Thrill
by Wendy Potocki
from Goodreads:
SOME RIDES SHOULD
NEVER BE TAKEN ...
Kyle Evans is a teenager who wants to be somebody. To
achieve his goal, he joins a gang called Hell's Bells. While he thinks he's
arrived, he only finds danger.
The club is obsessed with finding thrills and taking
chances, but Kyle’s unaware that there’s a price to pay. Up for a dare, he
accepts a challenge that lands him on the wrong side of the supernatural.
Paperback, 1, 340 pages
Published January 30th 2014 by Createspace
ISBN13 9781494847791
excerpt 1:
Ky awoke, groggy from last
night’s fiasco. Feeling as if he’d been run over by a truck, he’d been plagued
by nightmares that had lasted the whole night. The game they’d played with
Digger was relived in vivid detail, but Ky’s darkest imagination had rewritten
the scene, twisting it like a garrote around a non-compliant neck.
He’d dreamt he was alone
and wandering the darkened streets of Spooky Town. On a mission, he was trying
to find Digger. As he approached the park, he stayed near the curb. More
concerned with the broken glass than any other danger, a gnarled pair of hands
reached out from sewers and latched onto his ankles. Whatever lived underground
tried to drag him through the grated opening, the howl of that accursed dog
sending ripples of fear through his heart.
Although the unearthly
sound portended a gruesome death, Kyle tried to fight off the fingers that had
gained a firm hold. He kicked the filthy hands away, running into Needle Park
to escape. Pairs of luminescent eyes watched him flounder. Some orbs stationed
in the sky, others hid behind bushes. They knew he didn’t belong in this part
of town, but Ky had no choice. He had to help his father and to do that, he
needed to find Digger.
The blue of the derelict’s
blanket acted as a grave marker. Finding Digger huddled under it, Ky dangled a
bottle of liquor in front of the old man. He didn’t have to prompt him any
further. Ky pulled Hans from his jacket pocket. Digger took the weapon into his
shaking hands, examining it by the light of the fire. Inappropriate hysteria
broke through the vagrant’s mouth, the round of guffaws causing saliva to froth
like boiling milk. It dribbled onto the thatch of hair on his chin. The thick
mucus threaded its way through the strands entwined with mildew.
The roaring blaze
illuminated the disaster, but Ky didn’t want to see. He tried closing his eyes,
but he was forced to listen to the damned hound belting out its tune. At least
the wailing covered up the frivolity emanating from Digger’s throat.
It was the alcohol
producing the erratic behavior. The blue eyes diluted by years of substance
abuse scanned the grounds that acted as the stage for this drama. The clusters
of trees drooped like moth-eaten fans, their branches shading the larcenous
activities. Digger hesitated, his graying head stilling as he whispered in
Kyle’s ear.
“Anything happens to me,
son, that dog is gonna getcha!”
Kyle pulled back,
frightened from the outrageous statement. Digger leveled his eyes and placed
the barrel of the gun to his temple.
excerpt 2:
“Ah, Kyle, could you have a
seat, please?” Zelinski greeted.
Always trying to be
everyone’s friend, Hobbit failed
miserably. The nickname of a Tolkien character was perfect for him. With his
slight stature and his out-of-date clothing, everyone agreed that it suited him
better than his given monicker.
“Sure,” Kyle slurred,
dropping his books on Hobbit’s desk. The principal shut the door as Ky seated
himself in one of two chairs. The principal’s shod hairy feet closed in, but
Kyle ignored the intrusion. As Zelinski took his place behind the oversized
desk, Kyle wondered if Hobbit was going to have to prop himself up on textbooks
to see over the top.
“I suppose you’re wondering
why you were called here,” the student’s best friend started. Stating the
obvious, was it really going to go down like that? Kyle didn’t know about
Zelinski, but he was in no mood for this. No mood at all.
“Yeah! Of course, I was!”
Kyle snapped. Short-tempered, he stopped just short of getting tossed out of
school for a few days. He’d rather take his own days off than have this asshole
make his decisions for him.
Zelinski took the flippant
reply as a joke. Chuckling good-naturedly, the misidentification pissed Kyle
off even more, but he decided to leave it alone.
“This is about the incident
involving a …” Pausing in the explanation, Zelinski picked up a file on his
desk. Adjusting the frames of his glasses, he continued, “…Garvin Oto. His
computer club was vandalized a few nights ago.”
Bracing himself, Kyle dug
his fingernails into the arm of the uncomfortable chair. Did the school
purposely choose them for the express purpose of causing visitors as much agony
as possible? Kyle ran through the events of that evening, trying to figure out
where he and Carnie had gone wrong. What mistake had they made that led old
Zelinski straight to him?
He decided to let Hobbit do
the talking. Most suspects got themselves into trouble by yapping too much, but
nothing like that was going to happen. Kyle was too smart and being too well
schooled to deliberately walk into quicksand.
Zelinski peered at him
unassumingly over the beige rims of his glasses. The oatmeal color matched his
pasty complexion. Pursing his lips, the none-too-bright administrator was
playing a waiting game. With no utterance forthcoming, the silence became too
much. Switching tactics, the administrator began shoveling garbage at the tight-lipped
teenager, hoping the smell would stick.
“Know anything about it?”
“Just what I heard.”
My Review:
First I want to say, I love the cover. This book has the right name because, a Thrill is what I felt
from reading it. Kyle a young man what
has bullied so he joins a gang, Hell’s Bells, to be less vulnerable. He wants feel that he fits in and is a part of something. All the gang members are lunatic that like living on the edge and
waiting for their next thrill, adrenaline junkies. Kyle
forgets the values he has been thought and gives in to peer pressure. It is a novel with some amazing supernatural twist that will kept me on the edge of your seat. Thrill grabbed my interest and pull me into the story. It kept me reading to see what is going to happen to Kyle and his new friends. This is a wonderful book and will definitely give
you a Thrill. I look forward to reading
more by Wendy Potocki.
about the author:
Wendy Potocki lives and writes in NYC. If that isn’t scary
enough, she writes in the genre of horror. She feels creating good horror is an
art form. She religiously devotes herself to pursuing it over hill and dale …
and in the crevices of her keyboard.
Recently named one of The Top Ten “New” Horror Authors by
Matt Molgaard of Horror Novel Reviews, she
has five self-published novels: The White Lady Murders, The Horns of
September, The Man with the Blue Hat, Adduné: Part I. The Vampire’s Game. and
her latest, Adduné: Part II. The House of Cards. Book trailers for many of her
works may be found on her official website http://www.wendypotocki.com/. Her
next planned projects are Black Adagio, The Virgin, and Thrill.
In her spare time,
she loves to go for long walks, drink Starbuck’s Apple Chai Lattes, make
devotional offerings to her cat named Persephone, and be stilled by the grace,
beauty and magic of ballet.
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