Immurement
by Norma
Hinkens
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian/Sci-fi
Release Date: December 9th 2015
Dunecadia Publishing
Summary from Goodreads:
The earth’s core overheats.
The sovereign leader vanishes. A young girl is the survivors’ only hope …
What little land is habitable is patrolled by cutthroat gangs of escaped
subversives, but that’s not the greatest threat facing sixteen-year-old Derry
Connelly, her brother Owen, and a ragged band of Preppers holed up in a bunker
in the Sawtooth Mountains. Mysterious hoverships operated by clones are
targeting adolescents for extraction.
Owen, is one of the first to disappear. To save him, Derry must strike a deal
with the murderous subversives, and risk a daring raid to infiltrate the heart
of the extraction operation.
But will the rookie leader falter when forced to choose between her brother and
a clone who ignites something inside her she didn’t know was possible?
Excerpt:
I trace
the trigger housing on my gun and count the remaining clones congregated around
the room. We’re grossly
outnumbered. And Owen is weaponless. This can’t
end well if we don’t comply.
“You have
thirty seconds to accept my terms,” Lyong says, a nettled edge to his voice.
I shiver,
picturing his one-eyed tic appraising me in a monitor somewhere as he talks,
his papery skin rippling with the effort of speech. I can’t
see a way out of the situation that gives me any chance of saving Owen, other
than to negotiate. Hesitantly, I raise my arms and step forward.
“My brother’s injured,” I yell. “If you give us your word you’ll help him, we’ll
turn over our weapons.”
My heart
strains in my chest. I’m counting
on Mason and Sven to hold their fire. I wait for what seems like forever,
steeling myself for Lyong’s
response.
The intercom
crackles to life, but Lyong’s words
are drowned out in a barrage of gunfire. I pitch sideways beneath a conveyer
belt and huddle in a ball, shaking. Debris pelts me from every angle; chunks of
seat cushions, shredded medical tubing, shards of glass from exploding computer
screens. A pungent chemical smell fills the air.
All over
the room, disoriented Schutz Clones fly backward. I stare in disbelief as they
writhe in death throes, ossifying before my eyes. Mason bolts across the floor
and rolls under the belt beside me. His eyes gleam like cat’s eyes in the dim light. “It’s
the Council,” he yells, between breaths. “They’ve
penetrated the Craniopolis!”
I blink as
I digest what he’s saying,
my ears roaring.
Mason
slams a fresh cartridge into his gun, his knuckles bleeding profusely. “They
must have triggered the explosion. They’ve been
planning an attack for months.”
My brain
slowly wraps itself around the information. There’s
still a chance of getting out of here alive. I unload my pack and roll over
into sniper position. “Then let’s finish this.” I lock eyes with Mason. “For Owen.”
Buy Links:
About the Author
For news and special offers join Norma's VIP Reader List at http://eepurl.com/bDGdIX.
Travel junkie, former professional globetrotter, legend lover, idea wrangler.
Norma Hinkens has lived, worked and visited her way across continents, soaking
up stories along the way. Her writing is influenced by the resilient characters
she met along the way; everyone has a story!
Norma grew up among vibrant storytelling traditions in her native Ireland.
She's a legend-loving author who takes a fiendish delight in pushing reluctant
characters over cliffs to find out what they’re made of. Epic odds, seemingly
impossible missions, pasts that haunt, intrigue and misadventure. She’s
happiest when wrangling provocative big picture ideas that are never black and
white when you turn them inside out. It’s all about the tension in the journey.
She currently resides in California with her husband, three children and
Chihuahua extraordinaire. She is the author of the YA post-apocalyptic
Undergrounders Series: Immurement, Embattlement and Adjudgement.
Author
Links:
Author Interview:
What is the hardest part about
being a writer?
Treating it like a real job where
you have to show up at a certain time and put in your hours on a daily basis.
It’s all too easy to throw in a load of
laundry, start answering emails and jump on Facebook, and before you know it
half the morning has been swallowed up with trivial pursuits. Once you commit
to the discipline of treating your writing time as sacred, you can make real
progress in terms of the quality of your craft, and the quantity of writing you
produce.
What inspired you to write
this book?
I've always been fascinated by
regimes and resistance movements, and the heroes who emerge from atrocities. I
grew up reading every concentration camp escape story I could get my hands on.
As an author, I find it intriguing to place characters in dystopian,
post-apocalyptic or sci-fi settings and watch what unfurls inside them as they
go head to head with staggering odds. After spending several summers in Idaho,
and learning more about Preppers and survivalists, the idea to plant Derry
Connolly in a bunker community of homesteaders and mountain men took seed and
The Undergrounders Series was born.
How many hours per day do you
spend writing?
I aim for about three hours of
writing time, five days a week. I sometimes do some editing later in the day if
I have extra time, but with three kids heading in different directions most
days, it gets frantic!
Have you always enjoyed
writing?
I grew up among rich storytelling
traditions in my native Ireland and it was a natural transition for me to try
my hand at writing. Irish legends are full of action, adventure, impossible
missions, and unlikely heroes, and to this day nothing captivates me more than
an epic story. Anything along the lines of The Hunger Games or The Divergent
Series is always a must read for me, only because I’m endlessly fascinated by
the capacity of heroic individuals to rise above tyranny and change the course
of history. As a child, I was always reading or scribbling something, and I
have a stack of poems, stories and half-finished projects that document some of
the big picture ideas I was wrestling with even back then.
How did you choose the title?
There are three books in the
series and the titles track the internal growth of the main protagonist Derry
Connolly. Immurement is the state of being entombed or confined
in an enclosed space. At the outset of book one Derry is trapped in her own
self-doubt and insecurity. The bunker symbolizes the prison she yearns to break
out of in order to find her place and calling in a world with no rule book.
Embattlement is the
state of being engaged in battle or conflict. As well as describing the obvious
physical struggle against the Sweepers, the title symbolizes the “civil war” of
sorts that wages inside Derry as she rises up against everything that has held
her back.
Judgement is the act of imposing judgement. Derry discovers a
lot of harsh truths about leadership during her journey, not the least of which
is that every great leader must discern when to seek reconciliation and when to
pursue retribution. Internally, Derry must evaluate her own moral imperfections
and the darkness lurking in her own heart.
Best piece of advice for
writers trying to break in?
If you are certain writing is
where your passion and strengths intersect, don’t take your eyes off the goal.
Put your shoulder to the wheel and throw your whole heart into mastering the
craft, and taking incremental steps toward publication. Dogged persistence will
get you there in the end, and the talent you have honed along the way will be
your staying power.
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