Tag Archives: author Carrie Cross

Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of the Island Idol Free Chapter and Cover Reveal!

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Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of the Island Idol is due available now on Amazon and wherever ebooks are sold. Here’s a free chapter to let you know what teen sleuth Skylar Robbins has been investigating. Her new adventure put Skylar and her crew in more danger than they ever could have imagined…

Chapter 1

That Crazy Summer

If I had known what was going to happen that crazy summer, I would have thought twice about every decision I’d made. Had I paid closer attention to every clue, I might have realized the risky situation I was putting myself in. Again. But no one could have predicted what would happen to all of us: the brainy group of popular kids, athletes, and misfits with super high IQs who had made it into the Accelerated Courses and Experiments program, ACE. Most importantly, I really should have been better at figuring out who I could—or couldn’t—rely on in case of extreme danger.

Six Weeks Later

“Skylar,” Morgan whispered. “I have to get off this plane. Right now.”

“What?” I turned to look at her. Morgan’s forehead dripped sweat, and she was so pale she looked light green. I touched her hand, which was clenching the armrest. “Are you all right?”

“No. That big jet was bad enough. I feel like we’re going to die in this thing. I really need to get—”

The pilot sat down right in front of Bastiian, and looked at us over his shoulder. “I am your pilot, Phan Ho. Fasten seatbelts, please,” he said, starting the engine. “Seventy-minute flight. Keep belts on at all times. Next stop, Koma Island.” I’d flown before, but never in an airplane so small that the pilot introduced himself and that I could see the back of his head.

“Ready or not, here we go.” Bastiian shook his long hair around and laughed, but I noticed he was gripping the arms of his seat so hard his knuckles were shining.

Morgan unbuckled her seatbelt as the plane started to move. “This whole trip’s a mistake,” she muttered, standing up.

“It’s too late.” I grabbed her arm, pulling her back down. “We’re taking off. Put your seatbelt back on!” I wished so badly that my BFF, Alexa, was in the seat next to me instead of Morgan. I didn’t want to have to take care of anybody else on a strange, remote island. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to take care of myself.

Devonna looked across the aisle at us as we started to taxi down the runway. “There’s a barf bag in there if you need one,” she told Morgan, pointing at the ripped seat pocket in the back of the seat in front of her.

Ophelia turned around, fixing her pale gray eyes on Devonna. “You’re not going to puke on me, are you?”

“I’m not,” Devonna said, nervously.

Morgan clamped her seatbelt back on, too scared to speak. She grabbed the armrests, her fingers like claws, and screwed her eyes shut. Her lips were moving. I figured she was praying.

The airplane rumbled and shuddered down the runway, picking up speed. The wood block chattered in its metal hoops and I could hear our carry-on items bouncing around in the vibrating compartment. I hoped my detective tools wouldn’t rattle into broken bits before we even got off the ground.

I heard Hannah gasp and Ophelia swear as we all spotted the end of the runway rushing toward us at the same moment. Right when it looked like we were going to run out of airstrip and smash into the trees, the pilot pulled the plane’s nose up off the blacktop.

It felt like we were suspended in midair, pointing at the sky, but just yards off the ground. Climbing too slowly. Like the old plane would fall backward and smash us into the earth at any second. But we kept climbing. Grinding upward. Higher and higher into thick gray clouds.

A spider crawled down the inside of the window next to me. I hoped Morgan wouldn’t notice it. She’d taken the barf bag out of the seat pocket in front of her and was breathing deeply into it. I watched the bag blow up, then shrink together and crinkle. Blow up, shrink together and crinkle. She was trying to get her panic under control. “It’s OK,” I whispered, touching her clammy arm.

She took the bag away from her face. “No. It’s not.”

The ride was getting bumpy. “Apologies,” Phan said. “Bit of turbulence.” The plane started to pass over some mountains and suddenly it took a big dip. “More turbulence coming,” he warned, his voice high and strained. “Tighten seatbelts!”

