Kat Heckenbach: Kalek the Rocker Elf

Today it is my very great honour to bring you an excerpt of Kat's first book, Finding Angel. I have to say, this segment is possibly my favourite of everything she's ever written; we can only give you the start of it here, so believe me when I say you MUST read the rest. Is that biased because I am her publisher? That's as maybe. But perhaps in fact I'm her publisher partly because I love this so much, eh?

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Kalek held what appeared to be an ordinary electric guitar. He positioned his hand in front of the strings and spoke.

“One, two, three…”

The music took Angel’s breath away. It didn’t come directly from the instruments, and there were no microphones or speakers to direct it elsewhere. It emanated from the surrounding forest, the very trees themselves, and drifted down from the sky. Angel could feel vibration in her feet—it even rang from the grass and rocks on which she stood.

The leaves on the trees and bushes changed color before her eyes, from green to red to gold and back, sparkling in the brilliant sunshine. Butterflies swarmed out from the forest, fluttering in yellow clouds around the flowers in the clearing. The music seeped all the way into Angel’s bones, stirring her soul.

The Elven band played slow and soulful at first, and Angel involuntarily closed her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids brightened to a soft glow, which dispersed and swirled, and then coalesced into images of a savannah that was as real to her as the forest in which she stood.

A strange, disconnected feeling overtook her, as though her spirit had been pulled out of her body and transplanted someplace else. It wasn’t frightening, only disconcerting at first, and then something surged inside her like an instinct she’d never experienced, an animal hunger that urged her to lower herself to the ground. The positioning of her limbs didn’t feel human—more like the way she imagined a cat would feel stalking a mouse.

The deep grass swayed before her, and her strong lioness muscles tensed and twitched, her belly scraping along the ground. The scent of her prey wafted into her feline nostrils as her lungs filled with the dry, pungent air. 
She pounced, and her massive paws slid across the grassy plain, her legs spreading out to her sides, becoming raven-black wings that caught the wind and lifted her from the ground.

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Here are the other blogs where this week you can find more excerpts, interviews and other cool stuff from Kat! Don't forget to check out her new release, Seeking Unseen, for more adventures on Toch Island.

R. L. Copple	http://blog.rlcopple.com
Ryan Grabow	http://www.egrabow.com/rm.php?e=Prime
Diane M. Graham	http://dianemgraham.com/blog/
Travis Perry	http://travissbigidea.blogspot.com/
Paul Baines	http://www.pabaines.com
Caprice Hokstad	http://caprice.splashdownbooks.com/
Keven Newsome	http://www.kevennewsome.com
Greg Mitchell	http://www.thecomingevil.blogspot.com/
Robynn Tolbert	http://ranunculusturtle.blogspot.com/
Frank Creed	http://blog.frankcreed.com/
Fred Warren	http://frederation.wordpress.com/

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In case you don't know, it was Kat who first gave me the name Space Kiwi, and it seems to have stuck :)

And... here's something else just for Kat, since today is sadly the day I have to leave her house. Waah!