Run for your Life Trilogy by Pamela Beason Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Race
With Danger
Run
for Your Life Trilogy Book 1
by
Pamela Beason
Genre:
YA Suspense, Action, Adventure
Champion
runner Tanzania Grey, 17, has to win the Verde Island Endurance
Race's million-dollar prize to save the life of her friend Bailey.
The treacherous five-day race traverses a remote volcanic island
that's home to beasts that slither, fly, swim, and slink through the
jungle. But the wildlife turns out to be the least of Tana's problems
when she draws the name of Sebastian Callendro as her partner.
Sebastian's personal life has put him in the national spotlight, and
his nosy followers are the kind Tana can't afford. Her name isn't
really Tanzania, and everything else in her biography is invented,
too. She’s been running for three years─from the men who murdered
her parents. If her cover is blown, she could be next.
**Only
.99 cents!!**
The cameras swivel in my
direction. As I approach the glittering bowl, I take a deep breath
and pray for inner calm and fantastic luck. I’m not usually a team
player, so this partner element makes me sweat even more than usual.
But this is the biggest race of the year with a grand prize of a
million dollars, and I will win this even if I have to drag my
partner up every hill and through every river on this steamy tropical
island. I have to win. A life depends on it. I swim my hand around the
giant fishbowl, trying desperately to feel magic. Maybe I should have
sanded my fingertips to make them more sensitive. Please
God-If-There-Is-One, give me a little zing when I touch the name of
the right partner. Give me a sign. The slips of paper,
rolled into tight little cylinders and tied with red ribbons, all
feel exactly the same. No zing. As the seconds tick past, the
matching blond Barbie Doll attendants standing guard at each end of
the table start to shoot sideways glances at me. Their camera smiles
stiffen into grimaces. Magic, magic, magic,
I chant in my head. I finally pull one slip out and hand it to the
emcee, whose features beneath his dripping makeup are so perfect and
bland that he looks like he came here directly from an Intense Botox
workshop. With a practiced
flourish, he unties the bow and unfurls the note. He scans it for a
second. Then he faces the camera, flashes his uber-white teeth and
shouts, “Sebastian Callendro!” My heart does an
immediate crash dive. It lands on the hard ground in front of my toes
and shatters into a dozen pieces. I want to fall to my knees, shake
my fists at the relentless sun overhead, and scream, “No fair!” Instead, I smile and walk
a few steps forward to meet my new teammate halfway. Every camera in
the place focuses on us. Callendro and I shake hands as we size each
other up. Although he’s thousands
of miles away right now, I can feel waves of jealousy radiating
across the airwaves from Private Emilio Santos. I know he will watch
this if he can. Emilio is tall, with hair like a river of ink, eyes
like bittersweet chocolate, and a swagger that everyone notices even
when he’s standing still. His blue-black sheen of whiskers makes
him look older and more dangerous than his nineteen years, and he
likes that. His almost-beard is one reason I nicknamed him Shadow,
and he likes that, too. But here, on Verde Island
in the blazing sunlight of early morning, nothing is shadowy.
Sebastian Callendro is maybe three inches taller than I am. I’m
wearing my trademark gold tee shirt with the galloping stallion logo
of my sponsor, Dark Horse Networks, on the back. Callendro’s blue
tee has three emblems across his chest, like a row of military
medals. There’s a jet zooming through a circle, then a sports car
logo, then what looks like a couple of crossed test tubes, maybe an
insignia for one of those monster pharma companies like the one my
mom worked for. No doubt there are more designs all across his back.
Holy guacamole, there’s even a row of logos marching down each side
of his black running shorts. Does he have decals on his butt? It’s
the only space left. I guess it makes sense.
Now that the word is out, Sebastian Callendro has so many sponsors
that all their names won’t fit on his shirt. He probably flew to
Verde Island on a private jet with a real bed and real food, too. But right now, we both
have identical drips of sweat streaming down our temples. Sebastian’s
hair is scraped back in a ponytail, like mine, but his is a rich
walnut brown, while mine is ebony with only the tiniest hints of red.
