Today we are helping with a cover reveal for The Burning of Isobel Key by Jen McConnel!
First, a little about the author:
Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).
She is also an active reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.
The Burning of Isobel Key is her first novel. She also writes YA fantasy.
Now, the blurb for The Burning of Isobel Key:
When Lou travels to Scotland, she’s a mess. She’s twenty-six, unemployed, and unsure of herself. It doesn’t help that she’s traveling with Tammy, her best friend, who is everything Lou is not.
At first, the trip pushes Lou towards the brink of depression, but then she meets Brian, a handsome local tour guide. When Brian tells the tourists about the countless witches burned in Scotland, Lou starts to listen. And when she discovers information about Isobel Key, one of the victims of the seventeenth century, Lou finds renewed purpose.
She sets out to learn the truth of the condemned witch, but she isn’t prepared for the knowledge that waits for her. Lou must face her demons if she has any hope of righting the wrongs of the past.
And finally, the cover and a short excerpt!
Excerpt
from THE BURNING OF ISOBEL KEY
She was standing on a spot near the sea in
a place that looked like St. Andrews.
Lou recognized the Old Course over to her left, and realized that she
was somewhere near the modern edge of the town.
In her dream, however, she realized that she was somewhere much more
rural: other than the Old Course and the road running alongside it, there were
no man-made structures. No lights winked
out at her from the darkness, and everything was shrouded in a strange
mist.
Lou heard a noise coming from the direction of town. She froze, knowing that she would not be seen
in a dream, yet she was unaccountably afraid of the sounds coming her way.
The sounds grew more distinct, and Lou saw the source of the noise. A mass of people was surging up the road,
headed in her direction. They carried
lit torches and shouted and jostled each other.
Towards the center of the group, the men and women were carrying
something. It wasn’t until they dropped
part of their burden that Lou could make out the shape of human bones.
The bones were charred, as if they had sat for hours in the fire. She thought she knew who they belonged to,
and her suspicions were confirmed when a man called out “The witch’s soul is
back with her master!” His words were
answered with a cheer, and Lou watched, nauseous, as some of the boys in the
group each picked up a bone and began to batter each other as if they were
playing with wooden swords. A dog ran by
their game and scooped a bony hand into its mouth.
The skull slipped to the ground, and instead of bending to retrieve it,
the woman who carried it began to kick it in front of her like a soccer ball. Lou wanted to cover her eyes, to scream, to
cry at them to stop, but she was frozen in the dream, unable to look away, unable
to stop listening.
The mob passed without noticing her, but one of the mangy dogs trotting
along at the edge of the crowd stopped directly in front of her and howled
once, low and menacing, before continuing along its way. Still unable to move her body, Lou watched as
the crowd passed her. They stopped some
hundred yards away, and Lou watched the flurry of shovels, digging into the
earth. Squinting in the dark, Lou was
just able to make out a thin dirt path, crossing the main road from St. Andrews,
at the spot where the mob had stopped.
“The crossroads!” With that
frenzied thought, she was spinning out of the dream, pulled into absolute
darkness.
She shot up in bed, wild eyed, and looked across the room at Tammy, also
wide awake and staring.
Tammy began to stutter, her face white with terror. “I had an awful dream, Lou. Awful!
There were people, and bones, so many bones, and they were treating the
bones like toys! They even let the dog
gnaw on a hand!” She shuddered. “It was
so awful, I couldn’t stand it.”
Lou crossed the room to her best friend.
“I know. I think I dreamed the
same thing. Did you see where they
buried the bones?”
Tammy shook her head, frantically.
“No, I didn’t see them bury anything.
I just saw them being awful!” Lou squeezed her shoulders, trying to
reassure her.
“I saw them. I saw them too,” she
murmured, soothingly. “But I saw
more. I know where they buried Isobel’s bones!”
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