~Blog Tour~ Ruby's Fire by Catherine Stine **Sneak Peeks & GIVEAWAY**

Hi everyone!  Thanks for taking the time to pop by my blog and check out

my stop on the Ruby's Fire Blog Tour!!  I am excited to bring you a 

Sneak Peek <3

If everything about you changes, what remains?

Seventeen year-old Ruby, long-pledged to the much older Stiles from the Fireseed desert cult, escapes with only a change of clothes, a pouch of Oblivion Powder and her mute little brother, Thorn. Arriving at The Greening, a boarding school for orphaned teens, she can finally stop running. Or can she? The Greening is not what it seems. Students are rampaging out of control and as she cares for the secret Fireseed crop, she experiences frightening physical changes. She’s ashamed of her attraction to burly, hard-talking Blane, the resident bodyguard, and wonders why she can’t be happy with the gentler Armonk. She’s long considered her great beauty a liability, a thing she’s misused in order to survive. And how is she to stop her dependence on Oblivion to find a real beauty within, using her talent as a maker of salves, when she has nightmares of Stiles without it?

When George Axiom, wealthy mogul of Vegas-by-the-Sea offers a huge cash prize for the winner of a student contest, Ruby is hopeful she might collect the prize to rescue her family and friends from what she now knows is a dangerous cult. But when Stiles comes to reclaim her, and Thorn sickens after creating the most astonishing contest project of all, the world Ruby knows is changed forever. This romantic fantasy set in 2099 on earth has a crafty heroine in Ruby, and a swoonworthy cast, which will surely appeal to the YA and new adult audience.

Ruby's Fire by Catherine Stine 

Series: Fireseed, #2 (however, can be read as a stand-alone)

Publication date:  June 26, 2013

Genre: YA Sci-Fi 

Buy it: Amazon (Illustrated Paperback)~Amazon Kindle

Sneak Peeks into three of Ruby’s

 Big Problems in Ruby’s Fire:

By Catherine Stine

Ruby’s first big problem!

Tonight the moon is a blood orange that oozed over the horizon even before the setting sun.  All day I dreaded its rise, because tonight is my initiation into the Founders’ Ceremony.

Three girls every month.

I see the man who will lead me away with him from the Fireseed alter to our gazebo. He’s the head of the Initiation committee. Stiles. He has a bristly beard and a back like a dried, curled up beetle. His eyes are sunken yet glinting out with an oily sheen as if he’s peering into my private pool of emotions. He’s hideously old—forty-one—a full twenty-four years older than me. I won’t survive his spongy lips on mine, or his bony arms pinning me down.

But I didn’t come unarmed.

Ruby’s Second Big Problem:

I pull out my homemade vial of Oblivion Powder. Visions of Depot Man’s leer and Stile’s greedy stare still plague my mind. The other elders too; how they pinched and tickled me on their way by, how they gave me secret, unwelcome winks. And now, the handsome bullies here who used their clubs and fists on Armonk; what might they do to me next? I shake a generous dose onto the top of my hand, and snuffle it in. Inhale hard until the pile is gone.

Immediately, its treacherous medicine streaks into my nerves, soothing them to a mindless lull. Oblivion. I’ll need it to survive this mean place, is my last thought before I wilt down to the cot.

Ruby’s Third Big Problem:

Blane and I are assigned to scout the far western quadrant. This field is twice the square footage of my old compound that housed hundreds, and more oblong. I follow Blane as he parts the Fireseed leaves, their profuse growth forcing us to bushwhack our way through. More than a few times I have to remind him not to crush the plants underfoot in his emphatic push forward. He grumbles at this, yet seems almost chummy when he says, “Impressive show with that elixir you gave Armonk. What did you put in there, Cult Girl? A witch potion?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Name’s Ruby, by the way.”

He pulls back a thorny section of plant so I can pass. “So, it’s true you take drugs.”

“No!”

“Someone saw you. Do you like getting high?”

    “I take nothing to get high, or for entertainment either.” This much is true. “What vice do you have?” I add, in an echo of Bea’s sentiment from the other night.

He laughs as he presses forward, crushing more Fireseed saplings. “Being too good at playing bodyguard.”

“What’s that mean?” That he’s more violent than I’ve already witnessed?

“It means I take my job very seriously.” He raises his brows in a way that chills me.

***

I hope you are inspired to read on and find out how Ruby solves these thorny problems.

Catherine Stine

About the Author

Catherine Stine writes YA, New Adult and middle grade fiction. Her YA futuristic thriller, Fireseed One, illustrated by the author won finalist spots in both YA and Science Fiction in the 2013 USA Book News International Book Awards. It was also granted a 2013 Bronze Wishing Shelf Book Award and a 2013 Indie Reader Approved notable stamp. Her YA Refugees, earned a New York Public Library Best Book. Middle grade novels include A Girl’s Best Friend. 

Fireseed One sequel, Ruby’s Fire is earning advance praise from reviewers and authors:“Ruby's Fire, returns to the sun-scorched earth of Fireseed One. In this long-awaited sequel, Stine delivers a thrilling adventure led by a new and exciting cast of characters. Ruby, Armonk, Thorn and Blane are memorable, and the romance is really well handled. Favorite quote: " It feels wrong to lean on Armonk right now with Blane staring at me, a hungry, lonely look in his eye. It’s as if he’s never been hugged, never been fed, never been loved..." ”  -YAs the Word
More and more, Catherine enjoys writing speculative tales where her imagination has wild and free reign. She has taught creative writing workshops at the Philadelphia Writing Conference, Missouri University Summer Abroad, The New School and in her own ongoing NYC writing workshop. She loves her readers, and enjoys blogging.

Find Her:

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

Giveaway!

This giveaway is part of the tour and I would like to thank

the author for setting this up!  GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway