Title: The Broken Destiny: A Broken Novel Book one
Author: Carlyle Labuschagne
Genre: Dystopian. Science- Fiction. YA
Release Date: November 2014
Publishers: Hallowed Ink
Press
Blurb:
"You cannot know what light is if you have not experienced
darkness"
Ava and her
people have been exiled to the planet Poseidon for reasons she can't fathom.
Upon meeting a boy from a different sector, her life turns into a beautiful
chaos. She begins to feel things she isn't allowed to, thus motivating her to
find out the truth about why her kind are so different, and why the Council are
so interested in her. Once her mind is freed, with it comes a terrible power
that could either save her kind, or destroy them all. But Ava is not the
perfect heroine. She will become what she hates to save the ones she loves, and
the cost of such a burden is deadly at
best.
Carlyle Labuschagne is a
South African award winning author working her way into the hearts of
international readers with her first two books in the Broken Trilogy. Her first
young adult dystopian novel "The Broken Destiny" reached top 3 in its
YA debut Category. The Sequel Evanescent won YATR literary award for best
Sci-Fi book 2013.
Her become a published author prgramme for students launched
Feb 2014.
She is not only an author, but works as a marketing manager
by day. She holds a diploma in creative writing through the writing school at
College SA.
Carlyle loves to swim, fights for the trees, and is a food
lover who is driven by her passion for life. Carlyle also writes for IU
e-magazine India, an inspirational non-profit magazine that aims at inspiring
the world through words. The drive behind her author career is healing through
words. Carlyle is also the founder of the first annual book drive – Help Build
A Library in Africa Project. And hopes to launch her very own Indie book
festival in Johannesburg March 2015.
“My goal as an author is to touch people’s lives, and help
others love their differences and one another.”
Author
Links:
Buy Links:
Prologue
All my
life, I had searched for something; something I thought I ought to be. I felt
like I was living someone else’s life, waiting for the awakening of my own. I
felt like an empty shell burning for life. That was, until the day I lay dying
in the prince’s chambers. I could no longer feel the pain from the tear in my
gut. The only sensation left was a hollowed-out feeling that I had made a huge
mistake in assuming that taking my own life, would have stopped the ancestors’
spirit from raging out. I had given up. I didn’t want to see myself killing the
ones I loved.
I was
the Chosen One, but I threw it all away for what I thought would save a life.
Could you end a life to save a life? I did, and I have regretted it ever since.
I realized then that things like me were not meant to
exist.
What had
been missing my whole life? It was I. To find myself,
I had to lose myself in the worst possible way. The consequences of my actions
became the legend of ‘The Broken’.
Excerpt
two:
Chapter One
Oh, Star
I wasn’t
sure why they called us ‘The Broken’, but what I did know for certain was that
we were different from the other ‘human’ inhabitants of this planet. We were
the third generation of our kind, with a huge―some would say, cursed―destiny.
We are also the last of our kind, a dying race. I used to believe that the
reason we were exiled to Planet Poseidon
was because we were a lot different from the humans on Earth. They tell us at
assembly every morning that we are what survived of Earth because of those
differences.
Global warming, war and evil undertakings were said to
have contributed to Earth’s destruction in the late twentieth century. Greed
stripped Earth of its ‘magic’ and caused the planet to turn on itself. A way of
getting rid of the ‘virus’, so to speak. Did I buy into those lies anymore -
No. I believed that there was a lot more to the story behind our origins and
our extradition to a long forgotten sector within the Titan galaxy was no
accident. I could feel it in the cold burn of my legs as I walked the hollow
halls of our institutions, and I could see it on the eerie motionless faces of
my peers every day. Little by little, small things started changing and I
started believing in the signs my mother wrote about in her secret
journals.
A
haunting feeling stared back at me as I looked upon my reflection in the
monitor every morning, clearly remembering as a young child my iris were a lot
bluer. At first I thought it was the effect of the changeover from mirror to
monitor. I used to think that maybe the mirror was
the lie. That it was evil and that that was the reason it had been outlawed.
