Semi Short chic: Dark to Dust

The last book in the Strange and Lovely Anthology, but certainly NOT the least! Dark to Dust is something else! But then, the concepts for all of the books for this anthology have blown my mind!

Book blurb:

Sandy has a strange and lovely addiction. But like all addictions, it's turning his world upside-down, inside-out. How far will Sanford go to satisfy his growing hunger?

Say WHAT!?!?!? Talk about a cliff hanger, and you haven't even cracked the cover yet!!! Ok, now for the author. Check out M Leigh Marrott's author bio:

Author M. Leigh Marrott has been coloring the world with her stories since she could talk... just like those pesky aliens used to color her walls at night when she was four. The first poem she actually wrote down was at the age of eleven as she grumbled about cleaning. When she was in high school, her quirky English teacher submitted M. Leigh’s poetry to a local paper and, to the author’s dismay, it was published. In March 2013, she had a collection of haikus published in EFiction Magazine. Since then she has had various other pieces of work (poetry, short stories, and essays) published online. She is currently preparing her first full-length novel to send out to agents. You can find more of her writing at beneaththepaper.blogspot.com.

Author Social Media links
Facebook-- https://www.facebook.com/authormleighmarrott
Twitter-- @leighmarrott https://twitter.com/leighmarrott

Not quite intrigued yet? (Pft, like ya'll aren't super curious after that blurb) how about a SNIPPET!? Bet you are hooked by the end of the first paragraph!

The first time I tasted happiness, it was quite by accident. This
time . . . not so much. It wasn’t that it was planned exactly. It was more desperation. Compulsion. Addiction.

It was risky business, being out before dark. My health was in danger in more ways than one. The simple truth—I couldn’t help it anymore.

Though the sun wasn’t quite finished setting, the boy was already dreaming when I came in through his window. An aura of gold floated about him, circling his body. I reached for it, completely mesmerized. It coated my fingers like glittery dust. I rubbed my bottom lip with my finger. Gone were the days when it was strange to think of ingesting it. Any previous hesitations or misgivings were extinct—every particle of my soul hungered for it. I bit my lip and sucked in a breath. The dust tickled its way down my throat teasing my insides. I knelt down next to the boy’s bed, leaned my face into his celestial cloud of joy, and inhaled deeply. I drank it into my bones.

Flashes of golden light danced before my eyes. Visions raced through my mind—a warm embrace from his father, a wrestling match with his puppy, ice cream dripping down his chin, the sticky, goopy feeling of paint squishing between his fingers, the smell of his mother’s perfume. It took my breath away. My chest felt as if it would burst. Every molecule inside me danced in animated bliss. So much vitality and fire bolting through me, hammering my heart to life, pumping animated force through my form until it nearly solidified. I reached down and touched the boy’s face. I actually felt him! I laughed as the room swam around me.

I heard footsteps coming. I doubled over in pain as my panicked heart pounded in my chest. I still wasn’t used to that—no one had ever told me it could hurt like that. I reached for the window latch and my hand went right through it. It seemed that as quickly as the golden dust had given me life, the effects had dissipated. I sighed. My no-longer beating heart ached. For a flash of an instant I had been an actual boy, much like the one who was still slightly snoring in his bed. It never lasted long enough. I flew through the glass just as the man I assumed to be the boy’s father opened the door to check on him.

I hovered outside the window, watching as the man tiptoed to his son’s side, adjusted the boy’s blankets, and lightly kissed him on the cheek. The golden aura around the boy burst out from him like the pulse of a supernova, passing through me and out into the night. My once-again solid frame crashed to the ground, landing on the metal garbage cans at the side of the house. I shrank at the noise of it all, the kind of sound that reawakens the dead. The creaking of the window above me jolted me into action and, as the father yelled “Hey!” at me, his head sticking out the now open window, I ran for my newfound life.