Wildalone: A Novel
Krassi Zourkova
Language: English
Pages: 0
ISBN: 1481532413
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
[Read by Barrie Kreinik]
In this darkly imaginative debut novel full of myth, magic, romance, and mystery, a Princeton freshman is drawn into a love triangle with two brothers and discovers terrifying secrets about her family and herself - a bewitching blend of Twilight, The Secret History, Jane Eyre, and A Discovery of Witches.
Arriving at Princeton for her freshman year, Thea Slavin finds herself a stranger in a strange land. Away from her family and her Eastern European homeland for the first time, she struggles to adapt to unfamiliar American ways and the challenges of college life - including an enigmatic young man whose brooding good looks and murky past intrigue her. Drawn to the elusive Rhys and his equally handsome and mysterious brother Jake, she ventures into a sensual mythic underworld as irresistible as it is dangerous.
In this shadow world that seems to mimic Greek mythology and the Bulgarian legends of the ''wildalones'' - forest witches who beguile and entrap men - she will discover a family secret bound to transform her forever . . . if she can accept that dead doesn't always mean gone, and love doesn't always distinguish between the two.
Mesmerizing and addictive, Wildalone is a thrilling blend of the modern and the fantastic. Krassi Zourkova creates an atmospheric world filled with rich characters as compelling as those of Diana Gabaldon, Deborah Harkness, and Stephenie Meyer.
their territory without him noticing. I was desperate to get out of that room. Or for the two of them to leave. To skip this display and take their lovey-dovey chat to some other part of the house where I wouldn’t have to see it. But he brought her to our table. Her name was Nora. She said it to me first, smiling briefly to show a vague curiosity. Then she repeated it to Rhys—measuring him up, savoring the mix of his name, voice, and handshake. “How come we haven’t seen you around Princeton
second ago, I could have sworn the hallway was deserted. “Who told you where I live?” “Serial killers have tricks. Blackmail. Bribery.” He saw that his old joke was creeping me out again. “Or, in this case, extortion of Forbes staff. Which was a challenge, given that I still don’t know almost anything about you.” “And so what if you don’t? You said you didn’t need to know me, right?” “I didn’t mean it that way.” “What other way is there?” “Just . . . wanting someone. Without the kind of
subtext, but with us Americans what you see is usually what you get.” “Yeah, if only!” I laughed and took the teabag out of my cup. A smell of roses, pine, and berries filled the air. “So if I’m Alice, does that make you the Mad Hatter?” “I’m more of a Cheshire cat.” He flashed an exaggerated grin at me. “Except I suck at the vanishing act.” And thank God he did. Too many people in my life excelled at it lately. “Thea, does being in America really feel like Wonderland?” “Exactly like it. One
“Neither would I.” The oversized volume finally glided shut. “But to get to the point, Miss Slavin, how did you find out about this yourself? The letters are so high up, even I never noticed them in all my years at Princeton.” One of the janitors thought the stained glass would speak to me. He even gave me a spyglass. I trimmed the answer down to a palatable version: “The window was hard to miss, on my way out of the chapel.” “What were you doing at the chapel? If I recall, you don’t practice
Street on Thursday night, the only one conspicuously missing was Rita. “She’s supposed to worry about us, not the other way around,” one of the guys told me after I tried her cell phone and it went to voice mail. Maybe he had a point. It was hard to picture Rita having personal problems after watching her fix everyone else’s. But when, later that night, a drunk Dev stormed into the club with his friends and practically looked through me, I knew that something wasn’t right. Without a word to the