Jodi Lamm

Edit: I forgot to warn. The excerpt in this post contains mild spoilers for Titan Magic (book one). Read at your own risk.

I’ve been tagged by the awesome MR Graham. Who knew that would happen? And it’s a fun one, giving me the opportunity to post a teaser from Titan Magic: Body and Soul.

Here are the rules of The “Look” Challenge: “Take your current manuscript and find the first instance of the word “look”. Then post the surrounding paragraphs as an excerpt of the book on your blog. Lastly, tag five more blogging authors who you think would be a good choice for the game.”

And if you’re reading this and you’re currently working on a novel, I tag you! Because that’s how I roll.

Okay. Here’s my excerpt:

Marcus planted his hands on his hips and stood over Kaspar like a menacing specter. “Last question,” he said. “How many of these books have you read?”

Kaspar couldn’t answer, not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know. He hadn’t kept count. The truth was, at any given time, Kaspar was connected by invisible threads of paper to hundreds of books in The Lost Library. And he read them all at once, usually more than once. The truth was Kaspar had come very close to memorizing more than he could count. He took a deep breath and prepared to answer with a gesture—one that both Marcus and William would be able to understand, one that would bring Kaspar another step closer to meeting the Titan and to his own annihilation.

With a tug, he pulled every book in sight from its place on the shelves. The sudden music of a million fluttering pages, of hundreds of spines hitting the ground punctuated the gesture beautifully. William’s mouth fell open in silent horror, but Marcus only gazed down at Kaspar with a look of deep resignation.

Kaspar allowed silence to penetrate his labyrinthine home. Then he replaced every book at once. And it was leaves in a forest, the sound that second gesture produced. It was a whirling storm of information.

“It seems our little wooden prince is a prodigy,” Marcus said. “But I think the most telling part of this story is that he felt the need to keep it from us until now. He’s exerting his independence; he has been since the very beginning.” Marcus pushed the stacks of William’s books aside and leaned over, palms to the desk, until he was looking his master right in the eye. “And you’ve been helping him.”