RBTL Tours: Dream Casters: Light by Adrienne Woods

Title: Dream Casters: Light

Author: Adrienne Woods

Series: Dream Casters (Book 1)

Genre: YA Paranormal

Publisher: Fire Quill Publishing

Release Date: May 28 2015

Edition/Formats Available In: eBook 

Blurb/Synopsis:

Mr. Sandman, send me a dream, ta da da da.....Seventeen year old Chasity Blake knows the Sandman is just a silly children's story parents tell their children to get them to sleep. At least she thought it was, until the day a mysterious, light golden sand appeared in her hands during a high school prank that went horribly wrong. A sand that has the power to send anyone it touches into a deep, sound sleep.

Fearing she had lost her mind, Chasity soon discovers the shocking truth of her heritage- she is a Dream Caster. Chasity was never supposed to be raised on the Domain, or what humans call Earth and she is forced to return to her true birth place, Revera – the world of Dreams.

However, in Revera there is no balance between good, the Light Casters, and darkness, the Shadow Casters, and Chasity is caught square in the middle. She soon learns that there is no place for anyone containing both the light and the darkness within them, and the shocking truth that if anyone in Revera ever discovered her shadow self, Chasity would be thrown into the Oblivion – the world of Nightmares.

Dreams are always more than they seem, and this time Chasity is going to discover just how different they can be.

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Excerpt:

TWO SETS OF FOOTSTEPS made barely a sound on the rough and weathered wood as they walked across the bridge that led from Main Pacific to the Glands. The streetlights were dimmed as dusk began to settle and last vestiges of light from the setting sun were fading to night. The lumbering clouds were moving in, blocking out any light from the two moons that shone overhead, even the stars seemed less bright dotted across their velvet backdrop. With his golden dust Graig Chen could conjure and wield anything by simply believing in its reality. If he wanted it to be real, it would be.

The Reverse was the most painful thing either of them had ever experienced, but Liam, a healer and Graig’s only confidant, had promised him that they would be able to live in the Domain like normal Nomads, humans.

Graig and his pregnant fiancé, were fleeing from their home world in secret, having no other choice if they desired a normal life for their unborn child.

They knew neither of their families would ever understand, even though it had been his grandmother who had always said, the heart wants, what the heart wants. How could he have known that his heart would want a Shadow Caster, and not just any ordinary Shadow Caster. She was special, or at least her family was. She was expected to uphold the family line with her offspring, Graig knew that did not include carrying the child of a Light Caster.

The two lovers could never live in peace, not since the balance between good and evil inside Revera was thrown into upheaval. There were only two choices for casters like them, either light or dark. The balance could not accommodate a person containing both, so for his child’s sake they had no choice but to leave Revera. Live like normal humans in the Domain, or what humans would call reality. He’d found a perfect place, one he’d made sure no one would ever find, not even his two best friends.

They knew about the relationship, they’d been there when he’d first laid eyes on her, tried to talk him out of it, to forget the blonde bombshell that would only cause him darkness and misery, but without her his life would be spent in darkness and misery.

Her silver blonde hair and bright blue eyes had done him in, if only he’d seen the bow that she’d aimed straight at his heart. If it hadn’t been for his love when arrow hit, and for Liam, a healer, he wouldn’t be in his current predicament; trying to get him and her off this dimential world that most people would call make-believe, but Revera was far from that. It was the world of dreams, and Graig was a Level Four Caster whose mission was to seek out Selene, their only live Somnium. It was on one of these very missions that he had met the love of his live, the one woman he couldn’t live without, and he didn’t care if she had black dust, he didn’t care that she was a Shadow Caster, or what some would call a nightmare wielder. Yes, those horrible dreams that leave you paralyzed with fear are actually wielded by Caster’s, not some grave impression of one’s subconscious. They are responsible for doubts and forgotten dreams. She was his nightmare, and a nightmare he was prepared to die for.

He knew deep down that she would never survive living in Revera and he was unable to cope with the Oblivion, wherever it was. Oblivion was the realm of the Shadow Casters, created when Selene casted out Magdelena, one of the first Shadow Casters, who was the third Somnium, as a consequence for the death of her brother, Darius, the second Somnium. Magdelena had no realm to call her own, so she created Oblivion by focusing her hatred toward Selene, a world that could exist inside Revera, far from Selene’s sight. For years, Selene tried to find it, but as long as the Sodivic bloodline flowed through Shadow Caster’s vanes, Oblivion would never be found by a Light Caster.

