Finding North ~ The Compass Series #1
by Allyson Gottlieb
Expected publication:
January 29, 2015
Sometimes you have to lose everything to find what
you’ve really been looking for
Katherine Zova spends her days patching up soldiers in the
Alliance’s army while praying for time to heal the wounds on her own broken
heart. Crushing loss numbs her waking hours and nightmares threaten her sanity
when she closes her eyes. All she wants is to be free, but instead she’s forced
to trade one cage for another.
Reynan Caverly wears his uniform only out of loyalty to his
father, who in his quest to build a new America has little time to spend with
his only son. Indifferent to his sensational Las Vegas lifestyle, all he wants
is to feel a connection with someone. A seemingly impossible request—until the
day he finds a girl with haunting eyes in a group of captured Alliance
soldiers.
Some wounds cut too deep to deal with alone. Sometimes only
love can heal. But in a country torn apart by civil war, nothing comes without
a price. And for Kat and Reynan, falling in love may cost more than they’re
willing to pay.
Isn’t it gorgeous? Marisa from
Cover Me Darling did an
amazing job. Just look at that full wrap!
Here’s an
exclusive excerpt!
Reynan was smiling at me in a way
that made me ever so slightly nervous again. “You sound so happy when you talk
about home. I can tell you really love it there.”
My stomach muscles tensed involuntarily.
This was skating dangerously close to subjects from last night’s interrogation.
These were Reynan’s kind eyes
looking back at me, though, not the cold, cruel stare of his father. So I took
another deep breath and said, “I have some pretty good memories, yes.”
“What was the school system like?
I’ve been homeschooled all my life, for one reason or another, so I’ve never
really seen a public school.”
I started to laugh, then covered it
with a cough. “Public school sucks. Be thankful you didn’t have to deal with
disgusting cafeteria food, lockers that stick, and butt-ugly PE uniforms.” He
chuckled as I continued, “Homeschooled…I can’t imagine what that must be like.”
“Yeah, well, it was pretty nice. My
father made me do a lot of physical training, but as far as book-learning, I
got a lot of choice about what I studied, so I stopped doing math as soon as I
could get away with it.”
“Nice.” I smirked. “My mom made me
take it all through high school. Calculus was the bane of my existence.”
“That sucks.” He looked away,
shoving his hands in his pockets as he added, “It was lonely, though.
Homeschooling.”
There was a weight in my chest that
felt a lot like sympathy. “Did you have a favorite subject?” I asked, trying to
take my mind off that topic before I thought too long about it. “Mine was
English.”
“I liked history, which is kind of
a useless subject in some ways. If you really think about it, though, somebody
had to write these books, which is kind of like playing God. Can you imagine
trying to sum up all of human existence into a “greatest hits” reel? That’s
some serious power right there. Then I wonder what the history books will look
like in a hundred years, and how much of what’s important to me, what I lived
through, will end up preserved for future generations to learn about.”
I sucked in a breath, the indirect
reminder of the current state of the country—of the war, and our positions on
opposite sides of it—like a bucket of freezing water over my head, a shock to
my system. Moreover, there was the realization that until then, we’d been
chatting away like a pair of actual friends.
I tried to put some space between
us, but the passage was barely wide enough for two people to walk comfortably
side by side. I was grateful when it widened out into a small chamber. More
pictures and hieroglyphics covered the walls, and a gold sarcophagus lay in the
center on a slightly raised platform.
I stroked my fingers over the top,
shivering slightly at the cool metal. “This place is awesome,” I said, in an
attempt to break the awkward silence that had settled in between us like an old
friend. “I can’t imagine what kind of fun—and trouble—you must have gotten into
as a kid with the Strip as your playground.”
Reynan forced a slight smile,
though his expression was tense, almost pained. “I didn’t always live here.”
The tone of his voice, while not
entirely standoffish, definitely seemed to shut down any further line of
inquiry.
All these hints and scraps of
information had me wondering about his childhood. It couldn’t have been
traditional, given who his father was, and I startled myself with the
realization that I actually wanted to know more about it—more about him.
Somehow, despite all my best
attempts to stay detached, I’d started to care just a little bit about him. Even
that little bit scared me, because I knew how easy it was for something like
that to grow into more.
Intrigued yet?
Growing up, Allyson was always the girl with a big
imagination and even bigger dreams. A California girl by birth, she currently
lives in Boston while attending Emerson College. She has a slight addiction to
Stabucks, eyeliner, and chocolate—and, of course, books.
You can find Allyson in the following places:
@GottliebAllyson
