Enlightened book tour

Cover Design by  Emma Michaels

Jessie Lucente, a Light Tamer, has started her junior year at Parca Academy in New Bern, NC. She has a new boyfriend, Caleb Baldwin. He is beyond good looking, he is her mate for life. They've been bound by the light and will rule and heal with it too. Her new classes aren't what she expected. Finding out the school is filled with 'gifted' kids is almost too much to comprehend. She finds out what it really means to be a Light Tamer. Some of the assumptions she had are debunked and now everything is crystal clear...well, clear as mud. Now that she is enlightened with the facts, she struggles with the truth. 

Read an excerpt 

From Chapter one

First Day - Alchemy

Miss Raine taps her toe on the ground.  “Ladies, are you finished complaining?”  She takes her hand and sweeps it through her hair, exposing a little tattoo on her wrist.  “Thorne, turn off the overhead light.  There is a string directly above you.”

“Hey, it will be dark, he can’t do that,” the guy I think is Damien says.

“You trying to off some Tamers or something?” Thorne’s voice is husky with a slight raspy quality.  It made me think of the guys on the cover of bodice ripper books (my grandma secretly reads them).  His rebel side showing for the second time in five minutes.

Miss Raine sighs in exasperation.  “You Light Tamers are all the same.  Do you have any idea how many times I’ve explained this?  Trust me; you won’t be disturbed by any Dark Ones in here.  This room is enchanted, and if they’d tell you at a younger age, you’d know better.  But no, you think the alchemist is an idiot.  Now, Mr Woodson, please turn out the light.”

Amber takes her fingers in the shape of a gun and fake shoots Miss Raine in the back.  We stifle giggles only to be shot right back…with Miss Raine’s stink eye.  Thorne reaches up and pulls the string.  Amber and I are armed with our fancy pink flashlights Caleb insisted we carry with us.  The teacher shakes her head in disbelief at us.  Looking up, we gasp at the never ending supply of potions.  Many of the jars are glowing as if filled with a thousand lightning bugs.

“What’s up with the jars?” I ask.

“Why are we still standing in a closet, is what I want to know,” Amber says as she gnaws on her cuticle.

“We are about to leave the closet Miss Edwards.”  Miss Raine replies and slides a piece of paper in her white linen pants pocket.  Amber shifts to face me and smiles with her teeth gritted and eyes bugging out.  “Any time you’re at school, everyone is protected from the Dark Ones.  By the time this class is over, you’ll know how to create the same enchantment for protection.”

“You realize working with chemicals is hazardous to my nails.  This is bunk.”  Carmen says as she tucks her short curly hair behind her ear.  Her perfect French manicure is highlighted by her dark tan.

I watch as Amber watches Thorne watching Carmen and feel the dread of a love triangle brewing.

“She looks like a tan version of Selena Gomez without extensions, doesn’t she?” I whisper to Amber.

She rolls her eyes so far back in her head, and for a split second, she looked like a zombie.  “I guess maybe a little, except for the blue eyes.  How much do you want to bet she wears colored contacts?”

“You always think everyone has colored contacts on.”

“How many Hispanics do you know that have light-colored eyes?  I mean, please…give me a break.”

“Ladies, as compelling of a conversation you’re having, we need to get going.  Derrick, pull the handle on the mop bucket.”  Miss Raine reaches in her pocket and pulls out a small vial and tosses it at the bucket as he pulls the handle.

Instantly the wall with all the jars rotates around, exposing an entry to a secret passage.  Where’s Scooby Doo?  All we need now is a ghost and some Scooby Snacks.  Jinkies!  Zoinks, how creepy is that! 

“Come on kids, I need to get back to my classroom.”

We all walk into a stairwell, down a flight of stairs, through a hallway, and past two doors on either side of the hall.  We approach the end, it splits into a T.  Turning right, we take the first door on the left.  The classroom is an exact duplicate of Miss Raine’s room.  Taking it in, I see two kids sitting at their desk and a rather peculiar looking man in a monk’s robe standing at a podium.

The round bald headed man announces we can take a seat wherever we want.  His accent sounds British mixed with a Southern drawl, an interesting combination.   Miss Raine leaves, not before telling she’ll be back in exactly one hour and thirty minutes.

