Isla’s
Inheritance by Cassandra Page (@CassandraPage01)
Genre:
Young Adult Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Turquoise
Morning Press
Release
date: 9 October 2014
Summary from Goodreads
Isla was content to let her father keep his secrets, but now she
can’t stand the touch of iron and her dreams are developing a life of their
own. She must discover the truth — before it’s too late.
Seventeen-year-old
Isla Blackman only agrees to participate in a Halloween party séance because
Dominic, an old crush, wants to. She is sure nothing will happen when they try
to contact the spirit of her mother. But the séance receives a chilling reply.
SHE
IS NOT DEAD.
Isla
doesn’t want to upset her father by prying into the family history he never
discusses. When the mysterious and unearthly Jack offers to help her discover
the truth, Isla must master her new abilities to protect her loved ones from
enemies she never knew existed.
Excerpt
“Okay.”
Emma rolled up her sleeves so they wouldn’t trail on the table. She slid the
upturned scotch glass so the pentagram was centred within it. “Everyone put a
finger on top of the glass.” We did. “Ready?”
Without waiting for a response, Emma tilted her face towards the ceiling. “Is
anyone there?”
Nothing
happened.
“Is
anyone there?” Emma asked again. She didn’t seem worried. I glanced at Dominic,
whose face had fallen.
“Is
anyone there?”
The
glass began to inch along the surface of the paper, picking up speed as it slid
towards the YES. Tamara gasped,
going white under the makeup; that pale, she looked like a porcelain doll. Emma
smiled, enjoying her moment. The guys watched with wide eyes.
“Welcome.”
Emma smiled. “What’s your name?”
I
studied the glass in its nest of fingers as it spelled out D-A-N-I-E-L. My eyes narrowed, searching
for the whitening around the fingertips that would indicate someone was pushing
the glass. Was that why Emma had turned off the light—to hide the tells?
“Hello,
Daniel.” Emma smiled again. “Daniel’s my spirit guide,” she added in an aside
to the rest of us as the glass slid across to HELLO.
I
watched with a frown as the others asked questions of Daniel: where he was born, how he’d died, that sort of thing. I
didn’t pay much attention; I was busy trying to see how the trick was being
performed. It was a normal scotch glass and, if anyone was pushing it, they
were being discrete. Emma was good.
Finally,
she looked around the table at us. “Daniel can act as our intermediary to the
afterlife, protecting us from evil spirits. Do any of you have relatives who have passed over that you’d like to
contact? A grandparent or anything?”
“My
grandpop’s dead, but he was an old bastard.” Kurt laughed. “I don’t want to
talk to him. Besides, your Daniel wouldn’t let him through if he doesn’t like
evil spirits.”
Tamara
shook her head; Dominic turned to me. “Isn’t your mother dead?” he asked
softly.
“Yes.”
I looked away. I’d never known my mother. She’d died giving birth to me. But I
didn’t like the idea of turning her into a parlour trick.
Dominic
saw my hesitation and looked sheepish. Emma brightened, though. “What was her
name?” she asked.
“Melanie,”
I said reluctantly. “Melanie Blackman.”
“Hey,
we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Dominic said.
“It’s
all right,” I said. It wasn’t real. It didn’t matter.
“Melanie
Blackman, are you there?” Three times Emma repeated the call, and, as before,
the glass didn’t move until the third time.
NO.
“No?”
Emma looked surprised—which was itself surprising, given she was the one moving
the glass. “Melanie Blackman, are you there?”
The
glass circled away from the word and back again, rattling across the paper.
NO.
Obviously
that wasn’t meant to happen. “Daniel, are you there?”
There
was a long delay while I imagined a sheet-covered ghost handing over the
receiver of a telephone. YES.
“Why
isn’t Melanie Blackman there?”
It
wasn’t real. It didn’t matter. But I still held my breath as I watched the
glass spell out the reply.
S-H-E [SPACE] I-S [SPACE] N-O-T [SPACE] D-E-A-D.
INTERVIEW
Can you tell us a little about ISLA’S INHERITANCE?
It’s a young adult urban fantasy set in Australia, and is about a
girl named Isla (surprise!). Isla’s seventeen and a bit of a sceptic, in that
she always looks for the sensible, mundane explanation for things—something her
single-parent father has always encouraged. At a Halloween party, she agrees to
take part in a séance because a hot guy she used to have a crush on wants to
go; it’s a shock to her when the “spirit” they contact claims her mother isn’t
actually dead, as she’s always been told. Of course, she doesn’t believe it at
first, and is quickly distracted by said hot guy, whose name is Dominic.
Of course, that’s when things start to get interesting. ;)
Isla’s Inheritance is the first book in a trilogy. The other two
books are coming out in the first third of 2015, which is both exciting and
utterly terrifying! Getting everything ready is going to be a bit of a mad
rush, but the flipside is that readers won’t have to wait years between
instalments. GRRM, I’m looking at you!
I notice you write using Australian English spellings. Is the book
written that way too?
Yes, it is. Even though Turquoise
Morning Press is
based out of the USA , the
team decided that since the story is set in Australia
What is your favourite part of the writing process?
Writing the last few chapters of a book, definitely. I’ve drafted
four now, and that’s always been the best part of the experience. It’s such a
heady rush, seeing all the plot threads come together and the plot accelerate.
Also, usually by that point I’m doing mean things to my characters, which is
always fun!
The other thing is that it takes me a long time to write a first
draft—somewhere between six and nine months—so it’s always satisfying to reach
the end of that process. I’m a single mother and work full time, so I have to
squeeze in my writing where I can: after my son’s in bed, on lunch breaks, that
sort of thing. I also do a lot of plotting (and scheming) in the car.
Given the reference to iron in the blurb, it’s not a surprise to
learn the “fantasy” part of your urban fantasy relates to the fae, which are
part of European mythology. How did your fae come to be in Australia
I decided very early on in the drafting process that I didn’t want
cute Disney elves. Not that I have a problem with Disney—I’m a mum and
therefore know the Frozen soundtrack
verbatim—but I felt something darker than Tinker Bell suited young adult
readers better. My ruling class of fae are renowned for their vanity, and their
cruelty to those in their service. As a result, the fae in Australia are almost
all refugees of one kind or another: “lesser” fae who want to live free of
oppression.
Where in
Australia are the books set?They set in Canberra, Australia’s capital, which is, in some ways, an overgrown country town. What that means is we have a lot more green spaces than either Sydney or Melbourne do: reserves running through suburbs; low mountains covered in walking trails and with lookouts perched on top; parks for the kids to play.
It’s a great place to set a story when your supernatural population likes green spaces. Werewolves and fairies in particular would love it here—there are places with hardly any iron or steel, and green corridors a wolf could sneak through. I wondered at first whether setting a supernatural tale here would somehow lack credibility. But then I thought, if Sookie Stackhouse can run into vampires in a tiny town like Bon Temps, why can’t Canberra have its own supernatural stories, that element of magic?
When I see the sunlight sparkling off the surface of Lake Burley Griffin on a crisp autumn afternoon, or the glittering lights of the city from Mount Ainslie at dusk, I think that magic is already there. All I’m doing is telling people about it.
Author Bio
Cassandra
Page is a mother, author, editor and geek. She lives in Canberra, Australia’s
bush capital, with her son and two Cairn Terriers. She has a serious coffee
addiction and a tattoo of a cat — which is ironic, as she’s allergic to cats.
When she’s not reading or writing, she engages in geekery, from Doctor Who to
AD&D. Because who said you need to grow up?
Author Links