As You Wish Reviews: Promotional Event / Sliding Beneath the Surface by Doug Dillon

Book Title: Sliding Beneath the Surface (Book 1)

Trilogy: The St. Augustine Trilogy

Author: Doug Dillon

Release Date: August 24, 2011

Print Length: 166 Pages

Genre: YA Paranormal

Presented by: As You Wish Tours

Hello St. Augustine Fans! Let’s not forget the YA Paranormal Fans!

For five days, the Kindle version will be available FOR FREE on Amazon—a special promotion, September 4th - 8th. Help spread the word and tell everyone you know! Click here to get your copy today—Sliding Beneath the Surface.

What readers are saying -

“ I would recommend this book for young adults who like history and the paranormal, as well as adult readers who are interested as well. ”

- Kristy

“ Cant wait to read the next book. ”

- billie

“ From the very beginning of this book I was hooked. ”

- Cait E.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS

In old St. Augustine, Florida, fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden’s recurring dream of being stabbed in the chest and bleeding all over his bed is driving him crazy. It’s causing him to lose sleep and giving him severe headaches. When his psychically gifted friend Carla and an ornery Native American shaman named Lobo try to help, Jeff is inundated with terrifying paranormal experiences.

Reaching out of Florida’s distant past, something increasingly entangles Jeff in tentacles of danger that threaten his sanity and eventually his life. But the harder he tries to understand, the deeper he gets. When comprehension finally dawns though, time has almost run out. Lobo does his best to prepare Jeff for what he must face in order to survive but it may be too little and too late.

It’s at this point that both Jeff and Carla find themselves swept headlong into an alternative reality from which they may never return. If they don’t quickly and fully adapt to this situation, all hope is lost. From Lobo they know how it might be possible to change what is happening but the question is, can they? Repeatedly, Lobo has told both teens, “You create your own reality whether in this world or in another.” If acted upon properly, that advice just might save their lives and end suffering on an even wider scale.

EXCERPT

While I fumbled with my thoughts, Carla opened her eyes, and man did they get wide. I mean she was almost bug-eyed. It isn‘t often she‘s speechless, but that was one of those times. Her mouth hung open and I could feel her grip tighten on my shoulder. After taking a quick glance around, she swiveled her head so she was looking directly at me. Her grip on my shoulder tightened. In her eyes, I could read the same awe, disbelief and fear that had run through my mind in the dark on Lobo‘s porch, and on the same road where I stood the first time I arrived at that place. Never before had I seen Carla so afraid. It took a lot to scare her.

"Take it easy," I said in a soft voice, but even so, her fingers gripped my left shoulder like a vice. "I‘m with you and it‘s OK," I told her. Of course that was a bunch of crap, but what else was I going to say?

"You … weren‘t kkidding, were you Golden Boy?" Carla finally managed to say, her voice really shaky and not just from being cold. Again, she looked all around, but her grip on my shoulder hadn‘t let up one bit.

"Nope, I wasn‘t kidding," I replied taking a deep breath. "Welcome to my weird world."

"Dear Lord, Jjeff, you described it to me … bbut seeing it for real is … unbelievable."

"Tell me about it," I replied. I stood up then, making sure I kept my eyes on the road. I had to stop sitting on that wet ground. Carla did the same, but as she rose, she kept staring at something behind me. "What?" I asked, turning to look for myself.

"This is it," Carla said, her voice barely a whisper. "This is where the battle is going to take place."

With a chill of recognition, I had to agree with her. Lobo‘s description of the battle site included a pond with tall grass—exactly what was in front of us. I felt as if eyes were watching me from behind, on the other side of the road where I now knew the Seminoles hid. My breath caught in my throat as I again tried to figure out what to do.

From far down the road to our left, way beyond where we could see, a dog barked. Lobo hadn‘t said anything about dogs. Carla‘s eyes widened even more than they were before. I‘m sure mine must done the same thing. At that point though, I had no doubt over 100 soldiers would soon be coming up the road from the direction of the dog bark—right into the ambush.

Dream world or not, this was our reality and our lives depended on what we did or didn‘t do, you know?

"Jeff!" Carla whispered in a harsh, serious voice as she grabbed my arm again, this time with both hands. I figured she was worried about the 180 Seminoles strung out on the other side of the road, but her eyes had this wild look I didn‘t understand. She wasn‘t just scared, she looked petrified and she shook my arm hard.

"What?" I asked when she didn‘t explain right away. "Come on Carla, what? We don‘t have much time!"

After taking a deep shuddering breath, she stared at me with the most pitiful expression I had ever seen on a person, and she said, "The soldiers will be … here … with those dogs."

"O.K, we‘ll deal with it somehow," I said, trying to sound a lot more confident than I really felt.

"No, Jeff, you don‘t understand. To these people in this time, they‘ll see me as … as a slave, maybe even a runaway. I don‘t have any documents to prove I‘m not. Besides, they use dogs to track down runaways."

Carla‘s words and the horror in her eyes sliced me like a knife. Only then, did I understand how real the idea of slavery must be to her. She was scared to death and I had no idea what to do or say to make her feel better. The only words that came out of my mouth were, "Oh man." Pretty lame, huh? My worries from before about what to say to Lieutenant Walton and anybody else on that road had just doubled. How can I explain Carla? I wondered, but I remembered what Lobo told me about talking to my ancestor. “Use whatever words come to mind,” he had said.

Slowly, it dawned on me that I needed to put into action my ability to manipulate adults. It worked a lot of the time on parents, teachers and even cops, so I figured maybe somehow it might work in that situation. You see, I can make myself sound very logical and use that good memory of mine to confuse adults when I need to. Well, adults other than Lobo that is. I think it works because they don‘t want to admit that what I‘m saying makes no sense, or that I‘ve outsmarted them. Weird but true. Mom says it‘s my "gift for gab" and I should take up a career in sales.

"Carla!" I said, with the biggest grin I could create as I grabbed both of her hands. "I can handle this but you‘ve got to play along, OK? It won‘t be easy but you‘ve got to trust me. I can do it."

When her eyes brightened a bit and she said, "OK," I knew we were on our way.

"Great," I replied as that dog barked even closer than before. When a second dog barked, Carla winced. We both kept staring down the road as we talked.

"Now listen," I told her, "if they think of you as a slave, they‘ll expect me as the white guy to do the talking, right? I‘ll ah, act as if I‘m, er, ah, well, your owner, and you play your part. OK?"

"What?" She screeched, looking at me as if I had lost my mind. "You want me to actually pretend I‘m a slave?"

"You got a better idea?"

"I … uh, guess not," she said, right as those two dogs started barking more rapidly and at a higher pitch. In seconds, some of their yapping turned into these long howls, kind of like they had found something.

"Dear God!" Carla whispered, squeezing my arm hard as she stood on her tip toes to see farther down the road.

That‘s when I saw them—the dogs—big, both kind of light brown in color and coming our way, fast!

AUTHOR BIO
A former award winning educator, Doug writes about things paranormal and historical. His interest in the paranormal comes from personal experiences as detailed in the nonfiction adult book he and wife wrote titled, An Explosion of Being: An American Family's Journey into the Psychic. Out of those events and extensive historical research, he then created Sliding Beneath the Surface for young adults, Book I of the St. Augustine Trilogy. Doug set his trilogy in the oldest and most haunted city in the United States, St. Augustine, Florida. Books II and III of the trilogy are on the way.