It’s the knife you don’t see coming that gets you…a sneak peek at WINDMILLS

This week’s Sneak Peek is from my soon-to-be-released novel WINDMILLS, the first in a YA post-apocalyptic trilogy. If you or someone you know liked THE HUNGER GAMES, you’ll like this too.  This scene is from a confrontation after Kwan and Zhong get from Hong Kong to San Francisco:

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Li Zhong started off slow, shifting his shoulders every few driveways, trying to ease the claw of tightness that seized his breath. These moments came and went; they always passed. He simply needed to be patient.

Shouts rang out off to his right, the sound of one of the roving gangs, young men with not enough to do and too much frustration pent up inside. He’d suggested to the Hsus that they might be safer elsewhere, in a rural area where the gangs didn’t prowl by night like feral cats, but they were adamant they must remain. It was their home, Hsu said. If their son ever returned, that was where he would look for them. I just hope he does not find them dead.

Zhong continued, picking up his pace as his muscles finally seemed to find a rhythm and his inhalations were less troubled, although still shallow. Rounding the corner to the drugstore, he fastened on the idea that Mrs. Hsu could get the herbs to help him and held it close, like a child’s favorite toy, letting it comfort him.

The yelling of the gang got closer, and he checked his pocket for his knife. He’d defended local women from Seajay gang members on a couple of occasions, the women mistaking him for the mysterious Enforcer the Hsus spoke of often. Now, that’s one young man I’d like to meet.

As his mind wandered, a heavy stone landed in his path. He stumbled around it, although he didn’t trip. His breath caught, sending a sharp pain arrowing through his chest.

Someone grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and yanked him sideways against the brick building on the corner. He hit his head, but he already had the knife in his hand when he straightened to face his assailant.

        “They let you out alone, old man? Don’t they worry what might happen to you?”

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For more information about WINDMILLS and more excerpts, click the tab above. The book comes out in the next several weeks from Zumaya Publications and will be available in ebook and print at Amazon. com and other online retailers.

Here’s the blurb:

Terrorists launch a plague in the United States that spreads to kill most of the world’s Caucasian population. As the deadly bioweapon mutates, Tzu Lin Kwan’s father, a renowned medical doctor and biologist, defects from China to help develop a cure. His  only daughter, Lin Kwan, is left behind in Hong Kong with her aunt.

Then Kwan’s father summons her from across the sea to bring him Chinese medicinal herbs. Lonely and missing her parents, she accepts the challenge, traveling with her sensei Li Zhong to the New World.

But a Chinese spy is on her trail, determined to kill her and Li Zhong, and when Kwan discovers her father has disappeared, she sets out on a journey to find him and deliver her precious cargo, a quest that she may not survive.

For other Sunday snippets, visit Sneak Peek Sunday.