Genre: YA Paranormal
ISBN-10: 0988997479
ISBN-13: 978-0988997479
ASIN: B00C7A8YW2
Number of pages: 350
Word Count: 85,000
Cover Artist: Nathalia Suellen
Book Description:
Sixteen-year-old Sylvie isn’t comfortable in her own skin. In fact, there are times she can’t even manage to stay inside it. But if there is one thing she’s sure of, it’s her love for Kevin Phillips. She’s willing to stake everything on it –her family, her friends, and possibly her soul.
Sylvie has been best friends with Cassie forever. But everything is turned around when the boy Sylvie’s loved since fifth grade falls for Cassie. Devastated, Sylvie intends to get Kevin by any means possible, even if it involves treachery, deceit, and the dark side of astral projection. She is positive her plans will give her what she wants, but she doesn’t count on it all spiraling out of control.
Finalist in the Mslexia novel competition, Untethered by Katie Hayoz explores the intoxicating and dangerous world of jealousy and obsession when coupled with paranormal ability. It is a touching, sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breaking novel that speaks to the self-doubt lurking in us all.
Excerpt: Untethered by Katie Hayoz
October 28th
I’m stuck in this body. And I can’t get out.
I stare at my arms. These arms. They’re not mine, but I’m wearing them. They’re thick and muscular and covered in hair. The veins run like rope down the insides.
I squeeze my eyes shut for the hundredth time, hoping that when I open them, I’ll look down and see my own thin arms. My own delicate veins.
I don’t.
Oh, God, do I need help. I need help. Now.
I stand and my head spins. Grabbing onto the desk, I wait for the dizziness to pass. Wait for my head to clear. It doesn’t happen.
I look from the desk to the bed to the floor to the walls and see where I am. Clarity won’t come. Can’t come. Because I’m not where I’m supposed to be.
My eyes travel to the mirror and the face staring back in terror. “Please,” I say. The face says it back, but sloppily. Like a drunk. “Please,” I beg again. “Where are you?” This time the words feel formed. This time my lips, his lips, work the way I expect them to. Or close to it.
But there’s no response.
I lift a hand. Take a step. My movements are staccato. Jerky. Clumsy. Like electrodes are flexing these muscles. Not me. Everything about this body is heavy and long. I take another step forward and it’s smoother, but I’m not used to the bulk of this body.
And I don’t want to get used to it.
I want out. Of him. Of here.
(enjoy another excerpt)
Excerpt from Untethered by Katie Hayoz
Chapter Nineteen
A Memory: Stupid Girls
The summer we were ten years old, Cassie and I held our fingers over my mother’s biggest, shiniest knife and looked into each other’s eyes.
“Ready?” Cassie asked. Her eyes shone. She dragged her front teeth across the plump cushion of her bottom lip.
The knife was her idea, not mine. I would have gone with a needle.
But a few hours earlier Cassie had come over to my place with tears in her eyes, upset about her parents drinking. As usual.
There was never any violence. Never anything to get too freaked out about. But sometimes it wore her out. Like this time. This time she wilted against the back of the couch and whispered, “They barely notice I’m there.”
I laced my fingers in hers. We sat a long time, dangling our flip-flops from our toes, the too-sweet smell of honeysuckle coming in from the open windows.
Suddenly, Cassie sat up straight. Her left flip-flop dropped to the floor. “You’re my best friend, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve been through everything together.”
We had. From what everyone called my ‘fainting spells’, to getting our pants pulled down by the neighborhood boys, to an attempt at running away, to living through Sam’s practical jokes. And more.
“And we’ll be friends forever? We’ll always be able to count on each other, right?” Cassie spoke quickly now, her grip on my hand getting tighter.
Her intensity wasn’t exactly scaring me, but it did make me squirm just a little. “Forever.”
She narrowed her green eyes at me. “Prove it.”
So it came down to this: An extremely sharp knife and an oath to always be best friends. Which is why we were standing there, in my kitchen, my mom’s cutlery in our hands and why Cassie’s face was flushed with satisfaction and mine with fear.
“The oath,” Cassie prompted. We said it together, our two voices melding into one:
Blood Sisters, blood sisters as long as we live. Always together. We always forgive.
Best friends forever, best friends for life. As proof we share our blood with this knife.
“On the count of three,” Cassie said.
“Uhhh ... ”
“You can’t hesitate, Sylvie. If you hesitate that means you don’t take it seriously.” She fixed me a look that managed to be both demanding and pleading at the same time.
Where we gripped the handle, my palm was slick with sweat.
She started to count: “One ... two ... three ...”
Both of us slid the pad of our index fingers down the blade at the same time.
The blood came first. Bright, bright blood. And then the sharp, stinging bolt of pain. The knife dropped to the tile floor with a loud clang. Cassie sucked in a huge breath. I stared at the red dripping onto my feet and cried out.
We’d been intending to rub our blood into each other’s cut. But before we could, I felt a prickle of fear and then nothing. Nothing at all.
Dizziness seized me as I hovered near a cobweb in the corner, watching as my mom ran into the kitchen and took control, her voice strange and surreal from where I was.
“What are you girls thinking?” she shrieked. “Do you know what kind of infections and diseases you can get from doing this kind of thing? You’re lucky you didn’t cut your fingers off!” From above I saw my body go limp, my head pitching forward and my legs buckling. “Oh, my Lord, Sylvie! Don’t faint!” When Mom thrust our hands under cold water, I came back to my body with a jerk. “Stay with me!” pleaded Mom as she shoved my raw and aching finger further under the rushing tap.
Mom cleaned our cuts and wrapped them in Barbie Band-Aids. It was only then that Cassie and I touched fingers. We hooked them around each other and squeezed, the pain from the fresh cut throbbing up to our elbows. But no fluids were shared, so officially we were just two kids with deep cuts. Not blood sisters.
Even so, we took that oath — Band-Aids or not we took it. “We’re blood sisters,” Cassie says even now, six years later. “No matter how mad we get, we have to forgive.”
Or do we?
Katie Hayoz was born in Racine, WI, the youngest of six kids. Originally, she wanted to become pope (for the awesome hat and fancy robes), but quickly realized reading was her true religion. Writing was always a hobby, but she decided to go at it seriously when she ended up in Geneva, Switzerland. Now she's constantly at her laptop in the small apartment she shares with her husband, two daughters, and two fuzzy cats. She devours YA novels like she does popcorn and black licorice: quickly and in large quantities.
My review
I found this book interesting and really easy to read, and fast too. I have not read many books with the astral projection ability, so really enjoyed that about it.
I didn’t really feel a connection with the main character Sylvie, she was really immature and so insecure and jealous, with too much angst for me.
I think the younger teens would enjoy this book a lot more than I did. I do like YA for the most part, but not as much when the characters are this immature.
But I did love the whole paranormal elements to the book. I think the writing was really good. The characters could have used a bit more depth to them, but overall not bad at all.
I do recommend this book. It’s just not one of my personal favorites.
I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
I received this book from the author for my honest review.
Untethered Tour wide giveaway
Five ebook copies of Untethered by Katie Hayoz
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