Blog Tour Stop: Identified: The Maya Price Story by Faith A. Rice-Mills- Excerpt & Giveaways

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Identified: The Maya Price Story

Author: Faith A. Rice-Mills

Release Date: December 3, 2012

Genre: YA Paranormal/ Fantasy

Summary:

Maya Price is a typical eighteen-year-old girl without much going on in her life. Her biggest problems include getting ready to leave her hometown for college, figuring out how to avoid her ever-so-strange stepmother, and trying to muddle through her feelings for her best friend, Pete. Yet, on one of her last nights in her hometown, she and Pete are in a car accident. A stranger pulls Maya from the accident, leaving Pete behind, and takes her out of this world and into another dimension.

Maya soon discovers that she has been taken to a dimension called Leets by a group of people that call themselves shifters. Shifters are of mixed human and onyx blood and have various abilities. These shifters are able to travel between dimensions and control the four elements (fire, earth, wind, water) and the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch and taste). Their leader, Victoria, informs Maya that she, too, is a shifter and that she must choose to join them or risk being sought out by their greatest enemy, a shifter named Leonas.

Maya joins Victoria and her ragtag group of rebel shifters in Leets, where she is teamed up with a group of seven other shifters. Her new "teammates" include a street-smart girl named Luz, who is especially adept at controlling fire, her twin sister Espy, and a nervous boy named Lamar, who can manipulate sound better than any other shifter. Together, Maya’s team trains for the battle that will soon be inevitable.

However, Maya soon learns that her purpose is not to just move the earth or send water flying into the air. There are rumors of a hidden prophecy and that the prophecy mentions Maya by name. Supposedly, the prophecy says that Maya will one day have to choose a side and will be essential in bringing her chosen ally to power...

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About the Author:

Faith A. Rice-Mills is the author of Identified: The Maya Price Story and a handful of short stories. She moonlights as a Spanish teacher, but has wanted to be a writer since she wrote the poem “The Jackowhipp’s Wail” as an eight-year-old. Her writer’s spirit resides somewhere between Narnia and Mount Doom, but her physical body lives in Texas with her family. Besides writing, she loves reading (and will take recommendations!), yoga, coloring with her daughter, and watching Parks and Recreation with her husband. She dislikes snakes, the word “literally,” and teaching double object pronouns in Spanish. She is currently working on Burdened, the second book in The Maya Price Story series and is writing whatever short story she has to get out of her brain.

Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Excerpt:

Letter from Lamar Elkins to his half-brother, Ernest Perkins

June 5, 2006

Hey broseph.

So, we started training last week. It’s kind of weird that you aren’t here. I know we always planned on me sticking around after high school and playing the drums for Eddie and the Underwriters, but this is just something I gotta do. I know I’ve told you that before, and I know you said you understand; I just feel like I need to say it again.

This is crazy! I don’t even know how this letter is going to reach you! It’s weird, too, writing letters. I mean, who even writes letters anymore? I wish I could email you, but we don’t have any computers here. It’s some crazy shit. My main trainer lady, Victoria, says they have people everywhere, even in the post office. I guess it’s them who deliver the letters. Victoria’s all with the cryptic. All the time. We can never get a straight answer out of her. I guess I just have to trust her. I mean, I do have to trust her. She’s in charge of keeping us all alive.

Anyway, they’ve really put us through hell with training. Not only do we have to learn how to “hone” our sensory and element manipulation skills, but they train us in combat. Ok, I haven’t suddenly turned into some steroid-looking freak since I got here and, to be honest, I kind of suck at combat. It kind of pisses me off, because most of the shifters on my team are really good at it. There’s this girl, Luz, who’s from the Bronx and doesn’t mind telling everyone that. She’s kicked everyone’s ass. Including mine. I know I can tell you that and you won’t tell anyone. Remember, I know several secrets of yours, including the one involving a girl from Minneapolis named Violet, your left butt cheek, and a nice little tattoo. Anyway, Luz kicked my ass up and down the training field. I didn’t even get to throw a punch. She’s also able to control fire like nobody’s business, which makes her even scarier.

Here’s the thing though, I’m much better than all of the shifters on my team at manipulating sound. I know I sound kind of like a jackass when I say that, but it’s true. I’ve always pretty much sucked at everything, except playing the drums, but I am good at this. I guess that’s why I’ve always been a pretty badass drummer. It’s like I’ve always been able to sense each individual beat and then command it, without words, to explode or to soften. I could subconsciously tell the beats when to roll together and when to vibrate with individual staccato. It’s why people notice me when I played the drums.

Here, they’ve told me that this ability is part of my mental connection with the five senses. It’s kind of funny to watch the others try to manipulate sound: they have to use their hands (including Luz) to locate the sounds, and then move their fingers to change its pitch and volume. I don’t have to do that. Ok, ok, I have to do that when I’m trying to change sight, smell, or taste (which, if you ask me, is a pretty pointless talent. What are you going to do? Make someone’s bean burrito taste like dog poop? Watch out! Freaking ridiculous. Ri-di-cu-lous.) But, I don’t have to do that when I am changing sound. It’s really weird sometimes, because I can change what other people hear. It’s almost like every sound out there in the universe obeys my silent commands like I’m some kind of sound master. I can find the tiniest whisper of a noise and make it sound like an explosion. (I’ve gotten in trouble for this in my language class, where we learn the native language of Leets. Akins, this other dude on my team, rested his head on his hand during class and I made it sound like he was snoring. He got pissed, the teacher got pissed. Whatever).

I think that the scariest shifters are the ones who are talented in manipulating sense of touch. Yeah, it’s pretty intimidating when someone can command fire, or make a huge tsunami-looking wave out of a fishing pond, but that’s all just showy stuff. I have the ability to manipulate sense of touch, or feeling, or whatever you want to call it, but so far all I’ve been able to do is make Espy (Luz’s twin sister) feel ticklish. There are some of us who can make people feel like they are about to throw up, or like their skin is burning, or that they can’t breathe, or that the pain in their chests is so bad they want to die. It’s really messed up: I don’t think I could make anyone feel that kind of pain. I mean, it’s not real, but I couldn’t do it.

I don’t understand why or how we can do this stuff, but Victoria said it’s something like our connection with both worlds causes us to be connected to the energy of everything in both. It’s kind of cool to have that much power, but kind of not. I don’t know how to explain it. Most of time, I’d rather just be playing my drums. But, like I’ve said a million times already, this is just something I gotta do.

I guess I should wrap this up. I gotta wake up and start letting Luz kick my ass again in about three hours. I hope The Underwriters are doing alright without me. Tell everyone I said what’s up. I miss ya, man.

Lamar

Giveaways:

The First Giveaway is for one ebook of Identified. What you have to do is answer this question: What do you plan to do this summer? The only rule is that you must be a follower. Ends July 30, 2013. (International)

The second giveaway:

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