Clicks – When you just know.
Born and bred to win, Cami’s family expects her to join a secret society called The Guard, marry one of the two identical twin boys next door, and stay on Pinhold Island for the rest of her life. But she has other plans: work beach patrol, win the Surf Carnival and get a sponsor so that she can leave Pinhold to compete in international surf rescue competitions and see the world.
Home to epic waves, black sand beaches, and the world-famous Surf Carnival, Pinhold Island is regularly voted the top surf spot in the country. People come from all over the world to ride the waves or just relax in the natural beauty and rejuvenating water. While visitors are jealous of the few hundred people who get to live there, sixteen year old Cami feels stifled and trapped by her small community and her family's expectations. Thanks to the intense link she shares with her twin brother Mica, she can't even be alone with her thoughts. As decedents of the ten families who originally settled on Pinhold, Cami and Mica are part of a new generation of extreme surf lifeguards who are expected to earn invitations into The Guard.
But a seemingly small injury knocks her out of the first event and turns her summer upside down. It's suddenly impossible for Cami to resist the magnetic attraction to Blake, one of the twins next door; the one she's never been interested in. Just as the Surf Carnival competition starts to heat up, the best swimmers start to drown. Pulled to the ocean floor, they're found barely alive , stuck in unexplainable comas. When Mica goes down too, Cami can no longer wait for those in charge to figure out how to help him. To save the lives of her brother and their friends, Cami must ignore what she sees and what she's told, and instead must learn to trust the clicks, her instincts, that help her find the truth in heart even when it goes against everything her brain thinks it knows.
Excerpt 2:
We all stripped down to swimsuits and passed Celeste the clothes to hold before getting on the old school multi-person raft. Billy paddled the distance to the other shore where the ceremony would take place on the little island that sat independently of the rest of Pinhold. It was a small sanctuary, protected by a tricky current and tons of heavy trees. It had broken off from the larger landmass with the eruption of an ancient volcano, or so the legend said. It was only about two hundred square feet, and only visible when the tide was low.
Tonight the water lapped gently when we pulled up. A combination of dark rocks and soft black sand edged the tiny land mass. I jumped from the wooden craft and ran through the shallow surf. Anticipation, adrenaline, and the energy from the people waiting for us, flowed through me and drew me in. I felt giddy with it.
Thirty lava stones swirled in a sacred spiral, with members of The Guard around them. Some held torches to provide fire and light, and others beat rhythms on the stone drums that each had a slightly different tone. The tapped tones and beats sounded like ocean waves, like the ancient conversation between sea and land.
I’d heard the drums from home before during the years, but they never sounded like this. It enveloped me, connecting me to the union of nature time and the many who’d come here before me. I breathed in, savoring the connection, when Blake caught my eye. He smiled, and I knew he felt the same as I did.
His grandfather and my grandmother stood in the middle of the circle. Both were Elders on the island, revered for their wisdom, athletic prowess and lifelong commitment to The Guard. Both had competed professionally on the international Surf Carnival circuit. Since Blake’s grandfather was busy running the day-to-day events on Pinhold, my grandmother had taken charge of most of our training through the years. They were expecting great things from us in the upcoming lifeguarding sport competitions, but tonight’s ceremony was a spiritual one.
The single most important thing drilled into us year in and out was that those of us lucky enough to have homes on Pinhold had a responsibility to take care of the island and the ocean around us. Tonight’s ceremony was about renewing that commitment for the members of The Guard. But my friends and I would take the pledge for the first time.
Can we just skip to the party? Mica clicked, his intense, impatient feels disturbing me. His average emotional temperature always burned higher and dipped lower then mine, which meant that his feelings influenced me instead of the other way around. But I could change that if I paid attention to it properly.
Stop. Breathe. This is happening. Enjoy it, ok? I clicked back, attempting to share my happy calm. Gram and Stoney, Blake’s grandfather, looked at those of us here for the first time with tremendous pride. Two sets of twins—me and Mica, and Andrew and Darwen—and one mismatched pair, Blake stood by Shayla because neither of their twins were there. Around us stood a combination of our relatives, the combined generations of The Guard who’d participated in training our whole clique for this competition since we were born. “Welcome to First Night,” said Stoney in his rumbly voice that was so much like Blake’s. “If this is your first time here, please close your eyes. Listen, smell, taste, touch—feel the power of Pinhold. Do not rely simply on what your eyes can see. As potential members of The Guard, you must learn to read all the signs around you.”
Following orders, I concentrated on the shadows and flashes behind my eyelids. The pounding waves, jumping fish, and crackling fire reverberated in different parts of my ear. Briny saltwater and honeysuckle hit my nose on a sudden wind that shivered with expectation.
“Tonight, you make the promise of those who’ve come before you—to protect the ocean from land, nature from man. On this First Night, we rededicate ourselves to an ancient covenant that is symbolized by this pin that represents the balance in our world. You may now open your eyes.” As head lifeguard, Stoney had top authority on our Island. The Guard ran the town council, beach patrol and police force, so basically everything. A flash of silver showed through his long fingers that I recognized from all the stories I’d been told. As the drums began to pound, Stoney placed the pin on a central stone in front of him. Like all the rocks here, it had magnetic properties held the pin perpendicular to the ocean The Guard was doing it’s job. With a smile, Stoney released his hand gently, and the pin stayed upright.
A celebratory cheer went up all around us, and the music started again. A combination of drums, claps, clicks, and hums that I’d heard since in the cradle but never in a ceremony like this. Drums and rhythm and music were a big part of Pinhold life. Visitors joined for weekly drum circles on the beach, and there was a wave organ built onto our coast that sounded at every high tide. The patterns we played tonight I knew in my bones but they’d never come together in quite this way. Tonight they stirred that feeling of connection and continuity with our history that previously eluded me.
Amy Evans Bio:
Amy Evans is a wife, mother, ocean lover and storyteller. She's created multi-platform mobile apps, social media games, and interactive story worlds for HIPnTASTY, a company she co-founded in 2001. She loves dolphins, aliens and pugs, and sometimes writes for so long they all look like the same thing. Clicks is her debut novel about instincts, a Surf Carnival, an endless summer and the hottest beach patrol on the California coast. Clicks are truths you can feel, the sounds that the universe makes when it warns you that your world is about to change forever. If you listen to them, you get on the wave before it crests; control your path, surf into your destiny. If you ignore them, the wave crashes around you, and you try desperately not to drown.
Links:
Website: www.aammyyss.com
Author Facebook: www.facebook.com/amyevansclicks
Twitter: www.twitter.com/aammyyss
Novel Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17596261-clicks?ac=1
Author Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/aammyyss
Pinterest: www.pintrest.com/aammyyss
Tumblr: www.aammyyss.tumblr.com
Thank you so much for participating in the blog tour. I really appreciate it. And I think your blog is gorgeous. xoox
ReplyDelete