by Gwendolyn Druyor
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GENRE: Urban Fantasy
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BLURB:
So they locked her
away.
Laylea has been hiding
her entire life. She’s never been to school. She’s never had a friend her own
age. She’s never known anyone else like her.
All that is about to
change.
In a world hidden from
wyrdos and humans alike, shifters are still recovering from a vicious plot to
destroy them all. They have two laws they live by now:
1) Hide
2) Protect the children
at all costs.
Laylea has just broken
rule number one. But she’s only fourteen. So they’re sending her to school.
Where she’s going to learn . . .
Anyplace can be a
prison.
The Lincoln Park
Shifter School is not your grandma’s uber-secret, underground academy.
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EXCERPT
A long, shrill scream drew Laylea back into the zoo. The
guard who didn’t want to be called Beta was backing away from a tall black man
in jeans, a button-down, and Fox sandals.
“Kyle!” Laylea screamed his name even as she heard KC
screaming hers. “Kyle! You’re a good man! Think of Jeannie and KJ!”
The vampire looked her way. His familiar, affable smile
appeared and he waved at her. “We’re just gonna have a talk. Get back to
school, you reprobate.”
Then the smile melted away as though it had never been and
Kyle stalked out of sight.
“Lee, come on.” KC yanked her out the entrance.
“No,” She tried to pull away but KC was strong. “I have to
help him.”
“No one can help that guy now.”
Tears poured down Laylea’s face. KC was right. If Kyle had
already killed a pack of werewolves, Laylea wasn’t going to be able to stop him
from killing one guard. But she had to try. She hadn’t spent the last seven
months hiding him from Dee and Morioka and everyone else just to give up on
Kyle now. “I can.”
She yanked her arm out of KC’s grip and they both fell on
the uneven steps of the plinth.
top
ten vacation spots Top
Ten Places I’ve Lived
I
don’t like to vacation. I love working. If I don’t love a job, I very quickly
get out of it and move on. I get my travel fix by booking jobs and moving to
new places. You can tell I’ve lived all over just from reading my books. The Mobious’ Quest series takes place in
Kaveg (inspired by Amsterdam), Chicago, and Denver. WereHuman is in the Pacific Northwest. The Killer on Call books have been set in a small town inspired by the
many diverse college towns I’ve toured to with four productions and they’re
going on the road in the next six books!
Shifter School takes me back
to my adopted hometown, Chicago!
I
guess I can blame my Navy parents for my wanderlust. I was born in Rhode
Island. Six months later we moved to Maine. Six years later we moved to Ohio.
When I was sixteen, we moved to Illinois. (1 week after I got my driver’s
license, I drove to Illinois and had to take driver’s ed all over again!) Once
I got out of college, I really started travelling.
Here
are my six favorite homes:
- Amsterdam, NL! After three grueling days of auditioning, Pep Rosenfeld himself invited me to play with Boom Chicago in Amsterdam. I spent every day making people laugh. I got to work with Allison Silverman (The Colbert Report, The Unbreakable Kimmy Shmidt, Portlandia), Greg Scott Shapiro (Superburger, How to Be Orange), Peter Grosz (Late Night, Veep, The President Show), and Seth Meyers (Late Night with Seth Meyers). Plus, I got to LIVE IN AMSTERDAM! Every American should live outside of this country for a little while. I loved Amsterdam. I loved getting around on bicycle and learning a new language. I wrote much of my first book, Geoffrey’s Queen, in Amsterdam and most of the Kavegan language comes from Dutch. Kaveg MEANS Go away.
- Chicago, IL I was not born there. I didn’t live there for very long. But when someone asks, I call Chicago my hometown. I lived in Rogers Park when The Matrix came out. The Wachowskis lived in Rogers Park when they wrote it! For one year, my cousin and I lived in separate studios on the same street right behind The Green Mill. Every Wednesday we went swing dancing there. One night, the band didn’t like the boys we were dancing with, so after their second set, they walked Julia and I home! It’s just a friendly town with tons of amazing experimental theater. If my mother-in-law didn’t live there, I’d move back in a heartbeat.
- Harrisburg, PA I didn’t spend a LOT of time in this adorable little town with THE BEST breakfast spot anywhere. Which is extra hard to achieve when the smelliest business in town is the dog food factory. This is where we were based when I performed 14 roles in three Shakespeare-era shows with ten other actors, travelling the continent in three tiny vehicles. Shenandoah Shakespeare! A true adventure.
- Kennebunk, ME Best place to spend the first six years of your life. We lived on the beach. I have probably eaten a truckload of sand. You had to hold on tight to your PB&J to keep it from the seagulls and sometimes they knocked you down. I don’t actually remember even attempting to brush off my sandwiches. Perhaps the sand is why I only eat SuperChunk peanut butter. My friends tell me about the joy of getting to go to McDonalds as a kid! My family went to the Maine Snack Bar. I’d get fried clams and French fries and then go next door for a Dilly Bar. On specialish occasions, we’d go to Shadrack and Gooch and get my idea of a happy meal. Lobster. Lobsters come with a toy too. If you take the claws off carefully, you can pull on the tendon to make the claw open and close.
- Lake George, NY My first job out of college was dancing as a CanCan girl in upstate New York. The Great Escape in Lake George. An AWFUL job where I met some FABULOUS people. Upstate New York is just stunningly gorgeous but I am grateful I moved away before winter hit. The producers told me I wouldn’t need a car so I ended up rollerblading three miles to and from work every day through the Adirondack Mountains. I left that job with THE best ass.
- Los Angeles, CA I moved West for Sex Signals, an absolutely stunningly funny and effective show aimed at preventing rape. I will forever be honored that I got to perform in this show with three of the most talented and passionate humans on earth. There are parts of L.A. that are exactly how you see it in movies and on TV. But there are also a hundred different little neighborhoods with their own personality. No one could explore them all. But we’ll keep working our way through the little local dives until I figure out where to go next.
I’m ready to go. LA is fun. I adore my friends
here. But I’ve lived in one place for too long. It’s time to move on. Where
should I go?
Gwendolyn
Druyor was born at the Quonset Point Naval Air Station Hospital, North Kingston,
RI. The ID bracelet wrapped three times around her little wrist. She could swim
before she could walk and read before she started school.
She has
traveled the world telling stories. After a year in Amsterdam writing and
performing sketch comedy at Boom Chicago, she toured North America with
Shenandoah Shakespeare and with the incredible educational show Sex Signals.
From Paris, FR to William’s Bay, WI, you’ll find her gypsy life reflected in
her books. If you met her on the road, read her closely, you may find yourself
in there.
For now,
Gwendolyn lives in Hollywood with her Irish Jack Russell, Josh Lyman Zyrga, who
is still pouting over the fact that she didn’t put him on the cover of
WereHuman.
www.GwendolynDruyor.com
For more
information on Gwendolyn and her projects sign up for her newsletter at
www.GwendolynDruyor.com.
LINKS:
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER
CODE
Gwendolyn
Druyor will be awarding $50 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via
rafflecopter during the tour.
