(The Board Game Chronicles, #1)
Publication date: January 30th 2024
Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Middle-Grade
Synopsis:
Book includes a fun recipe for kids!
Amber Addison is fed up with her kindergartener sister. It’s Ava’s fault she’s missing her best friend’s birthday party, the most anticipated event in their sixth-grade class. To make matters worse, Ava has coerced her into playing Sweet Treats board game and she keeps losing to a five-year-old. When Amber’s irritation gets the best of her, she throws the game, destroying it.
As the board disintegrates, the two girls are swept into a swirling vortex and they find themselves in the middle of Sweet Treats kingdom. Ava is kidnapped by an evil queen, and Amber finds herself relying on a mint-green rabbit to help her find her way to Bonbon Castle with the hope of finding her sister. Along the way, she encounters more sweets than she could ever eat along with fantastical beings. Some will become her friend and others create danger that she must survive in order to save her sister and find their way home.
Excerpt
A rumbling sound filled my ears and the ground started tilting and rolling. The light hanging over the dining room table began swaying and the wood mini-blinds rubbing against the windows sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“Amber?” Ava grabbed my hand and held on tight.
“Don’t worry. It’s just an earthquake.” Growing up in Southern California you got used to this kind of thing. “Remember what they taught you at school? Drop, cover, and hold on?”
I pulled her toward the dining room table to hide beneath it, although I was positive by the time we got into position the quake would be over.
We were ten steps away from the table when Ava stopped walking. She yanked my arm and started pulling me backward, toward the family room. I heard the crash of glass breaking on the kitchen tile and was glad I had flip-flops on. Our family portrait fell from the dining room wall, the glass splintering from the black frame sent shards of glass flying across the room. A small piece caught my ankle, sending a sting up my leg.
“Knock it off, shrimp. We need to get under the table right now!” While I had been in several earthquakes, this felt different. It wasn’t slowing or stopping, like I thought it would. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was scared. Could this be the “big one” grownups talked about?
Instead of letting me lead her toward the dining table, Ava began pulling me harder toward the family room. With my feet sliding on the slick tile, I couldn’t stop.
“What’s that?” I had never heard my sister screech like that before, so I turned around to see what she was talking about.
The small fragments of the Sweet Treats board game were hovering in midair, swirling in a circle, going faster and faster. The floor tilted us toward the flying pieces, and we were slipping toward the growing whirlwind. The edge of the vortex was expanding outward at a rapid rate, while the center was a dark, black hole. It looked like a giant vacuum hose, and it was sucking us toward it.
My terrified sister started screaming, clinging to my legs. “Do something, Amber!”
I started shrieking as I tripped over Ava, and we were pulled head first into the middle of the vortex.
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