The Island (The Island #1) by
Jen Minkman
Debut: June 1, 2013
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pages: 138
Summary:
“I walk toward the sea. The endless surface of the
water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.Our world is small. We are
on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep
within us, as taught to us by our forefathers.
If I were to walk westward from here, I would come across a barrier – the Wall.
Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that’s what everyone says.
I have never seen one.”
Leia lives on the Island, a world in which
children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they are ten years
old. Across this Island runs a wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools
living behind it are not amenable to reason – they believe in illusions. That’s
what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their
ancestors.
But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her
life will never be the same. Is what she and her friends believe about the Island
really true?
Or is everyone in their world, in fact, a Fool?
WHEN I step out of my bedroom door, mother and
father are waiting for me in the hallway.
The clothes I’m wearing feel uncomfortable.
They’re grown-up clothes: rough-textured and of practical cut. Made to last for
a long time.
“I go my own way,” I say softly. The words
that every child utters at age ten – the words my brother will say after me
today – don’t sound as if I’m sure of them. But I am, because I know this is right.
I clear my throat and speak up. “I stand on my own two feet. No one takes care
of me but me.”
Father nods solemnly. Mother looks pale and is
staring down at her hands. Why won’t she look at me? Is this her way of saying
she wants nothing more to do with me? I haven’t even moved out yet. Dull
disappointment grows in my stomach like a heavy brick.
The door next to mine swings open, and Colin
steps over the threshold. My twin brother. He’s wearing brown pants and a
simple shirt. Slung across his shoulder is a bag containing a few possessions
he doesn’t want to leave behind. Almost all of our things will be destroyed
after our departure, our rooms cleared, so we won’t ever be tempted to return.
Not that I would want to. I’m done here.
Colin coughs. “I go my own way,” he says with
a quiver in his voice. His eyes search our mother’s. “I stand on my own two
feet.” A tear rolls down his cheek. He’s having a hard time with this. Oh well
– he’s the youngest, after all. There’s a half hour between us.
“No one takes care of you but you,” father
finishes the speech, when Colin can’t go on.
When I pass my mother, she suddenly puts a
hand on my shoulder. “Leia,” she says, pulling a simple bead necklace from her
dress pocket. It has a painted and glazed walnut for a pendant. “For you.”
My heart skips a beat. That’s the necklace my
mother got from her mother when she moved out. And now she’s giving it to me.
“Thanks,” I whisper. Just for a moment, I
imagine her giving me so much more than this. I feel this can’t be the end, but
just then my father pushes open the front door for us. I walk out after my
brother, into the early daylight, away from my mother.
Colin is waiting for me and grabs my hand.
“You coming?” he mumbles.
We walk down the path without looking back.
We’re going to the manor, where we will live until we get married and have
children ourselves.
The front door slams shut. A new life has
begun.
Author Info:
Jen Minkman
(1978) was born in Holland, in the town of Alphen aan den Rijn. When she was
19, she moved between The Hague, Salzburg (Austria), Brussels (Belgium) and
Cambridge (UK) to complete her studies in intercultural communication. She is
currently a teacher of English and Dutch at a secondary school in The Hague,
Holland. She tries to read at least 100 books a year (and write a few, too!).
She is a published author in her own country, and translates her own books from
Dutch into English for self-publication.
In her spare time, she plays the piano, the guitar and the violin. For every
novel she writes, she creates a soundtrack.
>> I have
always been drawn to writing. My first book was a sci-fi novel at the age of
eight, which I painstakingly typed out on my dad’s typewriter and illustrated
myself. Nowadays, I stick to poetry, paranormal romance, chicklit and/or
fantasy. In my home country, I am the first-ever published writer of paranormal
romance, and I will gradually make my books also available in English (seeing I
have to re-write and translate the books myself, this will take some time!).<<
The Waves (The Island #2) by
Jen Minkman
Debut: October 4, 2013
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pages: 174
Blurb:
Walt lives in Hope Harbor, an island community
that has put its trust in salvation from across the sea. The townspeople wait
patiently, build their ships to sail out and welcome the Goddess, and piously
visit the temple every week. Horror stories to scare their children are told
about the Unbelievers on the other side of Tresco.
But not all is what it seems. Walt has questions that no one can answer, and
when his best friend and cousin Yorrick is killed in an accident, he digs
deeper to find out the truth about the origins of Hope Harbor’s society… and
the secrets of the temple.
THE FIRST memory I have of my grandfather is
of a moment that we share together.
I’m sitting on his knee looking out over the
harbor. Grandpa is smoking a pipe. He points at the horizon. “Look, Walt. Our
ships are out there. And one day, another even more beautiful ship will appear
at the horizon. A mighty ship to take us all away.”
“Where to, Grandpa?” I ask curiously.
He remains quiet. “No one knows exactly,” he
says at last, “but that doesn’t make it any less fantastic. One day, that ship
will come in. And Annabelle will be on the prow with open arms, inviting us all
to come on board.”
The Goddess with black hair waving in the
wind, as portrayed on the biggest wall of our temple.
“Why don’t we sail to her ourselves?” I want
to know.
“Because she promised she would come,” Grandpa
replies. “And in that promise we trust. It’s only the Unbelievers who think
they can do everything themselves. They have no faith in the Goddess.”
I was only five, but I still clearly remember
feeling a cold shiver running through my body after hearing that last remark.
Most children in Hope Harbor are scared of the stories their parents tell them
about the Unbelievers: if you don’t visit the temple every week, they will get
you in your sleep. If you don’t listen to the priests, they will send you out
into the wilderness behind the Wall where the Unbelievers dwell, their robes of
black and masks of horror a sure sign of their sinfulness. Once they sink their
claws into you, there’s not a chance you will ever return.
But that was then.
I know better now – because I’ve been there,
and yet I am still alive.
About the Author:
About Alyssa Rose Ivy:
Author Info:
Chelsea M. Cameron is a YA/NA New York Times/USA Today Best Selling
author from Maine. Lover of things random and ridiculous, Jane Austen/Charlotte
and Emily Bronte Fangirl, red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker,
vegetarian, former cheerleader and world's worst video gamer. When not writing,
she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car and tweeting (this one
time, she was tweeted by Neil Gaiman). She has a degree in journalism from the
University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the
people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just
as weird as she is.
