Bibliophile Mystery: Book Blitz! Excerpt and Giveaway Across the Wire by Stella Telleria

Published November 2013

Smashwords / Amazon / Kobo

When Mia Mitchell, a hardcore but lonely former Marine, steps into an alley to pull some thugs off an unlucky foreigner, she walks into a fight she expects. What she doesn’t see coming is the foreigner making her a job offer any sane person would refuse. So, she takes it. She thinks she’s headed for some third-world country; instead she’s mysteriously transported to an Earth-like parallel world. That’s a mad left-hook.

Mia discovers a matriarchal dystopia where freedom doesn’t exist and fighting for it means execution. Lethal force bends all to the law; women fear for their families and un-wed men suffer slavery. Mia’s job is to train an underground syndicate of male freedom-fighters for a violent revolution. However, the guys don’t want a pair of X chromosomes showing them the way.

Eben, an escaped slave, is encouraged by Mia to become a leader among the men. But when he turns his quiet determination on her, it spells F.U.B.A.R. for cynical Mia. Their unexpected connection threatens more than her exit strategy; it threatens the power struggle festering with in the syndicate.

Haunted by nightmares and post-traumatic stress, unsure who to trust or how to get home, Mia struggles to stay alive as she realizes all is not what it seems.

I ground my teeth. Don’t give up.

Looking around the cell, I searched for anything that might break the collar. The bars. Maybe if I wedged the end of the pillory between them I could twist the hinge. I struggled to get on my feet. While on my knees, someone entered through the first door of the cell. It was the same sentry that had run to the outhouse after me. My heart dropped.

Her mouth fell open as she took in the empty cell and bent bars. She turned, headed for the panic button on the wall that would trigger the alarm. It was all over now—I hoped Gavin had gotten out.

Something struck the side of the sentry’s head. She stumbled, fighting for balance, arms flailing to steady her. The man with the holster appeared from the gloom, hidden in the night by his black clothes, holding a bar in each of his hands. The sentry raised her shock-rod. The zing of the charged rod echoed through the cell. The woman shot forward, shock-rod in hand, needing contact to electrocute unlike the stun-guns.

“Look out!” I said.

He’d blocked the woman’s attack with his rod. A spark from the shock-rod lit the cell for a second. He’d sidestepped her, hooked the sentry’s arm back with a rod, and struck her on the forearm. Bone cracked. The sentry screamed. The shock-rod dropped from her useless right hand. A second blow knocked the woman out. She crumpled like a heap of rags thrown carelessly against the wall.

He slipped through the bars and crouched next to me while he tucked the rods into a belt at his hip. How did he know how to fight like that?

“You came back?” I stared at him.

He reached for his neck and pulled the swathe off his head. Comprehension slammed me in the face. The man with the holster was a woman.

I flinched away from her. She looked me straight in the eye, and I couldn’t look away. Her gaze held me like the collar around my neck; there was no resisting. I was that shocked.

“Listen, I’m gonna get you out of here. What’s your name?” Her hands rested on the wood around my neck.

A cough racked through me, I couldn’t get enough air. Felt like a serrated knife stabbed me in the side with each hack.

Her hands went to my face. Her touch startled me, her fingers laced through my dirty beard. I twitched again, uncomfortable with the contact, but the look on her face told me she was serious. “What’s your name?”

“Eben.” My response came out like a croak, but the cough died.

“Eben,” she said, and somehow my name sounded different when she said it. “I’m Mia and I’m not leaving without you.”

All my life I’ve dreamed of stories or have had my nose buried in one. I live in Edmonton, Canada with my husband and my weird sense of humor.

I love old war movies, dystopian fiction, and any story with action, a good plot, and characters I'd get into a fight at the pub for. Not that I'm a brawler or anything. Unless you think that out-of-print book or vintage piece at the thrift shop is going home with you instead of me. Then, my friend, the gloves are off.

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