by Michelle Madow
Release Date: January 26th 2016
Summary from Goodreads:
Filled with magic, thrilling adventure, and sweet romance, Elementals is the first in a new series that fans of Percy Jackson and The Secret Circle will love!
When Nicole Cassidy moves from sunny Georgia to gloomy New England, the last thing she expects is to learn that her homeroom is a cover for a secret coven of witches. Even more surprisingly … she’s apparently a witch herself. Despite doubts about her newfound abilities, Nicole is welcomed into this ancient circle of witches and is bedazzled by their powers—and, to her dismay, by Blake—the school’s notorious bad-boy.
Girls who get close to Blake wind up hurt. His girlfriend Danielle will do anything to keep them away, even if she must resort to using dark magic. But the chemistry between Blake and Nicole is undeniable, and despite wanting to protect Nicole from Danielle’s wrath, he finds it impossible to keep his distance.
When the Olympian Comet shoots through the sky for the first time in three thousand years, Nicole, Blake, Danielle, and two others in their homeroom are gifted with mysterious powers. But the comet has another effect—it opens the portal to the prison world that has contained the Titans for centuries. After an ancient monster escapes and attacks Nicole and Blake, it’s up to them and the others to follow the clues from a cryptic prophecy so that they can save their town … and possibly the world.
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"Elementals
is going to blow your mind!"
-Crossroad
Reviews, ★★★★★
"Five
glittery stars for being such a compelling read!"
-Andrea
Heltsley, Goodreads Reviewer ★★★★★
"A
perfect mixture of magic and mythology. An entrancing story of trust,
friendship and well naughty boys. WITCHES are not the only thing walking the
earth!"
- BenjaminOfTomes, BookTuber ★★★★★
Here's a sneak peak!
Everyone stared at me, and I looked to the front of the
room, where a tall, lanky man in a tweed suit stood next to a blackboard
covered with the morning announcements. His gray hair shined under the light,
and his wrinkled skin and warm smile reminded me more of a grandfather than a
teacher.
He cleared his throat and rolled a piece of chalk in his
palm. “You must be Nicole Cassidy,” he said.
“Yeah.” I nodded and looked around at the other students.
There were about thirty of them, and there seemed to be an invisible line going
down the middle of the room, dividing them in half. The students near the door
wore jeans and sweatshirts, but the ones closer to the wall looked like they
were dressed for a fashion show instead of school.
“It’s nice to meet you Nicole.” The teacher sounded sincere,
like he was meeting a new friend instead of a student. “Welcome to our
homeroom. I’m Mr. Faulkner, but please call me Darius.” He turned to the
chalkboard, lifted his hand, and waved it from one side to the other. “You
probably weren’t expecting everything to look so normal, but we have to be
careful. As I’m sure you know, we can’t risk letting anyone else know what goes
on in here.”
Then the
board shimmered—like sunlight glimmering off the ocean—and the morning
announcements changed into different letters right in front of my eyes.
***
“There’s energy
everywhere.” Chris moved his hands in a giant arc above his head to
demonstrate. “Humans know that energy exists—they’ve harnessed it for
electronics. The difference between us and humans is that we have the power to
tap into energy and use it ourselves, and humans don’t.” He smiled at me, as if
I was supposed to understand what he meant. “Make sense?”
“Not really,” I
said. “Sorry.”
“It’s easier if you
relate it to something familiar,” he said, speaking faster. “What happens to
the handle of a metal spoon when you leave it in boiling water?”
“It gets hot?” I said
it as a question. This was stuff people learned in fifth grade science—not high
school homeroom.
“And what happens
when it’s plastic?”
“It doesn’t get
hot,” I said slowly. “It stays room temperature.”
“Exactly.” He grinned at me like I’d just
solved an astrophysics mathematical equation. “Humans are like plastic. Even if
they’re immersed in energy, they can’t conduct it. Witches are like metal. We
have the ability to absorb energy and control it as we want.”
***
“There’s a reason we’re required to take Greek mythology.”
Blake scooted closer to me, as if about to tell me a secret, and I leaned
forward in anticipation. “Did you know that we—meaning everyone in our
homeroom—are descended from the Greek gods?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Like Zeus and all of them living in a
castle on the clouds?” I asked.
“Exactly.” He smirked. “Except that they’re referred to as
the Olympians, and they call their ‘castle in the clouds’ Mount Olympus.”
“So you’re saying that we’re gods?”
“We’re not
gods.” He smiled and shook his head. “But we have ‘diluted god blood’ in us.
It’s what gives us our powers.”
***
“I heard that you and your friends don’t like humans very
much,” I began, watching Blake in the hope that the question wasn’t too
personal. “Is that true?”
