Welcome to the next stop on the excerpt blog tour for Erica O’Rourke’s Dissonance! As you can probably tell, each blog is sharing an excerpt from the book. Head over to Oh, The Books! for the first excerpt. Each blog will post a link to the next stop so you can follow along! Before I share the excerpt, here’s a bit about the book and author!
About the Book:
Delancy Sullivan has always known there’s more to reality than what people see. Every time someone makes a choice, a new, parallel world branches off from the existing one. Eating breakfast or skipping it, turning left instead of right, sneaking out instead of staying in bed ~ all of these choices create an alternate universe in which an echo self takes the road not travelled and makes the opposite decision. As a Walker, someone who can navigate between these worlds, Del’s job is to keep all of the dimensions in harmony.
Normally, Del can hear the dissonant frequency that each world emits as clear as a bell. But when a training session in an off-key world goes horribly wrong, she is forbidden from Walking by the Council. But Del’s not big on following the rules and she secretly starts to investigate these other worlds. Something strange is connecting them and it’s not just her random encounters with echo versions of the guy she likes, Simon Lane.
But Del’s decisions have unimaginable consequences and, as she begins to fall for the Echo Simons in each world, she draws closer to a truth that the Council of Walkers is trying to hide ~ a secret that threatens the fate of the entire multiverse.
About the Author:
Photo by Anja Photography
Erica writes books about girls who make their own fate and fall for boys they shouldn’t. She lives outside Chicago. She likes to travel but says she’ll never really leave Chicago. She prefer cookies to cake (even cupcakes), television to movies, and autumn to all the other seasons. She also likes sushi, naps, coffee, and driving stick shift. She hates fish, emoticons, bridges, and talking about herself. Visit her at EricaORourke.com and on Twitter: @Erica_ORourke.
The Excerpt:
She scowled. “Since you’ve got it figured out, go get your readings.”
“I already checked Simon,” I said, and flashed my phone. I hadn’t just picked his pocket – I’d recorded his frequency, so I could determine exactly how bad this break was. “That’s enough.”
“Three breaks, three readings,” she said firmly.
The thing about Walking is, you’re always playing catch-up. It’s not time travel. You can’t go back and prevent a problem. Once a decision is made, a branch — the choice you didn’t take, an alternate pathway, an alternate world — is created. Most of the time, it’s no big deal. That alternate world, populated by Echoes goes its own way. It creates Echoes of its own, and never interferes with the Key World again.
Every once in a while, for reasons unknown, something goes wrong. There’s a snag in the fabric of reality, a frequency that’s grown too strong or too unstable. Left alone, it will spread, destabilizing the Key World and weakening the other branches of the multiverse. And that’s where Walkers come in — crossing through pivots, cutting off one reality to preserve the rest. Cleaving.
Breaks are the first sign of a problem, but they aren’t necessarily fatal. Like infections, some are more serious than others, so we have to determine which one can be left under observation and which require cleaving. I didn’t doubt this world would end up cleaved – it was sounding worse by the minute – but Addie would never let me bail early.
I’d heard the jogger’s pitch warbling across the park, but the assignment required I get a direct reading to be sure. He came around the curve, checking his pulse, his face red and his shirt sweat-soaked. I wanted our contact to be as brief as possible.
I picked up the pace as he approached, his signature growing louder. Get away clean, Monty always said, and I hustled the last few steps, phone clutched in my hand.
Our paths intersected, my shoulder brushing against his arm. He stumbled onto the grass, yelped and swore.
“Oops,” I said, and kept going. He threw up his hands and continued running. The touch had been brief, but long enough to turn my screen cherry red. I headed back to Addie. “Hand sanitizer? That was gross.”
She passed a tiny bottle over with an expectant look. “Well?”
“Yes, obviously.” I showed her my phone. “I didn’t need a direct read to know he’s a bad break.”
“Augmented break,” she corrected, tugging at the hem of her tweed blazer. “He’s not good or bad; it’s a question of how far his individual frequency has degraded.”
Next Stop:
Uh, yeah. Now you need the whole book, yes?!?!? Be sure to head over to The Cover Contessa for the next excerpt!
Also, Erica and I will be chatting on twitter July 23rd at 8pm EST using #DissonanceChat! Join us for the twitter party! As much as I enjoy chatting with Erica (and believe me, I really do!) it’ll be more fun with more participants! Mark your calendars! July 23! 8pm EST! #DissonanceChat!
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