely so quickly.
“Going to be an interesting year,”
Jase whispered with a wicked grin.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed in
spite of myself.
That's all for now, folks. More next time. Don't forget, THE PHANTOM PILOT http://tinyurl.com/6uk5cp2 is free this weekend, Oct. 13-15. And THE PHANTOM STUDENT comes out on Tuesday, the 16th!
No comments:
Post a Comment