Teaser Tuesday: The Stepsister's Tale, Unleashed, The Ways of the Dead, & Trial by Fire

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly feature, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Inside, the grand stairway swept up in huge curves, gaps and broken boards making the going treacherous. Once upstairs, a curious visitor who tapped the breastplate of the suit of armor would raise twittering from the nests in the beams high above. The corridors were streaked with white bird droppings and were so dark that you never saw the faces in the portraits that hung crookedly on the walls, their frames riddled with wormholes, until you were almost upon them.

~ The Stepsister's Tale by Tracy Barrett, Kindle Location 14-18 (ARC)

Goodreads

She stood there for several minutes, focusing on her breathing again. In and out. Slowly. Thinking of nothing else until a prickling, like the sharp end of a thousand needles, began to drag its way up her spine until it burst from her skin in a violent shiver. 

Claire turned around. Frozen on the television screen was Gage starring directly into the camera. His lips were turned up on the ends like he was about to laugh. She hadn't noticed before, but now, as she stared at his cold image, at his dark eyes, she swore they were challenging her. To what, she didn't know. She went to the TV and turned it off. When her reflection appeared in the TV’s black glass, she quickly turned away.

~ Unleashed by Rachel McClellan, pg. 110

Goodreads

The main feature of his space was the hand-sketched homicide map of the city, his pride and possibly his joy. It was a poster-sized grid, thirty-six inches wide and fifty inches tall, marked off by the seven police districts with a few major roads indicated, and it was his oracle of Washington. It was his manner of understanding the living, by studying the ways of the dead, a habit so natural to him after years of covering war and conflict that it was no longer a conscious thought. If you wanted to understand any animal, he would tell college classes when they asked him to give talks, then you have to understand the behavior that made them unique, and what made human beings unique among animals were the prefrontal cortex, the opposing thumb, the well-developed voice box, and the propensity to torture and kill other members of their species.

~ The Ways of the Dead by Neely Tucker, Kindle Location 601-609

Goodreads

Heat builds around me, and the fire begins to eat into my flesh. Yes, fire has teeth, and it chews at you like a living, breathing animal. When you're in its mouth, you have to fight for air. Fire, like a lion, likes to suffocate its prey. 

 The flames rise, and I twist and scream, trying to get away, but the iron shackles on my wrists keep me bound to this stake. 

 I'm a witch. And witches burn.

~ Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini, pg. 33 (ARC)

Goodreads