#TEASERTUESDAY: A Wild & Unremarkable Thing

At last!!! We are only ONE WEEK away from Jen Castleberry's release of A WILD AND UNREMARKABLE THING!!!

Don't forget to pre-order your copy! (AWAUT will also be available in gorgeous paperback and hardcover!!) 😍😍😍😍😍😍

To celebrate, we thought we'd share a sneak-peak of the Prologue and Chapter One here:

PROLOGUE

The Fire Scale flies low over Ithil. Its body is the breadth of a circus tent. Its breast is striped by veins as broad as the boughs of a mighty oak. Its roar is like the howl of an angry wind.

It gleams in the starlight. Its scales are ruby-red. No wonder just one of them is worth its weight in gold, and there must be thousands. They sparkle, catching the glow of lamps and torches below - flat, fluttering discs that ripple against its skin like a scarlet coat of suns.

Its leathery wings beat, once, twice, like a tribal drum, like a thunderclap, and out of its yawning mouth, a blaze erupts, engulfing everything.

One breath, and Ithil is black as ash. Ithil, gloating Ithil, built of white sandstone. Built by the hands and backs of scholars.

One breath. Libraries and the proud, columned summer homes of wealthy merchants are set alight. Every inch of lush, green earth in the airy market square is grit and gravel in an instant.

Screams rise up like a symphony, sobs and the worst swears men can muster. Just outside of the town gates, in a field not far enough away for anyone’s liking, crystal champagne glasses fall into the grass. Girls in their finest gowns faint or flee, and some are trampled underfoot.

In the heart of Ithil, beneath a brightly embroidered tarp, drunks and costumed children lie dead or dying. They make groaning prayers as they bleed and burn, mouths flush with the rose-cobbled street.

One, two. The Fire Scale is high above the burning town. It gapes, and smacks its lips. Embers teeter over its tongue and tip out between its wide-gapped fangs.

One, two. The Fire Scale breaks through the clouds and inky phantoms swirl in its wake. Some Ithites watch its yellow talons shove aside the stars.

So quick, it came, it left. A breath. A fast-ascend, and it is gone.

And Ithil…Ithil is on fire.