The skin on the back of his extended hand tends more toward the
copper spectrum than my own caramel shade. His green eyes, too light
under such thick black lashes, stare into my hazel ones. His gaze is
laser-intense, and just a little creepy, like he’s trying to see
under my skin. Of course I’ve seen
Sebastian Callendro before, but never so close that I can count his
eyebrow hairs. He’s more than a year older than I am, which makes
him eighteen or maybe even nineteen. Together, we make up the
youngest team in this contest—could that be an advantage? Catie Cole is the other
seventeen-year-old runner. She’s the favorite golden
girl—literally, because she has long blond hair and that evenly
sun-kissed skin that comes from a tanning bed. She has a zillion
sponsors and a modeling contract. But unfortunately, she’s not just
a pretty face; she’s six feet tall and she runs like the wind.
She’s real competition. So is Madelyn Hatt.
Predictably, all the reporters call her “The Mad Hatter,”
although “The Mean Hatter” would probably be more accurate.
Madelyn has been accused, but never convicted, of dirty tricks like
putting laxatives—or was it sedatives?—in her rivals’ food. She
just turned nineteen. Her parents made a really big deal of it,
holding a pre-birthday party before the last race we were both in.
They scowled at me when I refused to wear the stupid pointy hat for
the camera. Except for Marco Senai, a
perpetually emaciated runner from Kenya whom I was hoping to land as
my partner, I don’t know much about the men in this race. Maybe my
new partner can at least contribute some usable intelligence about
that. And I sure as hell hope he can keep up. Sebastian Callendro
often places near the top of the men’s division, but he’s not a
champion like me. “I hope I don’t have
to drag you,” I whisper, too softly for the microphones to pick up. “And I’m not carrying
you,” he hisses. His smile does not extend to his eyes. The Barbie Dolls drape
numbered medallions strung on red, white, and blue ribbons around our
necks. We are Team Seven. Holding up our joined hands for the camera,
we step forward. Behind us, at least two
men are also stepping forward. They’ll be wearing identical suits
and mirrored sunglasses, and they’ll have communication sets on
their wrists and listening devices in their ears. Their hands will
hover near the pistols holstered on their belts. I didn’t feel the
magic, but I definitely got zinged with my choice. Sebastian Callendro is
The President’s Son.
Race
to Truth
Run
For Your Life Trilogy Book 2
Champion endurance
racer Tanzania Grey, now 18, is haunted by disturbing email
messages from the mysterious P.A. Patterson, who seems to suspect
her real identity as Amelia Robinson. Four years earlier, she
was the only one to escape when the Robinson family was
professionally “eradicated” in Bellingham, Washington.
When Tana receives
an invitation to compete in an extreme version of the Ski to Sea
relay in her home town, she decides to use the race as a cover
to gather information about who killed her mother and
father, and what became of her then-nine-year-old brother.
Tana soon discovers
clues that hint of something terribly wrong in the company her
mother helped to create, Quarrel Tayson Laboratories. Worse, her
sleuthing attracts the attention of a very frightening man in
Bellingham, who knew both her parents. It now seems more a matter of
“when” than “if” she will be the next to be killed. Can she
turn the tables and reveal who was behind the death of her
parents before she becomes their next victim?
