You’ve Got the Look

The lovely Calisa Rhose was kind enough to tag me for a stop along the “You’ve Got the Look” blog hop.

The rules state that authors find the first instance of the word “look” in a current WIP and post an excerpt with the surrounding paragraphs. I have a lot in the works right now, but I chose to run with The Oracles of St. Ambrose: Going Under, because this one is the closest to publishing.

Here’s the blurb-in-progress:

Chase Bradford is the self-assured heir to millions from New York City relocated to Nashville for his senior year of high school at St. Ambrose Academy.  He doesn’t even make a single new friend before the Queen Bee of the elite is found dead in the school swimming pool.  Chase isn’t terribly surprised by the turn of events, since he had visions in the surface of the water during his swim practice just hours before Cheyenne died.  The politics of high school are nothing new to Chase, but the psychic abilities are.

Before Chase can properly freak out, he discovers that two of his schoolmates also possess unusual talents, and both had visions of the circumstances surrounding Cheyenne’s death.  Unfortunately, Natalie – a psychographer, and Bryan – a remote viewer, are from totally different social circles.  In fact, Natalie, whom Chase calls Cinnamon in his head, doesn’t seem to like Chase very much at all. 

The handsome new guy, the quiet invisi-girl, and the geeky sophomore must figure out how to work together to discover how Cheyenne died and why…before the murderer can get away with it.  The list of suspects is surprisingly long – or perhaps not surprising at all, considering how few people actually liked the popular queen of the elite.  Chase, Natalie, and Bryan follow every vision, and every lead – including Cheyenne’s ex-boyfriend, a jealous classmate, and even her own father – right up to the shocking end.

oOo

And here’s the excerpt, including the first appearance of the word “look.” Incidentally, this happens on the very first page.

Nashville had no upside, but there were a few things I could tolerate. St. Ambrose Academy at least had a swim team. Dad made sure of that, but then, Dad liked seeing blue ribbons on my walls. I didn’t care why he tried so hard to find a school with a winning swim team; I was just glad he did. The girls all had cute accents, too. The pretty redhead I’d flirted with during our visit over the summer had a voice that just about killed me. If the rest of the girls looked and sounded like her, I could get used to Hicksville pretty quick.

Walk out my front door into fresh air instead of a hallway filled with other front doors was weird. No elevator carried me to the first floor. No doorman waited to hail a taxi for me. Instead, a shiny new BMW sat in the driveway—another bright spot of the move. Thomas Chasen Bradford the Third never did anything halfway, and that included bribing his only child.

With a school as large as St. Ambrose, I wasn’t the only new guy, but everyone still stared when I parked in my assigned space. A group of three girls turned to examine me as they got out of the car next to mine. The blondes from the front seats giggled, while the girl in the back rolled her eyes and left her friends without glancing in my direction again.

She didn’t fit with the other two, which made me watch her more closely. Her uniform matched everyone else’s, but she didn’t roll the skirt up quite as high. Instead of heels or Mary Janes, she wore a busted pair of Chucks over knee-high socks. Her long, wavy hair appealed to me more than the flat-ironed, fake blonde her friends had. It was the color of a cinnamon stick—kind of brown and kind of red.

“What’s with her?” Blonde One asked.

The girl who’d been driving shrugged. I dubbed her Blonde Two and listened shamelessly as I followed them up the walk to the front doors. If they caught me eavesdropping, I planned to flash a grin. My smile got me out of all kinds of trouble, even with my dad.

oOo

Because I’m in Ireland even as this posts, I only prepared one tag. Sydney Logan will keep the fun going with several more, I’m sure.