Book trailer for "The Trapped in the Hollow Earth Novelette Series:"
The dream vacation that might just turn deadly...
Seventeen-year-old Casey Smith can't wait to embark on her summer vacation, not least because she's finally shed her tomboy image, and now heartthrob Mike seems interested. What starts out great, with lots of flirting, taking her a step closer to winning her crush's heart, soon turns into her worst nightmare.
Tossed out to sea during a freak storm, Casey is washed up on what she presumes to be a mysterious tropical island that's on no map she's ever seen.
Excerpt:
I strolled toward my two best friends, Mike and Jack, who were standing near the stern of the boat. A faint light flashed in the night sky from the east, and I pointed. “Hey, was that lightning?”
Mike poured a pail of chum into the sea before he offered a smile. “Nah, not on my vacation.”
“Hey, that’s our last bucket,” I said.
Mike set the pail down and wiped his hands on his tie-dyed board shorts. “It’s five a.m. Night fishing’s over. I let the fish have the rest of the bait.”
Jack rummaged through the colorful, flashy lures in my dad’s tackle box. “With all that chum floating in the water, maybe I’ll catch myself a 100-pound tuna.”
He smiled as I grinned. I loved the way he could always make me smile. We’d known each other since we were babies, and I couldn’t ask for a better friend.
Standing at the railing, I leaned over. Powerful deck lights above illuminated the green water of the Pacific Ocean. I smiled as streaks of yellow and silver swarmed around the sailboat.
Mike playfully nudged me with his elbow. “Aren’t the tuna amazing? I just want to jump in and swim with them.”
I blew a long strand of black hair from my eyes. Yep. That’s Mike for you—full of crazy ideas and too much energy he doesn’t know what to do with. Of course he’d want to jump in. And I had no doubt he’d do it.
A roll of thunder rumbled in the distance. A summer storm? No, couldn’t be. I lifted my head. Nothing but twinkling stars filled the black velvet sky.
I grabbed Mike’s arm as he swung his leg over the rail. If he jumped in, I was going to give him a piece of my mind. “Don’t you even think about it!”
Grinning as if daring me to stop him, he jumped down and pulled me close. He placed his strong hands on my hips, his touch sending shivers down my spine. I had a secret crush on Mike for as long as I could remember.
He winked, lowering his voice. “Okay, fine. I promise, no free diving—at least not until daylight.”
I arched a brow. “Are you crazy? I bet sharks all the way from Australia can pick up the scent from all those fish guts you just dumped. You barely survived your last run-in with Jaws.” I pointed to the jagged scar on his calf.
“Hey now. My battle scar”—Mike toyed with the shark tooth dangling from a black cord around his neck—“and this nifty little souvenir here, make me who I am today.” His lips curled up. “Let’s not dwell on the marine life, okay? How about later today we hit the beach again?”
Jack gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Listen, Surfer Boy, that isn’t happening. The only place Casey’s dad can even try to control you is on this boat, far, far away from everyone else.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
I grinned at Mike’s miffed expression. Just because he was a teenage surfing star, even featuring on MTV’s hit reality show Surf’s Up, didn’t mean he’d get any special treatment here—at least not from Jack or my parents.
Jack’s sapphire blue eyes narrowed and his brown hair whipped around in the wind. “You dove off a ninety-foot waterfall when nobody was looking, you got us thrown out of a village, you—”
“Ah, come on!” Mike interrupted. “The chief had it all wrong. That little girl with the big brown eyes ran straight to me, and all I did was pat her on the head. She was the cutest little thing.”
I pondered as I watched dark clouds roll in from the east. Mike finds everyone cute—everyone but me. My gaze dropped from the sky to meet his. “Yeah, but you know it’s an insult to touch anyone’s head in Fiji.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Guess I forgot that part. Anyway, we didn’t deserve to get kicked out. And Casey, even your mom agrees with me.”
Jack laughed and threw a wet rag in his direction. “You know that’s only because our moms are all best friends, and—”
