The FunnymanBy Sophia Whittemore
BLURB:
It isn't a laughing matter when Diana starts to see things in the mist which other people don’t: monsters, gods, and deadly shadows. Yet now she sees another thing, the world
of the Impetus, a reality where humans are enslaved and the once-beautiful gods are actually tyrants. Diana must find a way to escape before the exiled king Fear, a vengeful murderer, hunts Diana down to get back something she's stolen from him. But will her growing feelings for the Prince Isak, the oddly sullen god of comedy, draw her into an all-out war?
EXCERPT:
"I am almost a
king, Diana. My father would have to be dead for that to happen." I hung
my head, moving farther from him as I realized that we had been positioned far
too close for comfort. "I’m sorry for assuming. Losing him would be a
terrible thing." "Don’t feel bad. He hasn’t visited me since I was a
child." Isak turned back to the mirror, his lips so tight they were a
line, a dark crease forming between his pale brows. "It’s been so long
that even your great, great grandparents were nothing more than a vague idea
then." "Immortality sounds wonderful." I stopped myself when I
sensed the envy creeping into my words like a poison. "I’m sorry. I mean,
with your father…" "No, don’t wish to be immortal, Diana." Now
it was Isak’s turn to sound wistful. "Pray that death comes swifter, if
anything." Silence fell like a heavy pall over our shoulders, but then
Isak soldiered on. "And about my father, well…somebody has to fight off
Fear in the world of men. Somebody has to keep you humans from killing each
other, from hurting so much that you can’t feel any other wonderful
thing." "To laugh?" "To love, to live, to feel so much that
your world keeps spinning, faster and faster, in that wonderful, chaotic mess
of humanity that you’d so hastily give up. Immortality is overrated. It is
nothing but the ability to live through it all and not experience a single
thing, to eat everything without tasting it at all." Isak’s eyes shone
with a desperate need. He wanted, more than anything it seemed, to be like me,
when all I wanted was to be like him. "But it must be a great thing, to
walk on the stars." "It isn’t, not when shadows threaten you from
below. One misstep and we turn into the greatest monsters humanity has ever
seen." "What, like the shadows that attacked us?" I shuddered
when I thought of those writhing, clicking bodies, so ready to consume me, body
and soul, till I was nothing left but a beating heart. "No, those are just
byproducts of the real monsters, like famine, disease…" "Fear."
Isak’s eyes shifted over to mine quickly. "What did you say?"
AUTHOR BIO:
Sophia Whittemore
is a multiracial author with an Indonesian mother and a Minnesotan father. She
penned THE FUNNYMAN during her sophomore year of high school at Benet Academy
and published it when she was a senior. Her love for the English language
manifested itself in eighth grade when she went to the Scripps National
Spelling Bee and has continued with other languages such as Spanish and
Indonesian. Her prior publications include "A Clock's Work" in a
Handersen Publishing magazine, “Blind Man’s Bluff” in Parallel Ink, and winning
awards in the Best Midwestern Writing competition for high school writers. She
currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with her family and food-loving mini schnauzer
called Tiger. Drawing on inspiration from her two cultural backgrounds, Sophia
lives a life playing tennis, traveling, and writing about her dual life
experiences through other characters in her works or on her blog.
AUTHOR’S SOCIAL MEDIA
LINKS:
Gmail: sophiaMwhittemore@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiawhitte
Instagram:
authorsophiawhittemore
No comments:
Post a Comment