Sneak Peek!!

Hello everyone! As you are likely all aware, I have a new book releasing soon! And so, that means it's time for treats! Sneak peeks, previews, fun and games, and exclusive information that only you readers will ever know about.

Today, I'm going to post a sneak peek of the new book! There will be a title and cover reveal on the home page of Wild Horse Publishing, so keep an eye on the countdown timer there! I can't wait to see what y'all think of it!

And now, without further delay...

The Sneak Peek!

Ethan followed his brother, and the two wormed their way through the small entrance into the fort. Ethan sat up and saw that Jonas was looking in an open cardboard box. “I remember this!” He pulled out a flashlight and tossed it to Ethan.

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Dad gave me this on my tenth birthday. Wow, I never thought I’d see it again.”

“Hey, my rubber-band collection!” Jonas exclaimed. He pulled one of the bands from the bag and shot Ethan with it.

Ethan picked up the rubber band to shoot his brother back, but when he stretched it, the band snapped. “The weather certainly hasn’t been kind to them.”

Jonas pulled out a notebook and flipped it open. “Goodness, look at how bad you used to draw people!”

Ethan was testing the strength of the rubber bands in the bag, but he leaned over Jonas’s shoulder and looked at the stick-figure drawing. “That’s not that bad.”

“Oh, I forgot, that’s because you still draw like that,” Jonas teased.

“I do not,” Ethan replied, testing another rubber band against his brother’s back.

Jonas ignored him and kept on flipping through the notebook. “Look, it’s a record of all the day’s passwords we had for entering the fort, and here’s a captain’s log.” Jonas flipped to another page. “Good grief, it says here that I was killed in action on May 5th eight years ago.”

“Well that’s funny. What are you now, a fragment of my imagination?” Ethan asked, trying out another rubber band on his brother.

“If I am, you are too. ‘Captain Ethan was shot in the chest seven times and died in front of the gate’.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow and shot Jonas with another rubber band.

“Oh look, I came back to life in time to be ‘drowned dead’ in a flood,” Jonas remarked cheerily.

“I always knew there was something off about you. It must be all the brain trauma,” Ethan said dryly.

Jonas continued flipping through the notebook, and Ethan crawled further into the fort. He found a bin and opened the lid. “Oh man, Jonas, you’ve got to see this.”

Jonas looked up just in time to catch the plushie cat Ethan threw at him. The little animal was threadbare, and the stuffing was all wadded up, leaving some places very lumpy and others with no padding at all. Jonas stared at the cat for a long moment and then began laughing. “Well, of all things! It’s Ginger!”

Ethan was digging around in the bin, and a few moments later he lifted out a small stuffed dog in no better shape than the cat. “Willaby! I thought I threw him away!”

“Mom wouldn’t let you do that,” Jonas grinned. “She must have rescued these fellas when we grew too old to play with them.”

“Look, here’s an Army jacket she made for Ginger,” Ethan said, pulling out a small coat sewn out of an old burlap sack.

Jonas abandoned his box and joined Ethan. “Hey! My old sailor’s hat!” he exclaimed, pulling a white object from the box. “Remember when Mom made this?”

The two dug around for a little longer, and Ethan began reading the labeling on the other boxes that made up the walls of the fort. All at once, he spotted a clear bin with a small box inside of it. The box looked as though it was made of wood, and it had carvings on the outside.

Ethan got up and moved over to the bin. He cleared away the boxes stacked on top of it and opened the lid. Pushing aside a few odds and ends, he got his hands on the wooden box. He pulled it out and sat back down on the floor beside Jonas. Ethan opened the box and found two stacks of envelopes, one tied with a blue ribbon, and one tied with white.

Ethan carefully untied the ribbon around the first stack and picked up an envelope. It was old— of that Ethan was sure. One hardly encountered letters these days, and they certainly never looked like this.

Ethan carefully opened the envelope and slipped out a piece of pink paper with white roses. Opening the paper slowly, he stared at the cursive writing within. Ethan’s mother had insisted that he and Jonas learn cursive, despite it being a forgotten art, but even then, it had been nothing as fancy as all this. Ethan stared at the paper for a minute and finally made out the beginning.

Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment below, and as always, keep an eye out for more posts about the new book!

Have a wonderful weekend and God bless.