The Ripmender
By
Julianne Alcott
What
if there is a secret organisation that protects us from alien invasion?
What
if that organisation is being threatened by an enemy seeking revenge?
What
if the Loch Ness Monster is real?
Cathy
Slater’s life will never be the same when she finally meets gorgeous rock star
Nathan Jake, the guy she’s been crushing on for years.
She
sees something she wasn’t meant to see.
She
becomes involved in something that humans are not allowed to know.
Who
is Nathan Jake really?
A
tormented young celebrity, a brilliant magician or an alien hunter from another
planet...
Only
by risking her life and everything she knows, will Cathy discover the truth, and
find a love that will change her life forever.
Book
Extract
Chapter 1
Nathan Jake’s roguishly handsome brown eyes smiled
into mine. I raised my hand to touch the dark curls that tumbled over his
forehead... and felt the smooth blandness of the page against my fingers.
Drawing him was the closest I would ever get to him.
He was a young hot American rockstar, and I was a plain girl with long dull
brown hair who had never even had a boyfriend. I’m not counting the guy who
asked me out on New Years Eve. He had ended up being a douchebag, who had
wanted nothing but a roll in the hay.
Literally. His father was a cattle farmer.
Nathan was one of those supremely confident people who
never had a day of doubt about who they were. When he walked into a room, he
immediately owned it without making any effort at all. When I walked into a
room, no one noticed. They would notice
me, if I walked into the room with Nathan by my side …
But we were worlds apart, and it seemed like we would
never meet, until the miracle happened. He was running music workshops for
university students in between
world tours, and not in New York or London, or anywhere you would normally
expect a celebrity to go, but bizarrely in the city of Durban, which was only
three and a half hours from where I lived.
I had just finished school, and with a lot of
persuading, pleading and tears, my parents had eventually agreed that I could
do an art degree at the same varsity. But I had only ever seen him once, from a
distance. He was surrounded by screaming fans, who were being kept at bay by
his intimidating bodyguard, and a substantial number of varsity security staff.
The chances that we would meet dwindled with every
depressing day. And so that’s why I was sitting by myself in a state of misery,
in a clearing of a forest on the varsity property, drawing a tree for my first
art assignment. I couldn’t concentrate though. My thoughts persisted in
straying onto a handsome male face. I wished more than anything that I could be
a part of his life.
The movement of something in front of me distracted me
from my sketch. It was like a giant invisible jug was pouring a fast stream of
water onto the ground, except that it wasn’t water. As it poured, it became a
person, from the shoes up.
It became Nathan Jake.
I sat absolutely still, not even daring to breathe.
What the heck? How had he done that?
The sudden flapping of my sketch book pages in the
summer breeze caught his attention, and he turned and stared at me.
Yes, it really was him. I would know those dreamy eyes
and trademark curls anywhere. He wore designer jeans and a tight black T-shirt,
that showed off his well-built arms, tanned bronze by the South African sun.
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About the author
I’ve been writing stories ever since I learned how to
write. My favourite genre is romance adventure, and plots that give me
interesting topics to research.
My day job? I’m a school librarian, which I enjoy. If
I could do anything else, it would be a movie set designer or film editor. I
love reading, watching movies and dancing. I enjoy cooking (sometimes
successful) and baking (occasionally more successful)
My favourite quote is a dedication in an Agatha
Christie murder mystery...
“To those who lead monotonous lives, that they may
experience at second hand, the delights and dangers of adventure.”
I want to write novels that take the reader on
adventures, but also hopefully make their regular lives happier in some way.
