Kelley Armstrong - Enthralled - Paranormal Diversions

Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Introduction: by Melissa Marr & Kelley Armstrong Giovanni’s Farewell: by Claudia Gray Scenic Route: by Carrie Ryan Red Run: by Kami Garcia Things About Love: by Jackson Pearce Niederwald: by Rachel Vincent Merely Mortal: by Melissa Marr Facing Facts: by Kelley Armstrong Let’s Get this Undead Show on the Road: by Sarah Rees Brennan Bridge: by Jeri Smith-Ready Skin Contact: by Kimberly Derting Leaving: by Ally Condie At The Late Night, Double Feature, Picture Show: by Jessica Verday IV League: by Margaret Stohl Gargouille: by Mary E. Pearson The Third Kind: by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Automatic: by Rachel Caine About the Authors Copyright About the Publisher

To Smart Chicks everywhere,we’re grateful that the future is in the hands of so manystrong, clever, and wise girls and women.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction: by Melissa Marr & Kelley Armstrong

Giovanni’s Farewell: by Claudia Gray

Scenic Route: by Carrie Ryan

Red Run: by Kami Garcia

Things About Love: by Jackson Pearce

Niederwald: by Rachel Vincent

Merely Mortal: by Melissa Marr

Facing Facts: by Kelley Armstrong

Let’s Get this Undead Show on the Road: by Sarah Rees Brennan

Bridge: by Jeri Smith-Ready

Skin Contact: by Kimberly Derting

Leaving: by Ally Condie

At The Late Night, Double Feature, Picture Show: by Jessica Verday

IV League: by Margaret Stohl

Gargouille: by Mary E. Pearson

The Third Kind: by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Automatic: by Rachel Caine

About the Authors

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Introduction: by Melissa Marr & Kelley Armstrong Giovanni’s Farewell: by Claudia Gray Scenic Route: by Carrie Ryan Red Run: by Kami Garcia Things About Love: by Jackson Pearce Niederwald: by Rachel Vincent Merely Mortal: by Melissa Marr Facing Facts: by Kelley Armstrong Let’s Get this Undead Show on the Road: by Sarah Rees Brennan Bridge: by Jeri Smith-Ready Skin Contact: by Kimberly Derting Leaving: by Ally Condie At The Late Night, Double Feature, Picture Show: by Jessica Verday IV League: by Margaret Stohl Gargouille: by Mary E. Pearson The Third Kind: by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Automatic: by Rachel Caine About the Authors Copyright About the Publisher

ost anthologies start with a theme. This one was a little different: it began with a tour.

Having done a few joint events, we decided that it would be fun to set up a multiauthor, multicity, author-organized tour. Touring is great, but touring with others is even better, both for us and for the readers. So with that in mind, we started talking to authors whose books we liked—books we thought our readers would like too. The response was so overwhelmingly positive that we didn’t get very far down our wish list before the tour was full.

Nineteen authors visited twelve cities on the Smart Chicks Kick It tour. That sounds huge, but it still means we missed a lot of places and a lot of readers. We wondered how we could bring some of that tour experience to readers we couldn’t meet. The solution? An anthology. We’d invite the authors from the tour to contribute a story—schedules permitting. As the 2010 tour got under way and we began inviting authors for 2011, we added two of them to the collection, as a sneak peek at Smart Chicks 2011.

Like the tour itself, the anthology needed a focus. We decided on journeys, trips—including diversions—in keeping with the tour idea. In some stories, the characters embark on actual road trips, getting from point A to point B. But there are other kinds of journeys, and you’ll read those here too, as our characters find their paths and discover things about themselves and their places in the world. We hope you’ll enjoy taking these trips as much as we are enjoying being on the road together.

From somewhere out here,

Kelley & Melissa

Giovanni’s Farewell by Claudia Gray Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Introduction: by Melissa Marr & Kelley Armstrong Giovanni’s Farewell: by Claudia Gray Scenic Route: by Carrie Ryan Red Run: by Kami Garcia Things About Love: by Jackson Pearce Niederwald: by Rachel Vincent Merely Mortal: by Melissa Marr Facing Facts: by Kelley Armstrong Let’s Get this Undead Show on the Road: by Sarah Rees Brennan Bridge: by Jeri Smith-Ready Skin Contact: by Kimberly Derting Leaving: by Ally Condie At The Late Night, Double Feature, Picture Show: by Jessica Verday IV League: by Margaret Stohl Gargouille: by Mary E. Pearson The Third Kind: by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Automatic: by Rachel Caine About the Authors Copyright About the Publisher

efore I was awake or aware, before my heart began to beat, Cairo was there. We curled around each other in the womb, so much so that the doctors had to pry our limbs apart to deliver us. Until we were four years old, neither of us spoke; we each understood the other without words, and nobody else was as important. There were Mom and Dad, of course, but they always recognized our bond.

He served as my one constant in a life led on four different continents (to date), where instead of schools and suburbs (until a year ago), we’d been taught by various tutors, sometimes Mom’s grad students, the different cities and cultures we lived in, or occasionally just books and our own curiosity. Last year, Mom took a visiting professorship at Georgetown, and for the first time in our lives, we were plunged into a “normal American high school”—the biggest culture shock of all. I adapted well enough; Cairo found it harder. We weren’t like other kids, something he reveled in and I tried to hide. But even as I made new friends and Cairo withdrew into the background, the bond between us never wavered. We were two parts of one whole. Inseparable, forever.

Maybe that was why I tried too hard to hide from the fact that Cairo was . . . changing. Why I denied this new truth until it was beyond denying. Until our first trip to Rome.

“Okay, so, seriously, I don’t get it.” My friend Audrey painted her toenails baby-pink by the gleam of her iPod’s flashlight app, so the chaperones wouldn’t see we were violating the lights-out rule. “Toilets come with seats. Always. So why does every single freakin’ restaurant and museum in Italy have toilets without seats? Do they, like, remove them just to be evil?”