Blog Tour: Perilous, by Tamara Hart Heiner

Perilous is Tamara Hart Heiner's debut novel from WiDo Publishing. A YA suspense, here's the first page:

Detective Carl Hamilton shielded his eyes against the blaring blue lights and flashed his badge at the police officer. The man moved aside. Hamilton stepped off the paved, two-lane highway just outside of Havre, Montana. Orange tape blocked off the crime scene, hidden by the darkness of early morning. He ducked under the tape and pushed his way into the dry shrubbery.

A sergeant shone a flashlight on his face and asked, “Are you Detective Hamilton?”

He gave a short nod.

“I’m Shirley White.” Pressing her hand to her nose, she turned her attention back to the ground.

The stench of rotting flesh was strong. “Ma’m. What have we found?”

“It’s a girl. We think it’s one of the four you’ve been looking for.”

Carl’s stomach knotted. “Cause of death?”

“We’ll have to perform an autopsy, of course, but it appears to be a gunshot wound. Is it one of them?”

“Where is she?”

“Under the bushes.”

He crouched down and moved the bushes aside, breathing through his mouth. This never got any easier. The branches parted to reveal a young girl, features distorted by death but still recognizable. The open eyes stared blankly up at him. He released the branches and stood up, giving a nod. “Yes. It’s one of them.”

The case had just gone from a kidnapping to a homicide. And there were three girls still missing.

Tamara, who currently lives in the South of the U.S., began writing her novel one day in high school study hall when she was bored. Now a wife and mother, she is working on a sequel to this fast-paced book. Here's a link to the book trailer for Perilous.

And the premise:

Jaci Rivera has plans for her sophomore year: go to regionals with the track team, make the honor roll, and eat too much pizza with her best friends, Callie and Sara. Her biggest concern is Amanda, the pushy girl who moved in a few months ago.

What she doesn't plan for is catching a robber red-handed, or being kidnapped. The desperate thief drags her and her friends 2,000 miles across the Canadian border. They escape from his lair, only to find that he has spies and agents watching their path home, waiting to intercept them and take them back.

Then Jaci finds something out about her family. Something which irrevocably connects her to their kidnapper, and makes her question their chances of escape.

As if that isn't enticement enough to buy and devour this exciting read (you know it's thrilling adults as well as YA readers, right?), Tamara is conducting a contest on her blog, with not one prize, but two! Actually, it's a two-pronged giveaway: one prize is a signed copy of Perilous, the other is a KINDLE eBook reader!!!

Check out the contest details and requirements on my post last week, or on Tamara's blog.

Order Perilous in print here, or as a Kindle ebook here.

What are you waiting for?