We hit another giant air pocket and dropped straight down through the atmosphere. I felt my rear end lift right off the seat and the seatbelt press into my stomach. The plane leveled out and flew fairly smoothly over the vast blue ocean, and past the Hawaiian Islands. And then we were turning, the little plane tilting, straightening out, and starting to descend.

Trees, bushes, and rocky cliffs whooshed up to meet us. Phan threaded the plane through and around them, and then a tiny dirt runway rushed toward us. It looked so small I couldn’t imagine landing on it. I was sure we were about to crash. Hannah screamed, Ophelia put her head between her knees, and Morgan threw up into her barf bag.

Seconds later we bounced down and landed with a jarring thud, then skittered down the short runway with the airplane’s brakes screaming. When the plane came to a complete stop, it creaked and popped like it felt fortunate to have survived the flight.

Phan looked over his shoulder at us and smiled thinly. “Welcome to Koma Island.”

Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of the Island Idol will be available for preorder soon. Please leave a comment and you will be entered in my contest to win a free autographed paperback! (U.S. only.)

In Love with Words

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I’ve loved words ever since I first learned to listen. Dr. Seuss’s silly stories enthralled me. Nursery rhymes, riddles, puns, tongue twisters…I savored them all. My parents and I used to make up funny names for people or things. A favorite velour jacket was my “scabaranzer.” When flowers died, they became “frivelly.” And when I got a knot in my yarn? It was a “boogle.” We imagined our new neighbors might be named Barney Bozoich or Rex Shekavondin. When my mom blew me a kiss at night, she said, “Zoot.” (Rhymes with put, not boot.) Zoot was the sound a kiss made, flying through the air. Apple breakfast bake was “applefumph.” Onomatopoeia. Now that’s a fun word to say. But why doesn’t its definition match its sound?

One cannot fall in love with words without falling in love with writing. I started writing “books” at age four. My first was an adventure composed in crayon: Blackie the Little Black Dog and the Flying Washing Machine. In junior high school my BFF and I wrote books, longhand, in our spiral binders. The plots were thin, involving crushes and unrequited, twelve-year-old love. But oh, how I loved to fill up those pages.

The books I cherished the most were those I read during that same time. Judy Blume’s Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret, Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Changeling and The Velvet Room. Harriet The Spy and Nancy Drew. These novels, devoured by a twelve-year-old only child who loved to read as much as she loved to write, shaped my future. These were the books that inspired me to write the Skylar Robbins series. I remember blissful Friday nights-–after watching the Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family—spent reading in bed. I couldn’t wait to crack open a new book, hold it in my hands, and read those exciting first words: Chapter One. My mom would make homemade molasses candy, each flat square individually wrapped in wax paper. A new Judy Blume book, a few pieces of molasses candy, a cat stretched out next to me, and maybe—a rainstorm? Now that was heaven!

I continued to write throughout high school, although by then my interest had turned more to music. I played guitar and sang, and began to write songs and poetry. By the time college rolled around my love affair with words was in full bloom, and I decided to major in Speech Communication. Linguistics, Journalism, Creative Writing…I can get a degree in this? Really? Sold! By then I was reading everyone from Ayn Rand to Stephen King, and after college I discovered Lee Child, John Grisham, and Robert Crais. I started to work on a rough draft of an adult novel, and analyzed the way they used foreshadowing and unexplained events to create suspense. When I wasn’t tapping out chapters on my computer, I was taking notes longhand on the techniques my favorite authors employed.

When I decided that I really wanted to write for the Middle Grade audience, I thought I’d better see what the current competition was like. Leaving the library giddy with an armload of Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti novels made me feel like I was back in junior high, gleefully looking forward to a weekend full of glorious escape reading. I couldn’t wait to curl up with the first book, kick off my shoes, and dive in. No tablet or e-reader for me, just a fresh hardcover in my hands, smelling faintly of paper. Alternating between reading a greatly written MG or YA novel, getting a burst of inspiration for putting my own words down on paper, and blasting out a new chapter—that’s a rush I look forward to experiencing whenever I have free time. I might just have to whip up a batch of molasses candy. And I hope it’s going to rain.

Thank you to 3 Guys, 1 Book for the interview!