Queen of All She Reads: Virtual Book Tour & #Giveaway for Strange Girl by Christopher Pike

Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Tour, presented by Bewitching Book Tours, for Strange Girl by Christopher Pike. Please leave a comment or question for Christopher to let him know you stopped by. You may enter his tour wide giveaway by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.

Guest Post by Christopher Pike

People often ask me how I know when I get a new idea if it can be made into a novel. They’ll complain that they have too many ideas for new books, and they don’t know which one to choose.

For me the answer is simple. When I get what I think is a great idea for a novel, I start writing the story. And if the story keeps unfolding, if the characters come to life, I stay with it. But I also look for something else when I’m trying to decide on a new book or a new book idea.

I look for a rush of energy.

I’m afraid the above answer will make people think I’m a New Age freak, which I’m not. What do I mean by energy? Well, when I first began to write Strange Girl I quickly discovered that when I woke up in the morning -- or the afternoon -- I was excited to get back to the book. Writing the novel wasn’t a chore. I looked forward to spending time with Fred and Aja, the two main characters of the novel.

I’ve discovered if I don’t enjoy writing a book, few people are going to enjoy reading it. Generally a strong idea for a book takes on a life of it’s own. For example, with Strange Girl, each day I sat to write, I had no idea what was going to happen next. But what I needed to know seemed to come to me -- that day. The experience almost made me believe in the old concept of “having a muse.”

At times I do feel as if I’m not so much writing the book as taking dictation. But that has only happened to me a few times in my career. When I wrote Remember Me, The Last Vampire (Thirst) and Strange Girl. It’s definitely not something that I can “make” happen. The magic comes when it comes. God only knows where it comes from.

Strange Girl

Christopher Pike

Publisher: Simon Pulse (AnImprint of Simon and Schuster)

Release Date: November 17, 2015

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

Paperback: 432 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1481450584

ASIN: B00TBKUVNQ

Buy Links: Amazon BN BAM IndieBound iBookstore GooglePlay

About the book:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christopher Pike comes a brand-new fascinating and seductive new novel about a girl with a mysterious ability—but one that carries an unimaginable cost.

From the moment Fred meets Aja, he knows she’s different. She’s pretty, soft-spoken, shy—yet seems to radiate an unusual peace. Fred quickly finds himself falling in love with her.

Then strange things begin to happen around Aja. A riot breaks out that Aja is able to stop by merely speaking a few words. A friend of Fred’s suffers a serious head injury and has a miraculous recovery.

Yet Aja swears she has done nothing.

Unfortunately, Fred is not the only one who notices Aja’s unique gifts. As more and more people begin to question who Aja is and what she can do, she’s soon in grave danger. Because none of them truly understands the source of Aja’s precious abilities—or their devastating cost.

Love Aja or hate her—you will never forget her.

In Strange Girl, #1 bestselling author Christopher Pike has created the rarest of novels—a love story that swings between a heart-pounding mystery and a stirring mystical journey.

EXCERPT

It was four in the morning when I heard the soft knock on our motel door. I appeared to be the only one who heard it.

Nearby, Janet and Shelly slept soundly on one bed, while on the other Dale lay like a dead man as Mike snored loudly. At the knock, I sat up on my foldout bed. I didn’t mind rollaways. If I was tired enough, I could sleep on the floor. Pulling on my pants over the gym shorts I’d been sleeping in, I slipped from beneath the sheets and answered the door.

“Hi,” Aja said and smiled. She had on the same dress she’d worn to the Roadhouse. Her hair was wet, though, as if she’d just showered, and her feet were bare. I saw no car. I assumed she’d walked over from her own nearby motel or hotel.

“This is a surprise,” I said. It was so good to see her I feared I might still be asleep, dreaming the whole thing up. “What are you doing here?”

“Want to go for a walk?”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at my friends; they were still out. “Give me a second, let me find my shoes and a shirt,” I said.

Minutes later we were strolling along the cracked edge of an asphalt road beside a twenty-foot fence, topped with barbed wire, that surrounded the base. The town was silent as Elder usually was at this time of morning. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

The air was heavy with moisture and the ground was damp; clouds had chased away the stars. It made me wonder if it had been raining and if that was the real reason Aja’s hair was wet. Had she been wandering around in the dark since we’d last seen her? I asked and she nodded.

“Are you nuts?” I said. “You should have hooked up with us hours ago.”

She shrugged. “You were playing and the place was noisy. Besides, I like to take walks late at night.” She glanced over. “You look surprised.”

