Excerpt from “The Society of Imaginary Friends” #teasertuesday

In case you missed it, “Stand Alone” was released on Friday, and I finished the first draft of my latest Camp NaNo book yesterday. Busy, busy!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

I am having a lot of fun reading The Society of Imaginary Friends by Kristen Pham. It is a young adult novel about a girl in foster care, thought to be schizophrenic, discovering her magical powers. If you read my stuff, you know that foster care and mental illness are two topics that I write a lot about, so that is what probably attracted me to this one. I am finding it to be well-written and engaging, with just the right mix of fantasy and moral development of the characters.

Here is a teaser from my current location:

…But sometimes, when my dad looks at me as if I’m some disgusting distortion of the son he once knew, I worry that he’s right. Maybe someday, my magic will warp me into a power-hungry villain, like he thinks it will.
Kristen Pham, The Society of Imaginary Friends

Belief is a powerful magic.

Valerie Diaz has a power that she can’t contain, and it’s killing her.

Bounced between foster homes and the streets, she only has time to concentrate on staying alive. But a visit from the imaginary friend of her childhood opens a world of possibilities, including a new life half a universe away on a planet that is bursting with magic.

The Society of Imaginary Friends follows Valerie on a journey that straddles two worlds. In order to survive, she must travel many light years away to a realm where anything is possible.

On the Globe, imaginary friends come to life, the last of the unicorns rules the realm, and magic seeps from the pores of all the Conjurors who live there. But choosing to embrace her potential will set Valerie on a treacherous course – one filled with true love, adventure and perilous danger.