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Friday, April 30, 2021

Blog Tour ~ Black in Time - Synesthesia Shift by Brynn Chapman

 

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

Black in Time
(Synesthesia Shift #2)
By Brynn Chapman
YA Historical Urban Fantasy
Paperback & ebook, 143 Pages
April 6, 2021 by Burns and Lea Books

Patient Twenty-Nine, or Jane, is within reach of her heart's desire: a home outside of Soothing Hills Asylum, where she has been raised.

Her sister Jules wants to take her in, and a man, Mason, is deeply in love with her and wants to care for her. But before Jane can leave, she must be examined by the Board of Lunacy. Jane is still hearing voices and songs from the cornfield outside the asylum, voices and songs that tell her what she must do, and that no one else can hear. So the Board may not allow her to leave.

But the asylum is becoming more and more dangerous. Its lead alienist, Dr. Frost, has disappeared, there have been frightening sightings of a woman in white, running through the corn at night, and perhaps worst of all: lobotomized women from the asylum are turning up pregnant.

Jane is desperate to get away and go to her new home. Mason and Jules only want to rescue Jane from the asylum.

But there is a complication: for Jane, the voice in the corn calls. And she must obey.

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Excerpt:

In the middle of the hall, a massive slab has formed alongside a freshly painted sign, Do Not Enter.


I tap the toe of my boot onto its slick surface, taking one cautious step; my boot instantly shoots out, widening my legs, my other leg collapsing at the knee.


My bottom collides with the ice with a jaw-rattling whomp.


Tears of pain form, and I sit still, trying to catch my breath.


I wipe them away.


Gritting my teeth, I crawl on all fours, constantly readjusting my knees as they slip and slide on the rain-soaked ice.


My skin crawls with memory—of slipping under the ice a few months ago, when I broke through the pond.


The feel of the climbing freeze as it devoured my legs.

As if sensing my distraction, the musical message alters… Come to me.


The sing-song voice humming in my mind’s ear is a mezzo—the voice between alto and soprano.


I hum middle C in my alto, allowing the waves of comfort to wash over me.


I finally reach the other side and hurry forward, my clothes damp and beginning to harden with ice. I pelt forward, past the thick, beveled panes of glass. The light outside is altering as dawn draws near.


My teeth ch-chatter, and I forcefully clamp them together.


The thickened-air ribbon of turning, twirling music enters the wide-open door, and I halt at the entrance.


Ward Six is eerily empty. The wards are frightening when filled with the residents—but remove the souls…


Empty medicine carts; abandoned blankets thrown carelessly over moth-eaten chairs. Mud-streaked floors lead to the solitary cells, their metal doors flung wide, allowing the stench of urine to permeate the corridor.


The harmonic ribbon has vanished, leaving me alone.


“Traitor.”


I hear them before I see them.


My chest heaves, water flooding my mouth—I taste metallic fear and swallow.


The creaking. The endless whirring.


It can be only one thing.


I whimper but follow the sound, like a rat to its Pied Piper’s call… all in the world fading away.


I see nothing, hear only the grinding of gears.


I reach the massive oak doors, with the metal knocker crafted into a leering gargoyle—the ring in its mouth like captured prey.


I grasp the handles with two hands, flinging the doors open, and step inside.


Frost’s playground.


The massive amphitheater, where Frost performed his treatments. I stare up into the cathedral ceiling heights and gag.


Every machine is activated, humming and shivering as one. A mechanical, hulking house of terrors.


I search left and right so quickly my head spins.


No one. I see no one.

 

My mind vaguely wonders if the word machination was perhaps somehow derived, given birth, from this very room.


A swirling, spinning chair whizzes by, nearly knocking me over. But I am stupefied, frozen in fear. The memories of this place bind me tight, squeezing around my windpipe, choking me into submission.


A twirling bed rises high into the cathedral heights, plummeting down, up, and down like the undulations of a sea serpent through the surf.


This room is an extension of the man—methodical, mechanical, and cold as iron.


My eyes drop to the floor. Leeches squirm and crawl, falling one over the other on the flagstones—a barrel of them upended. How do they yet live?


Crème of tartar—the purging medicine, flung everywhere, dusting the machines like a newly fallen snow.

And in the corner… his newest acquisition. The electricity chair.


It is said to be the only one of its kind. Pioneered by Frost and Gentile. They were working on the patent when Frost disappeared.


Its circular headpiece shines like a blackened halo.


Only instead of a calling to heavenly life, it grants an irrevocable altering of self… or a black, charred death.


A spark jumps within the halo, and icy water fills my bowels, leaks to my knees, and they crumple. The world blackens. And the final sound I hear is the maniacal cackle.


She has come.

 


Other Books in the Series

The Requiem Red
(Synesthesia Shift #1)
By Brynn Chapman
YA Historical Urban Fantasy
Hardcover, Paperback & ebook, 300 Pages
February 4, 2019 by Burns and Lea Books

Life for Patient 29 is full of medicated day dreams of a life outside the walls of Soothing Hills Asylum. But fantasies are not all that consume her. A monster roams the halls of the sanitarium she reluctantly calls home and three girls have been found dead. The dead girls share one common thread . . . each was 29's cell mate. As the investigation gets under way, she retreats into her mind, listening to the voices that call to her. She is endowed with the cursed gift of perception. Through it, she hears messages carried upon the notes of music, discerns words hidden among the strokes of paintings, and minds pleadings for help from the corn field outside.

Could the key to the murders lie within 29's broken mind? Mason, an orderly, does not see 29 as a lunatic and as his belief in her grows so does her self-confidence. The possibility of one day leaving the asylum seems less and less like a fantasy. But the monster has other plans for her. Leaving will not be so easy, at least not while she is alive.

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About the Author


Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Brynn Chapman is the daughter of two teachers. Her writing reflects her passions: science, history and love—not necessarily in that order. In real life, the geek gene runs strong in her family, as does the Asperger’s syndrome. Her writing reflects her experience as a pediatric therapist and her interactions with society’s downtrodden. In fiction, she’s a strong believer in underdogs and happily-ever-afters. She also writes non-fiction and lectures on the subjects of autism and sensory integration and is a medical contributor to online journal The Age of Autism.


Tour Schedule


Tour Giveaway


- One winner will receive a $20 Amazon gift card and an audiobook of HERE WALK THE DEAD
- Ten winners will receive a print copy of REQUIEM RED

US only
Ends May 5, 2021

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