Desecration Excerpt + Giveaway

I came out of hibernation to share this excerpt with you.  Why?  I love the cover.  What can I say?  Some things never change...

Desecration: The Wizard Queen at Sixteen Synopsis:

In a hidden world of wizards where only men hold the power of magic, one girl arises with the power to change everything, if she isn’t killed first…

Adriana Victoriana Evangelista (Addie), daughter to the High Chancellor of the Wizard’s Council, has always been the perfect wizard girl. She never questions why men possess magical powers and women have no power at all, magical or otherwise. Male wizards blend into the modern human world, leading huge corporations while wizard women are sequestered away.  

On her sixteenth birthday, Addie discovers she possesses magic. Under wizard law, she is a desecration. An ancient prophecy surrounds the emergence of a girl magic-wielder, the wizard queen, who is destined to bring about the downfall of the wizard-kin.

Addie has long had a forbidden crush on a human boy who lives in the wizard stronghold, Rory Devlin. As she delves deeper into the dangerous mysteries surrounding her own destiny, she suspects Rory might be more than just human.

Addie’s fate sends her straight into the path of a powerful and evil sorcerer, but the worst danger of all may come from right inside her own home.

DESECRATION - Excerpt, Addie Discovers Her Magic…

The sound of footsteps outside sent my heart racing. If Izzy got caught without her cloak on school property, we’d both get detention for a week. And worse, my father would murder me.
“Your cloak!” I whispered. I stretched out my hand as if I could somehow grab Izzy’s cloak from several feet away.
In answer to my thoughts, Izzy’s discarded forest-green cloak flew across the room, coming into my open hand.
I blinked at my hand and the cloak I clutched in my fist. I stared as my knuckles went white and my outstretched arm began to tremble. A thunderous pulse echoed in my ears and my limbs and I realized it was the pounding of my heart.
Finally, I met Izzy’s shocked stare. We both gaped at each other for a moment. Then our gazes whipped back and forth between the corner where her cloak had been and my hand, where it currently was. And then to the door, which fortunately remained closed.
I realized I’d stopped breathing. Gasping for air, I dropped Izzy’s cloak like it was on fire.
“Addie,” Izzy gasped, then giggled nervously, “you just did magic.” She pointed a finger at me. “You just did MAGIC!”
“No. Shhhh! Don’t even say that!” I shook my head spastically. I clutched my head between my hands. “No! No! No!”
“Yes, yes, yes! You did!” she sang back.
“It didn’t happen. It couldn’t have.” I kept shaking my head so vehemently that I started to get woozy. “I’m a girl. That’s impossible!”
“It is impossible. But you did it anyway.” I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head.
“Ha! Your brat of a brother would look like such a total idiot right now. Bet he couldn’t do what you just did. His magic hasn’t come that far yet.”
“No,” I said, still in major denial. I could hear my father’s voice ranting; a

woman wielding magic is a desecration!
“There’s some prophecy about this.” Izzy tapped her palm against her forehead several times. “Hugo mentioned it a while back. Shoot! I can’t remember.”
“I can’t be part of some prophecy. My father will kill me.”
“Yeah, he isn’t exactly the understanding type,” Izzy agreed as her brows drew together. “That’s why we can’t tell anyone about this. You’ll be a virtual prisoner of the council, and you’ll probably be retrained.”
At any second I was sure my brain would explode. In a single elapsed moment, I’d become the antithesis to every precept of wizard culture, a desecration of our beliefs. How had it happened? I couldn’t even begin to fathom what was happening to me.
“I mean it, Addie. We can’t tell anyone about this, well except for Hugo. Seriously, they’ll poke and prod at you and find some way to control you. I’m sure of it.”
I didn’t keep secrets from my parents. I always did what they expected of me. “Maybe my father wou-”
“Wouldn’t cart you off to be retrained?” Izzy cut me short. “I’m sorry, Addie, but don’t kid yourself. Your father is the head of the council, and he’s the most uncompromising of all when it comes to enforcing the wizard laws. The illustrious Manfred Evangelista will do whatever needs to be done to protect wizard-kin even if it means treating you like a lab rat or worse.” 

Hadley Holt Bio:

Hadley Holt, author of paranormal, and fantasy YA (Young Adult) has always loved to write. She also nurtures an incurable fascination with all things supernatural and fantastical. From a young age, she imagined stories about dragons, wizards, witches, ghosts, shape-shifters, vampires, and other magical creatures. As life often does, it blessed Hadley with family - a hunky husband and amazing children, and with family came a rewarding career. Hadley spent many years in the not-so-magical world of finance and mortgage banking, but the stories were always there in the back of her mind, demanding to be set free. 

Thanks to the housing market crash, Hadley finally realized her dreams. She now breathes life into her magical tales of reluctant young heroes finding their inner power to stand up against terrible creatures and even more terrible odds.

 Please visit me at HadleyHolt.com! 

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