The following exerpts are from the first draft of the YA novel that has been floating in my head for a few years.

 

SUMMARY:

 

     Clancy Jae Halliford is a 17 year-old Iowan visiting her aunt on Hilton Head Island, SC for the summer. When she meets Abe on a Gullah Tour, neither of them could imagine how entwined thier pasts and futures would be. Though he has no knowledge of it, the women of his family have been waiting for Clancy for generations. Will her trip to 1862 keep the family in tact? Will she ever return to 2012 to find out?

 

 

EXERPT:

 

     When I woke up on the beach, the sun was just beginning to glint off of the water in pink and orange flecks. It was going to be a beautiful day. Then I quickly realized I wouldn’t be alive to see the end of. Aunt Kay was going to kill me the second I opened the door. I should have been home by midnight. Abe told me that going to that party was a bad idea. How come he just left me here all night?

     I reached behind me for my backpack and came up with a handful of sand. It was nowhere. Not down by the water, not on the dune, not in the tall sea grass behind me. They left me on the beach and they stole my bag. “Super choice of friends there, Clance. This is just going to be the best day,” I muttered to myself.

     From behind me in the grass I heard a giggle. I looked around expecting to see Abe’s cousin Zia and her little clan laughing about the prank they just pulled. God, they were probably posting video online right now.