Over the Rainbow by Brian Rowe: Excerpt and Giveaway

Over the Rainbow

by Brian Rowe
Publication date: August 6, 2013

Young Adult, LGBTQ

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About Over the Rainbow:

Zippy Green never meant to fall in love with a girl, but when she does, her ultra-conservative father tries to send her to anti-gay camp. At the Kansas City airport, however, she hides inside a giant suitcase and sneaks onto an airplane headed not to the camp, but to Seattle, where her online love Mira lives. Halfway through the flight, the plane barrels out of control and crashes into the ground, knocking her unconscious.

When Zippy awakens, she finds that most of the passengers have vanished. She doesn’t know what’s happened, but she’s determined to find out. She begins a quest on foot toward Seattle, and along the way, she meets a teenager with a concussion, a homeless man with a heart condition, a child without a shred of bravery, and a terrier named Judy. Together the group discovers that more than two-thirds of the world's population have mysteriously disappeared. But that's only the beginning...

All Zippy wants is to find her Mira, but before she can she has to contend with two outside forces. The first is her homophobic father, who does everything in his power to keep her from the girl she loves. And the second is extinct creatures of all shapes and sizes, including living, breathing dinosaurs, which have replaced the missing population.

Excerpt

I swooped back down and landed on my feet. I started to walk again, toward a cluster of tulips, violets, and dandelions. The flowers were all growing, and the multi-colored faces only stopped when they reached my eye-level. I passed through them, as I did a flutter of butterflies, until I reached a woman sitting on a high chair smoking a double filtered cigarette.

My jaw dropped. “Oh my God,” I said. “Mommy?”

She blew the smoke into the air and the swarm of butterflies brushed it away. “Yes, Zippy, it’s me.” She took another puff and smiled. She didn’t look me in the face.

“Mommy. I’ve missed you so much.”

I ran toward her high chair, but the closer I approached, the taller it became. I collided against the four legs, then looked up to see that she was ten feet off the ground.

“Come down! I want to talk to you!”

“It’s too late, Zippy,” she said, as the sky above withered from a tranquil blue sky to a consternation of clouds. “Nothing lasts forever.”

“But I need you!”

I tried to climb the legs of the chair, but gravity pulled me back. Just seconds ago, I could fly; now I couldn’t even shimmy up that stupid chair leg.

I lay back on the ground, as tears streamed down my cheeks. As soon as I gave up, heavy restraint devices clinked over my wrists. I looked down to see silver handcuffs.

I collapsed back into darkness, my mother waving to me from the meadow beyond.

“Enjoy your first session!” she shouted. “Remember, Zippy, I love you!”

“Mommy! Mommy, wait!”

I stuck my feet out, but I couldn’t stop moving; I was on an invisible rollercoaster track with no end in sight. I tumbled into the sides of trees, smashed my face against bushes, struck thorns and logs and irritated honeybees. A small purple cat with a grin on its face gazed at me from the clouds but didn’t say a word. The trees disappeared, the forest shriveled away from me, and I landed head first in the middle of a hedge maze.

Author Links:

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Brian Rowe is a writing fiend, book devotee, film fanatic, and constant dreamer. He's written ten novels, dozens of short stories, five feature-length screenplays, and hundreds of film articles and essays. He is currently pursuing his MA in English at the University of Nevada, Reno, and is hard at work on his next novel.





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