Xavier
holds out my PFD. I jam my arms through the holes. He’s still
pulling on a tab to tighten it as I jump into the boat. As we push
off, I remember to unsnap my bike helmet and toss it at him, and then
we are off. My
right buttock cheek plops down on an energy gel pack and as we back
away from the bank, I take a second to squeeze some gel (cherry) into
my mouth, followed by a squirt of water from the bottle at my feet. Then I
drop everything and paddle hard. We pass by the trees overhanging the
river and zigzag between a couple of rocks and branches that I don’t
remember from two days ago. The river is moving just as swiftly as it
was then. The weather yesterday was warm and the snow has been
melting in the mountains, so maybe the current is even faster. “Strainer
ahead!” JJ yells from the back of the boat. At
least now I know to look for a log jam. It might be my imagination,
but I think the damn thing is even bigger than it was during our
practice run. It is a colossal obstacle that reaches halfway across
the stream, and the Nooksack is swiftly sweeping us toward it. We
nearly upset the canoe as we frantically paddle on the same side to
pass the log jam. But just as I think we’ll make it, our back end
starts swinging in the direction of the strainer like a nail pulled
toward a magnet. “Damn
it, Zany, paddle like you mean it!” JJ shouts. What
the hell does he think I’ve been
doing? I want to yell back that I ran ten miles and then I biked
forty-two miles before I even got into this canoe, but what good
would that do? So I switch sides and dig in, but the current has us
in its clutches, and we slam broadside into the logjam of debris. I
swear that this farrago has tripled in size since I last saw it. It’s
a gigantic dam of branches. “No,
no, no!” JJ bellows as we hit. And then we both lean right to dig
our paddles into the water. It’s
a fatal mistake. The canoe tips sideways and the current pushes the
icy water inside. Jason goes into the river first, and although I try to
hang onto the upward side of the boat, I get only a second more of
air before I’m sucked under the surface, too.
Race
For Justice
Run
For Your Life Trilogy Book 3
When
champion runner Tanzania “Tana” Grey receives a mysterious
invitation to the Extreme Africa Endurance Challenge, she fears it
might be a trap. The multi-day race is in Zimbabwe, the
violence-prone homeland of her brilliant biochemist mother, who was
murdered along with Tana’s father. The killers, never apprehended,
seem to suspect that Tanzania Grey is actually Amelia Robinson, the
girl who escaped their deadly grasp. But when Tana sees a Mom
Lookalike in the promotional video for the race, she can’t say no.
She doesn’t know whether to be alarmed or delighted when her former
race partner Bash Callendro, the “love child” of the U.S.
President, arranges to run with her. Tana’s determined to find any
remaining family in Africa, and expose the secrets that led to her
parents’ deaths. As the clues pile up, Tana realizes that her quest
for the truth could destroy not only her and Bash, but will also
endanger the lives of everyone she cares about back home.
After several hours of
surprising more antelope in the bush, we come to a river, or maybe
just a big stream. Rock-strewn brown water. It’s moving swiftly,
but it looks no more than a foot or two deep in the middle, so we
won’t have to swim. Two women are doing
laundry at the edge, and several items of clothing are strewn across
the bushes and rocks nearby. How they can possibly get clothes clean
in such dirty water? Not far away, three young boys shout and laugh
and toss rocks into the water. What is it with boys and throwing
stones in water? It was one of Aaron’s favorite activities when we
were growing up. I could never stop thinking about all the innocent
fish and tadpoles that were probably concussed by his projectiles. “Jambo,”
I say to the women, although I suspect that may be Swahili. Bash sticks to “Hello.” “Mhoro,”
one says. Maybe that means hello.
When I repeat it back, I earn a smile. Then another lady points to
the race bib on my back. “Eight,” I say, for
lack of anything more intelligent to utter. “Aaate,” she repeats,
stretching out the word. A moment of international
bonding? Who knows? We wade into the stream.
The ladies gasp and chatter in their native language, and we hear the
word “President” in their conversation. Bash rolls his eyes at me.
“Will I ever get my own life back?” About halfway across, the
water is up to my knees, and I’m taking care with each step to feel
a safe footing between the rocks, not wanting to injure an ankle on
the first day of the race. The kids are shouting louder now, so I
glance their way. And then I spot what they were throwing those rocks
at. Eyes. Nostrils. A scaly
tail swishes through the brown water. Sharing the river with us is …
a crocodile. It’s big and it’s about thirty feet away, which is a
distance that a hungry croc could cross in seconds.
