Swan Lake by L.B. Alexander
Publication date: December 4th, 2018
Synopsis:
And then, there was quiet.
Physically, I knew nothing had changed. My heart still raced. My legs still shook. My breaths were short and shallow, and my stomach continued to flip.
But there was an unmistakable hush, and I couldn't tell if that exquisite solace was sourced from my body or from his. It was as if I'd spent my entire life surrounded by white noise, and I was experiencing true, absolute silence for the first time.
My fearful body was not dancing to anxiety.
It was dancing entirely to arousal.
All April wants is a moment of quiet. But due to an ongoing struggle with mental illness, silence has become an elusive privilege she fears she'll never capture. An eating disorder has brought her burgeoning ballet career to a sudden halt, and a traumatic experience in a strict rehabilitation facility has rendered her more humble than ever. Now that she has returned to her native Southern California, April is content to conceal the dangerous half of herself she fears under a tenuous white mask of control.
But the facade is disrupted when April meets William - her older, mysterious, and disgraced new employer. She finds freedom in him, for like her, he is also two-natured. There's a mask he shows the world.
And a dark, true half he hides...
A novel in three acts.
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Excerpt
Mirrors have been such a big part of my life as a dancer; what I'd known of myself, and what I'd known of my worth, was what I'd seen in my reflection.
So I'd been avoiding them for the better part of six months.
And like a vampire, my repulsion for mirrors had only intensified after the strange events at Alyeska.
I didn't want to risk seeing something that shouldn't be there.
I kept my gaze on the bathroom counter as I set out my makeup, something else I'd been avoiding for most of the year. Tonight I was to play a new role, and my face needed to look the part.
With a deep breath, I raised my eyes to the mirror and looked at myself, really looked at myself, for the first time in six months.
I worried I'd be unrecognizable, that I'd mutilated myself beyond repair, but to my surprise, I wasn't staring at a stranger. An old friend, perhaps, who'd certainly changed, and aged, but who thankfully remained somewhat identifiable.
My cheeks weren't as sunken in, and it looked like flesh had finally begun to return to my lower eyes. My skin was less translucent, and my eyebrows and eyelashes had grown back. My lips had color again, and my irises had returned to their natural unassuming shade of dark blue. And to my continued relief, the bones in my face no longer looked like shards of glass slicing me from the inside.
Layer by layer, from cell to tissue to organ, it looked like my body was finally regenerating.
I powdered my face until my skin became a matte canvas. I painted blush in a very non-daytime color, and I drew a thick, catlike layer of black eyeliner on my upper eyelids. I smudged a smoky powder around my eyes and darkened my lips with a deep red lipstick, aptly called Cardinal.
I tried not to think of it as an omen for impending sins.
I paused to assess my appearance once I'd sprinkled a fine layer of highlight on my cheeks. The person staring back at me in the mirror looked... almost pretty. She didn't look like me. She looked like a better, more confident, enhanced version of me.
She actually looked a lot like my shade, my prideful shade, who hadn't made any appearances recently, to my relief. I think I may have had dreams about her, dancing in an enchanted forest somewhere like A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the memories always faded within a few minutes of waking, like smoke disturbed by the wind.
So I'd been avoiding them for the better part of six months.
And like a vampire, my repulsion for mirrors had only intensified after the strange events at Alyeska.
I didn't want to risk seeing something that shouldn't be there.
I kept my gaze on the bathroom counter as I set out my makeup, something else I'd been avoiding for most of the year. Tonight I was to play a new role, and my face needed to look the part.
With a deep breath, I raised my eyes to the mirror and looked at myself, really looked at myself, for the first time in six months.
I worried I'd be unrecognizable, that I'd mutilated myself beyond repair, but to my surprise, I wasn't staring at a stranger. An old friend, perhaps, who'd certainly changed, and aged, but who thankfully remained somewhat identifiable.
My cheeks weren't as sunken in, and it looked like flesh had finally begun to return to my lower eyes. My skin was less translucent, and my eyebrows and eyelashes had grown back. My lips had color again, and my irises had returned to their natural unassuming shade of dark blue. And to my continued relief, the bones in my face no longer looked like shards of glass slicing me from the inside.
Layer by layer, from cell to tissue to organ, it looked like my body was finally regenerating.
I powdered my face until my skin became a matte canvas. I painted blush in a very non-daytime color, and I drew a thick, catlike layer of black eyeliner on my upper eyelids. I smudged a smoky powder around my eyes and darkened my lips with a deep red lipstick, aptly called Cardinal.
I tried not to think of it as an omen for impending sins.
I paused to assess my appearance once I'd sprinkled a fine layer of highlight on my cheeks. The person staring back at me in the mirror looked... almost pretty. She didn't look like me. She looked like a better, more confident, enhanced version of me.
She actually looked a lot like my shade, my prideful shade, who hadn't made any appearances recently, to my relief. I think I may have had dreams about her, dancing in an enchanted forest somewhere like A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the memories always faded within a few minutes of waking, like smoke disturbed by the wind.
About the Author:
L.B. Alexander is an America author based in perpetually sunny California, specializing in high romance and women's fiction. An optimist at heart, and a true believer in happily ever afters, she strives to tell memorable, passionate, stories that can intrigue, challenge, arouse and most importantly, inspire.
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