Blog Tour ~ Terraformer by Colleen Houck ~ Excerpt + Giveaway
Good morning all!
Welcome to the Blog Tour for Terraformer, the newest book by Colleen Houck. Space, romance, secrets, and flowers. It sounds amazing! I am delighted I can be part of the tour.
For today’s tour I got an excerpt, a book trailer, you can join a giveaway (open INT), and I got book/author information.
Let’s get this tour started! Ready? Go!
A new dystopian sci-fi YA series from the New York Times bestselling author Colleen Houck
Warning all Astronauts:
COLONY BOUNDARY WARNING!
PERMISSION TO ENTER ALIEN FOREST IS REQUIRED
NOTE: NO RESCUE ATTEMPTS WILL BE MADEIn the future, a terraforming ship lands on a perfectly green planet.
Two perfect young men, one a budding colony leader, the other an engineer, compete for the affection of one perfect young woman training as a botanist.
The only problem?
She’s not perfect.
Astra has a secret.
A big one.
And someone or some thing just maybe trying to kill her for itDeadly toxins can be hidden inside the most beautiful flowers.
That’s what Astra Meador’s famous biophysicist mother taught her.
As her mother’s apprentice, Astra has developed skills in botany, chemistry, medicine, and, most importantly, in keeping secrets.In fact keeping Astra’s secret was the reason her family decided to leave the Earth and join a terraforming mission to colonize a distant planet called Crillain IV. But when Astra wakes early from hypersleep, she discovers that her mother never made it onboard, her father died in transit and his body has been ejected from the ship, and she suspects that she’s not the only one awake.
When the ship finally lands and she’s reunited with her brother, Nash, Astra hopes to settle into a new life, especially when she meets the charming young engineer, Jax, and is recruited by the mission commander to train alongside his handsome son to be a future leader of the small colony.
Then Astra learns that she’s not the only one with a dark secret.As both young men contend for her affection, Astra searches for answers, trying to determine who to trust. But with theft and murder occurring in the colony along with the sudden disappearance of her beloved brother, Astra can’t listen to the whisperings of her heart, especially when someone or something else on the planet is whispering to her mind even louder.
Buy this book here: Amazon || B&N
New York Times Bestselling author Colleen Houck is a lifelong reader whose literary interests include action, adventure, paranormal, science fiction, and romance. When she’s not busy writing, she likes to spend time chatting on the phone with one of her six siblings, watching plays, and shopping online. Colleen has lived in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, California, and North Carolina and is now permanently settled in Salem, Oregon with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.
The red and yellow suns bathed Jax in their combined light, turning his brown hair into a halo. He strode toward me through the field, his sculpted lips turned up into the sweetest of smiles. The air around us was dotted with gold, and I noticed he had a gilded streak staining his cheek. When he drew near, I lifted my hand to wipe it away with my thumb. The gold stuck to the pad of my thumb, and I rubbed my fingers, only ending up transferring the powder to all of them.
“Pollen,” I said.
Jax tucked a flower in my hair. “I figure you get to name them since you were the one to discover them.”
“Technically, you discovered them,” I said, my eyes locked on his face. He was standing close, so close I could feel the warmth of his body. His scent mingled with the flowers and I found myself even more intoxicated than before. This was more than sharing lunch with Thane. This was…more.
The world seemed to slow down, and I felt everything keenly—the way the breeze lifted my hair to kiss my heated neck, how his fingertips brushed my temple as he adjusted the flower, the feel of moisture on my lips as I licked them. The flower in my hair shifted and I reached for it at the same time he did. Our fingertips brushed against each other and the sensation was overwhelming. He took hold of my hand, rubbed his thumb over the sensitive skin of my palm, and twined his fingers through mine.
My breath caught, but not in an urgent way. I didn’t need medicine. I needed…Jax. He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers, then my palm, then my wrist. His lips were soft, but his breath was moist and hot. “That feels…that feels amazing,” I said.
“It does,” he replied as he drew me closer, sliding his hand up my arm to my neck. His fingers wound through my hair, slowly working out the tangles as he removed the loosened hair tie and adjusted the flower. Once it was down, he drew closer as if to smell the flower, but buried his nose in my hair instead. “So much better,” he said, lifting his head. “I’d rather smell you than the flowers any day.”