Pamela Beason, a former private investigator, lives in the Pacific Northwest. When she's not hard at work on another book, she explores the natural world on foot, on cross-country skis or snowshoes, in her kayak, or underwater scuba diving.
Pam
is the author of eleven full-length fiction works: RACE WITH DANGER,
RACE TO TRUTH, and RACE FOR JUSTICE in the Run for Your Life YA
suspense trilogy, THE ONLY WITNESS, THE ONLY CLUE, and THE ONLY ONE
LEFT in the Neema mysteries, ENDANGERED, BEAR BAIT, UNDERCURRENTS,
and BACKCOUNTRY in the Summer "Sam" Westin series, and the
romantic suspense novel SHAKEN. She's also the author of the romantic
adventure novella CALL OF THE JAGUAR, and nonfiction titles SAVE YOUR
MONEY, YOUR SANITY, AND OUR PLANET and SO YOU WANT TO BE A PI? She is
currently working on a sequel to SHAKEN and the next Sam Westin
novel.
As
an avid nature and animal lover, Pam challenges the human assumption
that we are the superior species. Each of her titles takes readers on
an adventure while reminding us that drifting through life is not
enough; you have to live it.
Pam
writes and tweets about writing, animals of all sorts, outdoor
adventures, and the value of being present in the moment. She looks
forward to connecting with readers on her website, Twitter, or
BookBub.
What
are you passionate about these days?
Right
now, I’m passionate about the same things I’ve always been
passionate about: animals and the environment.
Every
day, animals put a smile on my face and wonder and appreciation in my
soul. As I write this, it’s spring here in the Pacific Northwest,
which means sticky seed pods and bud wraps litter the ground in my
backyard as leaves and blossoms burst forth on the trees overhead.
Each morning, my three cats take turns jumping into my lap, rubbing
against me and asking for their sticky-stuff-laden fur to be combed
into sleekness again. Their behavior reminds me of the big fish I’ve
seen at cleaning stations while scuba diving, parking themselves and
letting the tiny cleaning fish go to work. It’s as if both these
fish and my cats are saying, “My turn! Clean me now!”
My
town is blessed with trails and green space everywhere, and I walk
and bike a lot. I never use headphones because when I’m outdoors,
I’m dedicated to staying unplugged and present. I’ve seen barred
owls dive into a local creek for crayfish (unusual behavior for
owls), and ospreys sitting on branches waiting for a big fish to swim
by. I take great delight in watching all the water birds and
butterflies. I marvel at the moths whose camouflage is so perfect
that it’s hard to spy them against tree bark. My favorite music is
tree frogs singing at night.
During
my travels, I’ve wrestled a Colobus monkey for possession of a
spoon, held a tarantula in my hand, changed a tire among a herd of
Cape Buffalo, and once had to wait for an elephant to finish his
breakfast before I could walk to the lodge to get my own.
At
home, I hike and snowshoe in the Cascades, and I’ve observed
mountain goats, elk, deer, bears, ravens, ptarmigans, foxes… I
could go on and on. While kayaking, I see eagles, seals and sea
lions, otters and harbor porpoises. From larger boats and from shore,
I’ve marveled at orcas and humpback whales. And don’t even get me
started on the amazing creatures I’ve seen while scuba diving. The
most common discussion after surfacing goes something like this: “Did
you see that translucent creature with red eyes and blue feelers
sitting on that anemone? What was
that?” Each dive is like a trip to another planet.
But
all these wonderful animals are on this
planet, our
planet, and Earth is such an incredible place with all its astounding
variety of life. So I’m passionate about preserving the environment
and the intact ecosystems that animals need. Every one of my books
contains animals. In the Run for Your Life trilogy, Tana races
through all sorts of exotic areas filled with a variety of wildlife.
And Tana has unusual pets at home, too. My Sam Westin mysteries
feature wildlife throughout the American West and the Galapagos
Islands. And my Neema mysteries feature a gorilla who has been taught
sign language.
So,
obviously, you could say that I’m passionate about animals.
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