Sodivic blood was the key to Oblivion’s secrecy, and Magdalena’s family line. There were many Sodivic’s since the dawning of Oblivion but Magdelena reigned over them all. Graig had met many Sodivic’s on his quests, each meeting always ended up in a bloody mess, and in all the years he had encountered them, not one had ever shown any kind of mercy or remorse. They were sadistic and couldn’t be reasoned with. He had been taught from a young age, if you see a Sodivic, you kill it. That was the number one rule taught to the Level One Dream Casters.

His fiancé was the only one that proved his theory wrong. Over the past century, their bloodline had been busy dying out, leaving her one of the few powerful Shadow Casters left.

Graig would pay dearly for loving her if her father ever found them, and he couldn’t even think about what would happen to the unborn child she carried.

Craig squeezed the hand that was resting tightly inside his own grip as they neared the end of the bridge.

“Were almost there, my love. Not much longer.”

“You’re sure nobody followed us?” Her eyes were wild, searching everywhere in the darkness.

“I’m sure. Besides, they won’t be able to see us, remember.” He opened his hand, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten what he was, and threw more golden sand into the air, shielding them from anything that tried to followed them.

Then he heard it, a crunch. He stopped abruptly and she slammed into him. One second of doubt was all it took to break the spell, and before he could realize that doubt, they were surrounded by Nimgolians, the biggest and wicket shadow hounds ever imagined. They were veil, and reminded him of a Rottweiler that had chased him ones in the Domain. 

~ * ~

Bonus Excerpt:

A mixture of cologne over powered me as the four guys stood really close to me. Their hands touching my arms and clothes.

Then I saw the grit in my hands again. It was soft, not like sand, and it had a light golden color to it.

At once the slow motion stopped and I threw a handful of the stuff, hitting Mark full in the face. He crouched and tried to get it out his eyes. I felt more sand in my hand and Jake was next. I didn’t know where it came from or how any of this was even possible, but right now that didn’t matter. As I threw a handful at each and every one of them, a refill was waiting patiently in my palm.

Derek was next and before I knew it, all the boys were coughing and crouching down. Then one by one they fell over, in a fetus position with eyes closed and soft snores coming from their lips.

Clare and Ty ran to the guys and crouched down. Ty felt for a heartbeat, but from the sound coming from their lips I knew they were still alive. I waited for men with cameras to jump out from behind the trees, yelling GOT YOU or something but it didn’t happened.

The fear on both Ty and Clare’s faces were real.

“What did you do?” Ty yelled.

“Nothing they didn’t deserve!” I yelled back hoping he would just back the hell off.

“You’re a freak!” Clare yelled, and stormed at me. More sand accumulated in my hand, but to me, she was still my best friend, one whose mind had been closed by the idiot that was busy running away.

I opened my palm and let the grit fall to the floor. A breeze picked it up and blew it softly into Clare’s face.

She stopped in her tracks, give a huge yawn and lay down on the ground.

Was she sleeping?

I looked at my hands. The grit was gone, there weren’t even traces of it inside my palm, nothing made sense.

“Just go,” Nichole said as she crouched down next to Clare to investigate.

I stood still as a statue trying to process what was happening to me.

“Chasity!” Nichole yelled again. “Go!”
I looked down at Nichole. My legs finally started to move into the direction of home, and grabbed my backpack that had fallen on the turf.

I reached the city of Chicago fast and almost ran into a police office that was chatting to one of the waiters. Guilt over what I’d just done was evident on my face so I ran in another direction.

“Hey, you there, stop!” He yelled.

 I didn’t listen and he chased me for a couple of blocks but he had probably had one too many donuts on a daily base and couldn’t keep up. I took so many turns down back alleys that when I finally stopped I had no idea where I was.

I breathed hard, trying to catch my breath and looked back at my hands. There was still no trace of the grit. It had just vanished. My heart beat fast again and cold sweat dripped from my temple as flashes of ogre-like bodies, almost the entire football team, falling down right after I threw the grit at them came to mind. Coach was not going to like this, and how was I going to explain any of it to anybody?

What the hell did I just do? I glanced at my hands one more time. What the hell was happening to me?

~ * ~

Author Information:

Adrienne Woods was born and raised in South Africa, where she still lives with her husband and two beautiful little girls. She always knew she was going to be a writer, but it only started to really happen about four years ago. In her free time―if she gets any because moms don’t really have free time―she loves to spend it with friends, whether it’s a girl’s night out, or just watching a movie. She’s a very chilled person. Her writing career started with Firebolt, book one in the Dragonian series. There will be four books in total, including a further two to three books, which will be stories that take place within the Dragonian series. Her other series, Dream Casters, will be released mid-2015. She also writes in different genres, and her woman’s fiction, The Pregnancy Diaries, will be published under a pseudonym. And then, she has a paranormal series by the name of the Aswang series, which will consist of about ten novels. And if that wasn’t enough, there is another series, Guardians of Monsters, which will be released in 2016.

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