My latest book, my first full-length novel, my tribute to teaparties and true love is available for pre-order! CLICK HERE to see the pretty cover of Hearts and pre-order the ebook or paperback (hardcover and audiobook coming soon!) Or, check out the exclusive Hearts book box from my publisher here! If you’re a very bookish reader, please consider adding Hearts to your Goodreads to-be-read shelf!
About the book:
Author of A Dress for the Wicked and the forthcoming Before the Devil Knows You’re Here Autumn Krause has this to say— “A creative, fascinating debut for fans of whimsy and wonder.”
Hearts is a vintage and lyrical fusion of the classics Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Sleeping Beauty, where Alice, Wendy and Aurora are the same girl—a secretive pencil artist with a dynastic feud destined to end on her cursed birthday. Part modern-day fable and part whimsical retelling, Hearts is perfect for fans of The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, Dust by Kara Swanson, and Disney’s Unbirthday, a Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell. Each story in the Heartbooks series can be read in any order, and each book contains a unique hand-sketched chapter heading and a number of custom, hand-drawn lettering pages.
And, I’m delighted to share about the pre-order surprise: If you pre-order any format of Hearts, as a gift you can chose to send a free copy of the ebook to a friend! On release day, they'll have a shiny new [swoony sweet] novel waiting for them! ***details at brittanyeden.com***
Also! Wishes is on sale for $0.99 cents! If you haven’t got your ebook copy, now is the time! Click here! The audiobook is also on sale at all retailers, and you can find all the links here!
Below, you’ll find the first chapter of Hearts. It’s a bit of a prologue, a bit of a flashback, and a pretty starry night.
Thanks for being with me, and talk soon!
Ever drinking tea,
Brittany
P.S.: Keep scrolling to read the prologue of Hearts…
PART ONE: WONDERLAND
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
—Lewis Carroll
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
PROLOGUE
Seven years ago
I WONDER WHAT LIGHT drew me beyond my window and onto the roof.
Maybe it was the moon, a great light shining hope in the night.
Because maybe, stars weren’t enough for a withdrawn girl. But that great night light illuminated my darkness and brought moments of freedom. There, I found someone. I even caught glimpses of myself—my true self—on the moonlit nights.
Mostly though, I think it was the stars that started it.
“What do you think heaven is like?” my friend asked, hidden in the shadows.
I shivered in my nightgown, which clung in the humid late-night air. “You’re asking the wrong question.”
I drew my knees up against the late summer chill, feeling hints of freedom from the fog crowding my mind, there in midnight darkness under the wide expanse of the heavens.
Beneath innumerable stars, the city slumbered softly while in the forest beyond the townhouse backyards hummed a nightingale, defying the blare of a passing ambulance siren. It was calm on the rooftop where I spent summer nights keeping vigil against sleeplessness. I could deny the past all I wanted, until I slept. I was too afraid to confront my trauma and desperate to protect myself from what might have been reality or may have been delusions. But there was no hiding in the subconscious, and it didn’t seem possible for my young mind to process.
Night-terrors are scary.
“And what would that be?” he asked, lounging like he owned the roof of the shed belonging to the townhouse beside mine, which nearly touched the second story roof I sat on.
I bit my lip. “Where is heaven?” I stared at the crescent moon, glad my unnamed companion shared my affinity for secrecy and mystery. “Where can we find it?”
“Would we know it if we saw it?” His words echoed the longing in my heart, because all I ever wanted was to see a glimpse of heaven. Peace, like the settling of night after a long day. Joy, for endings and beginnings. Love.
I took a deep breath of the cooling night air. “Heaven is endless light making clouds glow with gold-rimmed fire over an ageless sea beyond the stars.” Leaves rustled on nearby trees. “Heaven is where hills are split by a happy river whose destination is forever.”
“You’re just describing the sunset,” he scoffed. “That’s cheating.”
“Maybe the sunset is the start of heaven,” I huffed, hurt. “Maybe sunsets lead the way there every night, and God keeps sending them to remind us to keep looking.”
“You’re just obsessed with sunsets because you hate summer at home so much you want it to end.” Hurt laced his voice as it nailed at sharp angles the thing inside I tried to cover, but I swallowed my own cutting reply because I couldn’t bear to hurt the one person who’d kept me company on this rooftop for each lonely birthday these last hard years.
Was he right? Was my desire to hide wrong? No amount of whimsical questions had led me to reveal my truth to him; no, I hid that memory so deep, it no longer felt real. The past was a dream, and I had relegated it to my nightmares. If it stayed there, it couldn’t haunt me during the day.
But part of me wanted more, to be more than that memory had forced me to become, and all my self-preservation never banished the thought. There is more. Just like the sunset was a daily reminder to remember, and surely all remembering wasn’t monstrous. The sunset, pulling its rays through the clouds and playing its last strains to the sky long after disappearing. Such steadfast resistance to nature, such futility in the face of another tomorrow. And right then on the rooftop, between me and the boy, darkness had already fallen. It all started five summers ago on my seventh birthday, and none of us were the same since.
How could the heart survive?