He kept focused on the road, his jaw muscles tight. “It’s
not that we don’t like them,” he said simply. “But we are more powerful than humans. Is it so bad to see them as weak?”
“It’s not their fault that they don’t have powers,” I said.
“We’re not any more deserving than they are. We didn’t do anything special to
be like this. It’s just the way we were born.”
“It’s different when you’ve grown up knowing about what you
can do,” he said. “Humans are weak. We’re powerful. Think of it like … natural
selection.”
I looked out
the window, not wanting to hear any more. Because it just reminded me that
Blake only liked me because of my powers. He wouldn’t have noticed me at all if
I were normal.
***
“Run!” Blake yelled, grabbing my arm and pulling me off the
merry-go-round.
It spun under our weight, and I held onto the metal bars,
pushing off them to leap over the edge. The cedar chips on the ground cushioned
my landing. The car was behind us, which would mean running towards the
monstrous hound, so I bolted for the playground, hurrying up a ladder of rubber
tires that led to the closest platform. Blake followed close behind. The second
he was up he took the lighter out of his pocket and aimed a blue fireball at
the tires. They melted to the ground seconds before the hound reached them.
It looked up at us and growled—a low, menacing sound that if
I spoke dog I would have assumed meant “I’m going to have you for dinner”—and
tried to jump onto the platform. It missed by only a few inches.
Blake flicked on his lighter and threw a fireball at its
chest, but the hound jumped to the side to get out of the way. It turned all
four of its eyes up at us, one head letting out a deep roar as the other
snapped its teeth together, taking bites out of the air.
My hands shook, and I gripped one of the log posts behind me
for support. “Have you learned how to fight these things in homeroom?” I asked
Blake, my voice rising in panic.
He threw another fireball, and it missed the hound again.
“No,” he snapped, the flames lighting up his face. “Fighting legendary
creatures isn’t on the syllabus.”
“Maybe it should be,” I said as he launched another ball of
fire, hitting the hound on its front paw. Both of its heads yelped in pain. The
scorpion tail lowered between its legs, and it growled again before turning
away from us and running around the side of the playground, woodchips flying
behind it as it gained speed.
My heart pounded, and I looked around to figure how to get
off the platform. The exit was a slide that dropped off at the monkey bars. I
could get down and run to the car, but I didn’t know where the hound was, and
leaving the platform could give it the perfect opportunity to pounce.
Then the hound growled again. I turned around, spotting it
clamoring up a ladder of logs that led to a nearby platform. Only a wobbly
bridge separated that platform from our own. My entire body shook, and I moved
closer to Blake, grabbing his arm for support.
The hound reached the top of the platform, and its glowing
eyes narrowed, ready to attack.
Not having anywhere else to go, I launched myself down the
slide and hurried to the monkey bars, climbing up the ladder and hoisting
myself on top of them. Gripping the sides, I crawled to the center bar, but the
ground spun beneath me, my lungs tightening as I looked down. I had to take a
few deep breaths to steady myself. A six-foot fall wasn’t deadly. Now wasn’t
the time to let my fear of heights get to me.
Blake scrambled behind me, and I turned around to make sure
he wasn’t hurt. Sweat dripped down the sides of his face from the flames, but
other than that he looked okay. He took his lighter out again, holding it up in
preparation to create another fireball.
I looked back at the hound in time to see it run along the
bridge and hurl itself towards us. It bared its teeth as it flew through the
air, its arms outstretched as it came closer to the monkey bars. But it must
not have had enough force behind the jump, because it fell to the ground with a
loud thump. It stood and shook the woodchips off its fur, a low growl coming
from somewhere deep in its throat as it turned its heads up to look at us.
Before I could say anything to Blake about how completely
screwed we were, he threw two balls of fire towards the hound, hitting both of
its faces. It howled and collapsed, whimpering as it buried its snouts in its
paws. The smell of burnt skin filled the air. My stomach swirled with nausea,
and I lifted a hand to my nose to block out the smell.
Only a few seconds passed before it stood up again.
The fur on its faces had changed into a charred grey. Its yellow eyes glowed
brighter now, both snouts chomping madly in the air, strings of saliva dripping
to the ground as it waited to devour whichever one of us lost our balance
first.
Michelle Madow grew up in Baltimore, graduated Rollins College in Orlando, and now lives in Boca Raton, Florida. She wrote her first book in her junior year of college, and has been writing novels since. Some of her favorite things are: reading, pizza, traveling, shopping, time travel, Broadway musicals, and spending time with friends and family. Michelle has toured across America to promote her books and to encourage high school students to embrace reading and writing. Someday, she hopes to travel the world for a year on a cruise ship.
Elementals sounds like an interesting book about Witches and the effect the Olympian Comet has on them after it shoots through the sky after 3000 years since the last one. Great giveaway.
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