Hunger Moon by Bella James Book Tour and Giveaway!
Hunger
Moon
by
Bella James
Genre: YA Psychological Thriller
“I
am made of a thousand ghosts, and only you can shoot me down.”
The
sequel to Bella James’ The Girl Who Cried Wolf, invites you to
return to the story of Anna Winters, a young woman facing a
portentous struggle through depression, disordered eating and
dependency.
Terrified
of emanating her violent father, Anna turns her back on all that has
become most precious to her. She journeys the deep labyrinth of her
soul, relentlessly shadowed by a black wolf. He is her deepest fears,
the darkness within her, and the only one who can set her
free.
Anna
returns to her past and makes sense of the nightmare she created, to
recognise of darkness and light, there is beauty in both. As she
refuses to relinquish her power to addiction, a frightened girl
begins to create new pathways, from being a lost and defenceless
teenager to discovering the strength that lies within womanhood.
A
young heart can be broken, a fractured soul can be mended… But can
you ever be ready for the fight of your life?
My hair, once so lovingly grown out
after chemotherapy and crafted into a shoulder-length pale-blonde
bob, now hangs lifeless and drab around my dour face. I frown crossly
and try to remember the last time I made the effort to wash and style
it properly but, of course, to no avail. I recall furiously spraying
dry shampoo in great clouds around the roots before Jules pulled into
our driveway yesterday, but I know for certain my hair has not been
carefully washed and blow-dried for months.
My scowl deepens as I think of Hope,
our three-month-old daughter, and how I will always be almost
reaching the point of doing something pleasant for myself when she
will inevitably cry out for one thing or another. A tiny tug of
conscience pulls at my culpable heart as I remember an equal number
of times I have heard her little cries and called twice as loudly for
someone else to see to her.
Everyone adores Hope. She was conceived
unexpectedly after Michael and I fell in love in an oncology ward.
Admittedly not the most charming place to attract your soulmate,
especially as chemotherapy had literally stripped me of any
pre-diagnosis attributes I may have once used to entice him.
Before the discovery of a grade three
tumour, nestled steadfastly in my seventeen-year old brain, I may
have dared to consider myself a very attractive and sassy young
woman. My long, blonde hair was always worn in a cascade down past my
shoulders, and I had mastered the art of flicking it flirtatiously
back from my face at anyone who wished to contemplate my appeal―or
anyone who chose not to. I outshone my younger sister, Isabel, at
every opportunity. Always the one who laughed the loudest and
commanded centre stage, I was as vivacious and extreme as she was
natural and demure.
I am pulled back from my reverie now as
I consider calling her and demanding that she tell me what I must do.
I pause only to glance once more at the stranger looking forlornly
back at me. In a moment of utter self-deprecation, I let the
comfortably-shabby dressing gown fall from my shoulders and down to
the weathered oak floorboards beneath my feet. My intake of breath
feels forced and unnatural as I see this young woman before me as a
stranger, indeed.
Pre-illness, I was always a hair’s
breadth from a size ten. Nothing a week of starvation―followed by
twenty-minutes of ferocious pulling of the jeans zipper by Izzy as I
lay flat on the bed―could impede. We had low-carbed, juiced,
maple-syruped, and paleod our way to somewhere between a size twelve
and the coveted ten. We held onto the promise of the eventual slender
eight, but we never truly got beyond the frequent losing and gaining
of the same ten pounds. It had given Izzy and me focus over the years
if nothing else.
During my illness, I lost a great deal
of weight and dropped dangerously below eight stone for a little over
two months. It had been glorious, if only for the joy of finally
being painfully and fashionably thin.
Even the serene and angelic Izzy could
not hide the flash of resentment in her lovely grey eyes as I
floated, wistful and waif-like, through the house wearing as little
as modesty would allow, usually minuscule underwear and a beatific
smile.
The imposter before me is incomparable,
and I’m glad I decided to take some time before making the phone
call, as even in my darkest hour I’m not prepared to let my
beautiful fourteen-year-old sister see me looking like this.
Above the neck is bad enough. Dark
circles rest resolutely under my eyes, as Hope has been teething for
what seems like years. While Michael has the calm patience to always
soothe her back to sleep, I’m still awakened with the noise of his
pacing around and searching for pacifiers. I have abandoned the use
of makeup, initially it was because Michael always insisted I was so
beautiful without it, and then eventually because I just did not have
the energy to perform the once-fiercely indulged morning routine of
applying toner, moisturiser, lipstick, and mascara.
The list in itself could exhaust me.
About a month after Hope was born, I
took the idea that he loved me without makeup and somewhat ran with
it. I did not listen to the wise voice within reminding me that most
men think no makeup translates to “no garish pink or red lipstick,”
while actually they prefer the “barely there look,” which
essentially can take a good hour and a half to achieve, depending on
how naturally beautiful and contoured you wish to appear.
No. I had decided to go all in and was
rewarded for my morning debut at the breakfast table “au naturel”
with a rather shocked fiancé asking me if I was not at all well. I
immediately jumped down his throat with a stream of accusatory
remarks and reminders until he reluctantly conceded that, yes, I did
not need makeup to be beautiful. He had simply thought I looked a
little wan.
Of course, I had promptly applied a
healthy dose of Benefit High Beam and some berry lip gloss for good
measure, but eventually this seemed to fizzle down to the occasional
sweep of mascara if we were venturing out for the evening.
I try to bolster a little hope and
encouragement by silently reminding myself that my makeup bag is
still in the depths of some drawer in our bedroom, and I could easily
find time to book a hair appointment to have my grown-out highlights
redone. My broken heart does lift as I decide to make such an
appointment very soon, and the next time Michael sees me, my eyes and
lips shall be shimmering with definition, my hair shining brighter
than the sun. I glance very briefly downwards and realise that my
body will have to be kept firmly under wraps until I can re-hook
myself into the miserable world of crash dieting.
The
Girl Who Cried Wolf
A
growing up story with a difference, and a startling debut, The Girl
Who Cried Wolf shows the tumultuous transition from teenager to young
woman and is a story about believing in something, whether love,
faith or simply yourself.
Anna
Winters is beautiful, reckless and entirely self-absorbed. She spends
more time thinking up reasons to call in sick to school than she does
studying for her A levels. She shies away from her family, from
responsibility – from anything in fact that doesn’t involve peach
cider and endless parties with her friend Jules.
Anna
assumes that her headaches are an inconvenient symptom of her wild
lifestyle, until a doctor tells her that she has cancer…
As
a terrifying black cloud descends upon her, Anna finds solace in
Michael, another patient in the oncology ward. Michael shows Anna a
chink of light in the darkness and sees beauty behind her illness and
loves her sassy wit. He makes Anna forget she is ill.
Michael
recovers; but Anna’s prospects worsen. And in emergency surgery, as
she hovers between life and death, she is given a stark glimpse of
why her life is so broken, and as she realises the simple fulfillment
of being truly content, fears it may now be too late…
Bella James is the author of The Girl Who Cried Wolf, and the sequel Hunger Moon.
She
writes gritty and intense YA novels that pull no punches in the
trials of transitioning from child to adulthood.
Bella
worked for many years with young people who were facing exclusion
from mainstream schools, and is a passionate crusader in dispelling
the challenges we face all our lives -trying to fit into a world that
doesn’t always accept us for who we want to be.
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts and a giveaway!
Congrats on the tour and I appreciate the excerpt and the great giveaway as well. Love the tours, I get to find books and share with my sisters and now my twin daughters who all love to read. We have found some amazing books for everyone. So, thank you!
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