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Into the Light
(Into the Dark #1)
by Caroline T. Patti
YA Paranormal
Paperback & ebook, 300 Pages
August 23rd 2016 by Month9Books
Summary
Mercy’s family is back together and the threat of danger appears to have passed. But any relief she feels is short lived as she is ripped from her body and thrown in jail. Gage and Nathaniel’s plans to break Mercy out won’t exactly be easy. Stuffed full of a chemical binding agent, Mercy is trapped inside the body of a convict without the ability to breach and set herself free. Unfortunately for Mercy, being trapped in jail becomes the least of her problems when she meets her evil twin, Justice.
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Living in Someone Else's Body
I remember having a very long conversation with Georgia McBride, founder of Month9Books, about what it would be like to inhabit someone else’s body. There are so many aspects to consider. It would of course be disorienting and strange and super creepy. Imagine waking up one day and you have completely different parts. Who wouldn’t freak out? So when I first imagined Mercy inside Lyla’s body, which is how Into the Dark begins, I had to anticipate what it would be like to have the worst case of claustrophobia imaginable. The skin would feel heavy at first, like wearing a costume that eventually shrank to fit.
The particulars behind the whole concept of breaching are that creatures who were never human had to use a human body in order to stay on plane of human existence. Without a body, those souls would either end up in Purgatory, or dissipate entirely. Wearing a human suit is equivalent to a battery charge. Once the soul is charged, it can go for unspecified lengths of time as its true form. Mercy, because she is human, is rooted to the human world so when she is expelled from her body her soul is immediately looking to reattach. This makes her unique and unstable, and is how she ends up at one point in a dead body. Mercy is also able to leap from one body to another without disposing of her host, another trait that is specific to her.
The whole idea behind breaching is that it’s a tool; it’s a means to an end. So the real story becomes not about how weird it is to occupy someone else, but how wrong it is. Humans are used and discarded by Breachers, and that is what I wanted to focus on. There’s a point in Into the Dark when Mercy needs to use a body and her friend Jay points out how messed up that is. She carries that with her in Into the Light where she is faced with the ultimate dilemma. Nathaniel breaches the body of someone she knows, and of course he isn’t able to leave the body without killing it. Nathaniel in this person’s body, by the way, is one of my favorite parts of Into the Light. It was really fun to watch him struggle with a form that is completely opposite of his own. And it was interesting to find him in such a vulnerable position.
Though breaching is a huge part of the story, obviously, I worried that it would become the entire story, that I would get bogged down in the details of changing bodies. I needed Mercy to be uncomfortable, obviously, but I didn’t want her to be paralyzed, which is why she’s never in a male body. I worried that if she were male the story would derail because she would be overcome with weirdness and she would lose focus on the bigger picture. So each time she jumps she lands in female form. If you want a great book about what it’s like to jump from body to body regardless of gender and fully examine that aspect of it, I highly suggest David Levithan’s Every Day. He really explores that world, whereas I wanted to use it as one facet of a much larger story.
— Caroline
Other Books in the Series
Into the Dark
(Into the Dark #1)
by Caroline T. Patti
YA Paranormal
Paperback & ebook, 267 Pages
Summary
A girl’s sweet sixteen party is supposed to be among the most memorable events of her life. But on the night of hers, Mercy Clare wakes in the waiting room of a hospital with no memory of how she got there. To make matters worse, she’s wearing something she’d never be caught dead in: her best friend Lyla’s clothes.
Mercy’s nightmare is just beginning. The doctor arrives to tell her that it’s she who lies in the hospital bed waiting to die. A trip to the bathroom confirms Mercy’s fears, as Lyla’s face stares back at her and Lyla’s curvy figure pokes through her tight clothes.
But finding out what’s really going on won’t be easy. Because if Mercy wants her body back, it might just cost her Lyla’s life.
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About the Author
Caroline T Patti is the author of The World Spins Madly On and Too Late To Apologize. When she’s not writing, she’s a school librarian, mother of two, wife, avid reader and Green Bay Packer fan. You can chat with her on Twitter: carepatti or find her on Facebook: Author Caroline T Patti.
Tour-Wide Giveaway
· One (1) winner will receive a scrabble tile book cover charm (US ONLY)
· Five (5) winners will receive a digital copy of Into the Dark and Into the Light by Caroline T. Patti (INT)
· Ends September 9th 2016
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I've decided it would totally freak me out if I emerged in someone else's body, but definitely would be an engaging story. What do you think? Have you read this series?
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