Don't Judge, Read: Blog Tour Stop: JULIA DEFIANT by Catharine Egan - Excerpt

Title: JULIA DEFIANT (Witch's Child #2)

Author: Catharine Egan

Pub. Date: June 13, 2017

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

Pages: 464

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Amazon, B&N. TBD, iBooks, Goodreads

Fans of The Rose Society, Graceling, and Six of Crows will thrill to the masterful world-building and fiercely flawed heroine in this heart-pounding follow-up to Julia Vanishes, book two in the Witch's Child trilogy.

Adventure, murder, romance, intrigue, and betrayal with a 16-year-old heroine that is both fierce and flawed at the same time. Hypable.com

Julia and a mismatched band of revolutionaries, scholars, and thieves have crossed the world searching for a witch. But for all the miles traveled, they are no closer to finding Ko Dan. No closer to undoing the terrible spell he cast that bound an ancient magic to the life of a small child. Casimir wants that magic will happily kill Theo to extract it and every moment they hunt for Ko Dan, Casimir's assassins are hunting them.

Julia can deal with danger. The thing that truly scares her lies within. Her strange ability to vanish to a place just out of sight has grown: she can now disappear so completely that it's like stepping into another world. It’s a fiery, hellish world, filled with creatures who seem to recognize her and count her as one of their own.

So . . . is Julia a girl with a monster lurking inside her? Or a monster wearing the disguise of a girl?

If she can use her monstrous power to save Theo, does it matter?

In this riveting second book in the Witch s Child trilogy, Catherine Egan goes deep within the heart of a fierce, defiant girl trying to discover not just who but what she truly is.

Praise for Julia Vanishes:

Egan’s debut novel sparkles. A beautifully rendered world and exquisite sense of timing ensure a page-turning experience. Publishers Weekly, starred review

Readers will find themselves immediately immersed in the narrative and invested in the fate of Julia, who is both feisty and flawed. Booklist, starred review

Julia’s a wonderful, fully realized heroine. . . . For those readers waiting for the sequel to Marie Lu’s The Rose Society, a well-realized page-turner in the same vein. Kirkus

Haven’t started the series? Make sure to grab the Paperback of JULIA VANISHES!

Amazon | B&N | TBD

An excerpt from Chapter 1 of Julia Defiant, Book II in the Witch’s Child trilogy, by Catherine Egan

We crossed half the world in two months, by ship and by train, by horse and by camel, by riverboat and donkey-cart and on foot. We saw wonders I never knew existed.

One evening, a few weeks into our journey, I found my brother Benedek sitting on the cooling desert sand, watching the sun setting behind the Eshriki pyramids. Our tents and camels were just out of sight, over a dune.

It was always a relief to be alone with him—really with any of my own crew, but with Dek in particular. It was the only time I could be at ease. The rest of them—well, we were careful with each other, and I was conscious every moment of trying to win their trust, if not their friendship, and conscious too that they could never really trust me. Not after what I’d done.

“Aren’t they remarkable?” said Dek, gesturing at the pyramids with his good arm. “You know, the part we see is just the very tip of the pyramid, poking above the sand. The rest, underneath the ground, is absolutely vast.”

“Really?” I said, startled.

“No.” He snorted. “Pea-brain.”

I punched him on the shoulder.

“Do you know what Mrs. Och said yesterday, when she saw them?”

“What?”

“She said, I remember when they built those.”

He laughed. The sun sank behind the pyramids, the golden light that suffused the clouds and the sand and the pyramids themselves deepening to crimson. He asked me, almost casually: “Do you suppose they’ll forgive you if you find him?”

He didn’t need to explain who he meant by they or by him. But the question took me aback all the same. He’d clearly been waiting for a moment alone to ask me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Will you forgive yourself?”

“No.”

“I wish you could.”

“If wishes were horses,” I said, shrugging it off, and he let it go. We watched the light deepen and fade in silence.

The truth is that the question of forgiveness fuels my days and plagues my nights. Goodness was not something I gave much thought to until I relinquished any possible claim to it. Am I evil, as Frederick once suggested? There is no way to remake the past. The very best I can strive for, the work of every day now, is to be a good person who once did an evil thing.

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My books: JULIA DEFIANT, JULIA VANISHES, Shade & Sorceress, The Unmaking, Bone, Fog, Ash & Star My superpowers: high-kicking, list-making, simultaneously holding two opposing opinions My weaknesses: fear of flying, over-thinking and then making bad decisions, excessive list-making My allies: my made-for-walking-in black boots, Mick, the English Language My enemies: decaf, low blood sugar, the passage of time My mission: the coexistence of ambivalence and joy.