“Chop, chop, we won’t learn anything if everyone is too busy gawking at me in my habit.”  He says and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief.  He clears his throat, which sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball. “I’m Mr Jesse James and no, I am not related to your American outlaw or to a biker.”  His head tilts to the side as he talks.  “This is Enhanced Alchemy.  What is it, you might ask yourself?  This is an intense methodical form of the art in alchemy.  Yes, art.  Although your young brain might be thinking science, and I agree;  however, it’s an art of precision.  I’m not going to bore you to death over the details, you’ll understand as the school year progresses.  In your desk, you’ll find a journal and a textbook.  Please pull them out and personalize them.  They are yours to keep.” 

The sound of books slapping the desk fills the room.  “Excuse me Mr James, I thought all of our books are electronic textbooks for our I-pads.  We have to lug around this giant book?”  I ask while clicking the end of my ink-pen over and over nervously.

He gives me an annoyed look. “Yes, Miss Lucente, you have to carry a school book, just like the old days,” he says sharply.  “Everyone, open your book, and I want you to read the first chapter.  You have five minutes to read it and then you’ll take a test.” We all make a sound of aggravation.

“Can you believe this guy?  What a douchebag, that was totally rude of him,” Amber says.  She picked the seat behind me so I can hear her commentary about the class.

“Less talking and more reading Miss Edwards.”

“Like I said, douche,” she whispers to the back of my head.  I mentally pray he didn’t hear her.  I hunch over my book trying to let my hair fall into a curtain so Mr James won’t talk to me again. 

Alchemy (al-kuh-mee)

Noun, plural alchemies

A form of chemistry practiced in Renaissance time.  The art of transmuting baser metals into gold. 

The use of chemicals for magical elements.  The art of mixing compounds into potions for healing.

The chapter is four pages long, but promises by the end of the book, we’d be able to identify and create potions.  I’ll be lucky not to cause an explosion by the end of the book.  I look over and note Thorne never opened his book.  I wonder if Mr James will say anything.

“Miss Lucente, take one and pass them on,” I grab the stack and give it to Amber.  I see Thorne is smirking in my direction.  I shift quickly and stare down at my test.  I miss the announcement to start. 

Five minutes later I get up to hand my work to the teacher.  As I turn to go back to my desk, I run smack into Thorne.  Good going grace.  “Sorry, I have a clumsy gene.”

“No sweat,” he replies and winks at me.  Did he just wink?  No, it’s my imagination.  Maybe I know him through my grandma.  I’d remember him…wouldn’t I?  His rugged look works for him.  Amber’s going to have a field day with his eyes once she sees they’re gray.  Deep and crystal clear with long black eyelashes.  Why do guys always have great eyelashes and girls get stuck with wimpy flimsy ones?  He is staring back at me, and for a moment, I forget what I’m doing.  I bet he’s a terrific kisser with his perfect lips.  Oops, why did I say that…think that? 

Derrick is the last to turn in his test.  I hate being last; I always feel everyone thinks I’m stupid.  Mom would say, someone has to be last.  True, but it doesn’t make me feel better.

“I am pleased to inform everyone that all of you passed the test with a 100.  For a reward, I’m going give you four chapters to read tonight instead of two.”

“What the hell?”  Amber mutters. 

“Oh no Miss Edwards, hell is college,” says Mr James.  “I’m going to teach you how to make a protection potion.  It won’t be hard, and I’ll give you the ingredients to take home.  You will be given a pop quiz later week.  I’ll grade you on both finesse and speed.  Mr Woodson, it will behoove you to practice and actually read the chapters.  Form a single file line by the back door. We’re going to the lab.”

 “Hey, I need your help,” Amber says.

This can’t be good.  “With what?”

About the author 

Author Bio - Devyn Dawson

Devyn is a full time writer, wife and pet owner.  She's been writing since she was a small child.  Her first office job was working for a publisher and data entry of manuscripts.  She literally typed them and saved them on real 'floppy discs'.  When she was in high school back in the 80's, she would read Stephen King one day and Sweet Valley High the next day.  She said one day she'd find a way to merge the two books.   

Currently Devyn and her husband of 19 years live in New Bern, North Carolina. Devyn is originally from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and still refers to it as home.  She has two adult children, Paris and Hunter.  When she realized she would be facing an empty nest and family so far away, she decided to write about characters to entertain her.  Her new series The Light Tamer, is about friendship, relationships and falling in love.  The Light Tamer series is a younger young adult book, the one that takes you back to the beginning before being jaded.  It offers characters that are both good and flawed.  Throw in some mythology and you're in for a quick trip that will leave you breathless and enlightened.

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Best of luck
~Carlyle ~