“I’m surprised you’re here. What made you come?”

“You invited me to hear you play. You remember?”

“Sure. How did you get here? Did Bart bring you?”

“I took a bus.”

“Why didn’t you come with us?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Let me get this straight. You rode here all alone, across half the state, with only the clothes on your back. And since we last saw you at the Roadhouse, you’ve been wandering around in the dark—barefoot—in a strange town all by yourself.”

“No.”

“What part are you saying no to?”

“My shoes.”

“What about your shoes?”

“I brought shoes. But I got tired of wearing them.” She added, “They’re sitting on the hood of your RV.”

“Well, that’s a relief. You’ve got your shoes to protect you. Honestly, Aja, you can’t behave like this, not in this country. You’re too pretty a girl. Anything could happen to you.”

“Anything can happen,” she appeared to agree, before adding, “Don’t worry about me.”

I shook my head. “I do worry about you.”

“Why?”

“Because . . . maybe where you come from it’s safe to wan¬der around at night. But this can be a violent town. You saw those guys at the club. They were ready to kill Mike and Dale.” When Aja didn’t respond I looked over at her. “But they didn’t because you showed up. How did you get them to stop?”

“I didn’t do anything. They were afraid, that’s all. They didn’t want to hurt anybody. And when they understood that, everything was okay.”

I shook my head. “If Shelly had stood on that table instead of you and begged that drunken herd to calm down, they would have beaten the shit out of her. What you did was amazing.”

“Fred.”

“What?”

“I can’t be in danger one minute and amazing the next. You have to make up your mind.”

She had a point, sort of. I was contradicting myself. Not that she still wasn’t acting naive. “What I mean is . . . ,” I began.

She interrupted by reaching over and taking my hand. “I liked when you sang by yourself at the beginning,” she said.

Her hand felt good in mine. “You were there at the start? I didn’t see you.”

“Yes. At first you were nervous, then you relaxed.” She added as if to herself, “You enjoy singing in front of people.”

For such a naive girl, I thought, she was perceptive.

“I do,” I said. When she didn’t reply, I asked, “How have you been this last week?”

“Good.”

“It must have made you mad getting expelled on your second day of school.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be there Monday.”

I shook my head. “I can’t understand why Billard hates you.”

“She doesn’t hate me.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s afraid of me.”

“Huh?”

“We met over the summer.”

“Where?”

“At the town cemetery. I often walk there.”

“What happened at the cemetery?”

Aja hesitated. “Better you ask her.”

“Why?”

“She’ll explain.”

I pushed Aja to elaborate but she just shook her head and kept walking. I finally decided to shut my mouth and enjoy the touch of her hand, which was remarkably soothing. I don’t know how far we’d walked when I noticed that I was feeling awfully energized for a guy who hadn’t really slept in two days. More, I felt light, light as a balloon, as if I wasn’t walking but floating alongside the fence. And the clouds in the sky, they felt somehow closer, like I could touch them.

Aja suddenly stopped and faced me, her big, brown eyes bright in the dark night. She reached up and stroked my cheek, my hair, and even though I did my best to stay cool I trembled. She inched up on her toes and kissed me on the lips, just for a second or two.

“Let’s go back to your RV,” she said.

“You mean the motel? You can sleep on my foldout. I can sleep on the floor.”

Aja shook her head and tightened her grip on my hand. She began to lead me back the way we’d come. “I want to sleep with you in the RV.”

I don’t recall much about the walk back. But I do remember lying beside her on the cushions in the rear of the RV, our two bodies barely fitting between the crush of our equipment. We didn’t have sex—we didn’t even make out, nor did she kiss me again.

But she held me and let me hold her and for the first time in my life I felt as if all my hidden fears had been deftly exposed and quietly put to bed, once and for all. I had fought with her that it wasn’t safe to wander alone in the dark, but when I slept with her cheek resting on mine, and felt the brush of her eyelashes as they fluttered during her dreams, I was the one who felt protected.

About the Author:

Christopher Pike is a bestselling author of young adult novels. The Thirst series, The Secret of Ka, and the Remember Me and Alosha trilogies are some of his favorite titles. He is also the author of several adult novels, including Sati and The Season of Passage.

Thirst and Alosha are slated to be released as feature films. Pike currently lives in Santa Barbara, where it is rumored he never leaves his house.

But he can be found online at www.Facebook.com/ChristopherPikeBooks

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/RealChristopherPike

Series of writing advice on Wattpad:

https://www.wattpad.com/story/52999302