GUEST POST: It’s Darker than Twilight by Helen Ellis

The boys lean over me, say things—to me, to each other—I can’t make out. My hearing is fading. I’m shrinking. The boys’ faces get bigger and rise like moons. One of them blinks. When his eyes close, they are chestnut. Open, they are emerald green. He smiles, parts his teeth, and unrolls a long narrow pink tongue. He licks the tips of his incisors, which have grown past his lower gums to form fine points.

He purrs, his voice velvet. He says, “Don’t worry, Kitty, there are no such thing as vampires.”

Nope, no vampires in THE TURNING: What Curiosity Kills. No werewolves, either. No angels or fairies or mind readers or kids who can enter their own dreams like Six Flags Over Georgia. But there are demons—not up-from-the-fiery-pits-of-H-E-double-hockey-sticks kind of demons, but demons in the way that only a sixteen-year-old mean girl or prehistoric-size feral animal can be.

In THE TURNING, Mary is horrified to discover that she’s “turning” into something inhuman. Sought out by others like her attending her private school or prowling the streets of Manhattan, she’s surrounded. She’s pressed to pick a side in a citywide turf war. Domestic or stray? Or does she try to forget the turning ever happened to her, take a literal stab at an antidote, and return to worrying about simpler things like hanging up on a boy and getting *69’d?

Unlike most supernatural conditions, turning only afflicts victims for five years. Some choose to suppress it while others turn so much that they are riddled with side effects. You see someone walking around your neighborhood wearing yellow dishwashing gloves? Trust me you do not want to see what’s hidden underneath.

So, yes, THE TURNING has fur, fangs, and claws. Death and magic. And you can bet your life, Mary’s gonna get kissed. But there’s more. Dare to read the book and you’ll find out what curiosity kills.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
HELEN ELLIS is the author of the acclaimed novel Eating the Cheshire Cat. The Turning: What Curiosity Kills is her first young adult book and the first of a series. She lives in Manhattan with her Muses Lex, Shoney, and Big Boy (the latter two can be seen in the banner at the top of this very page). She clings to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread. Visit the author at www.helenelliswrites.com.

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