But so many new laws had been put into place over the last few years, I was
beginning to doubt our perfect Utopia really existed, that beneath the surface
something deceivingly dark was brewing, and the nightmares my biological mother
wrote about were real events the council had stripped from her memories.
Keeping it on paper was the only way she could decipher real memories from the
planet ones.
Excerpt
3
My
mother has me in some kind of arranged marriage, to the chief’s idiotic son of
all people. I don’t want that. But it’s my duty. I have to. ” She said staring
into the ground.
“You don’t have to anything!” I shouted defensively.
“No one can force you into a life you don’t want.”
My heart
was racing, as my feet hit the wooden platform of the bridge. But the look on
Maya’s face made me calm my anger and consider my words carefully, because the
truth was that people did make me do
things I didn’t want to.
Maya
didn’t speak for a moment. From her facial expressions, I could tell she was
having a fascinating debate in her own head. My eyes fell on the small stream.
Only, the stream was no longer gentle.
“What do
you suppose this means, then?” I asked Maya as I stopped to look over the edge
of the bridge, my hands grasping the rail firmly as I peered all the way down
the shallow canyon. By the look on her face, I knew I wasn’t imagining things
and that she was concerned, not excited to have the planet alive again. Surely
this would mean the cycle of autumn is finally over? She stood motionless on
the overpass. We were both looking down on what used to be the tiny stream that
snaked through the pebbles and disappeared over the ridge among the rocks and
into the valley.
Maya
grabbed my right arm tightly and tugged me away with such force that I almost
fell over my own feet. Our footfalls clattered loudly over the bridge, as it
slowly swayed beneath us.
“Slow
down, will you?” I yelled at her in frustration. “What’s going on, Maya?” The
urgency in my voice momentarily startled us both.
“The
prophecy,” she said distantly, keeping her eyes straight
ahead.
“What?”
I snapped.
But all
she would say over and over again was: “It’s too soon! Too soon. Something’s
wrong.”
I heard
a loud thud. The bridge suddenly swayed dramatically and I looked down, trying
to figure out what could have caused the sudden erratic motion. I noticed Maya
extracting a sharp object from her boot. She was crouching down, baring her
teeth like a wild cat. I tried to turn, but a sharp sting shot through my
thigh. I looked down to see a long, red splinter protruding from my
skin.
Maya
shrieked and came at me, a thin dagger gripped tightly in her hand. She came
hard and fast. I stood frozen in shock. What is she
doing?My vision blurred and I started feeling dizzy. Maya yelled for
me to get down, but I was frozen with fear. Suddenly, she ran around me and up
on to the railing. She came crashing down―not on me as I had expected, but on
something behind me. I staggered and fell on my hands and knees, barely feeling
the hard wood as it pressed against my trembling palms and bony
knees.
There
was shouting. The bridge continued to sway beneath me, making it hard for me to
clear my head…to get away. I managed to turn my neck just in time to see two
dark figures climbing over the railing, reaching for me. Four powerful, dark
hands clamped down on my arms and legs and lifted me off my feet. I heard Maya
scream my name, but I was limp and couldn’t move.
As I was
hurled away, unable to struggle, I could make out Maya’s form standing over the
body of one of our attackers. She struck out at the two remaining assailants
who were dragging me away. Another sudden shudder shook the bridge. I could
hear the sound of weapons and fists flying around me. I dropped to the floor,
suddenly free. By now I was completely numb. I didn’t feel the thud. It should
have hit me full on. Instead, I tasted dust and then
copper; blood.
Maya stood
over me and yelled for someone called Enoch. I looked up at her as my vision
faintly perceived two Zulu warriors grabbing her. I shouted for her safety, but
the words got stuck in my throat, and I was lifted to my feet once more as they
tore her off me. Maya screamed and fought her way out of our attackers’ claws.
I heard an object slice through the air, passing over my head with a soft
whistle. A dull thump and a soft growl followed, before the hands let me
go.
This
time I didn’t hit the ground. I kept on falling. I could barely hear the water
over the shouting and after what felt like an immense force, I was underwater
being overpowered by the cold.
Crystal
blue eyes floated towards me like shooting stars, and I allowed myself to
surrender to the darkness.
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