On The Island Blog Tour: Excerpt + Giveaway

I am happy to be taking part in the blog tour for On The Island by Tracey Garvis Graves. This tour is hosted by A Tale of Many Reviews.

Overview

When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day. T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He's almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn't bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family - and a stack of overdue assignments - instead of his friends. Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.'s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island. Now Anna and T.J. just want to survive and they must work together to obtain water, food, fire, and shelter. Their basic needs might be met but as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.'s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.

Excerpt from the book

We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods.

“Anna, look behind you.”

She turned around. “What the heck?”

We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.

“There was one more after all,” I said.

“Yeah, the stupid one,” Anna pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.”

It came right up to Anna and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind?”

It tilted its head and looked up at her as if it were trying to figure out what she said. My mouth watered. I thought about the chicken dinner Anna and I would have. But then she said, “Let’s not kill this one, T.J. Let’s see if it lays eggs.”

I built a small pen. Anna picked the chicken up and put it inside. It sat down and looked at both of us like it was happy with its new house. Anna put some water in an empty coconut shell. “What do chickens eat?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the teacher. You tell me.”

“I taught English. In a major metropolitan area.”

That cracked me up. “Well, I don’t know what it eats.” I bent down by the pen and said, “You better lay eggs because right now you’re just another mouth to feed, and if you don’t like coconut, breadfruit, and fish, you may not like it here.”

I swear to God that chicken nodded its head.

It laid an egg the next day. Anna cracked it into an empty coconut shell and scrambled it with her finger. She put the coconut shell near the flames and waited for the egg to cook. When it looked done, she divided it between us.

“This is fantastic,” Anna said.

“I know.” I finished my share in two bites. “I haven’t had a scrambled egg in so long. It tastes just like I remember.”

The chicken laid another egg two days later. “That was a good idea you had, Anna.”

“Chicken probably thinks so, too,” she said.

“You named the chicken, Chicken?”

She looked embarrassed. “When we decided not to kill it, I got attached.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Something tells me Chicken probably likes you, too.”

 You can find Tracey at these places. 


Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter 

Check back tomorrow for my review. For the full tour schedule click here.

Also on my tour stop I am hosting a giveaway for an ebook copy of the book. Just leave a comment with either your email address or twitter name so I have a way to contact you if you win. 


Giveaway ends 3/13/12 at 11:59pm EST
You must be 13 years old to enter or have parent permission. 
You will have 24 hours to respond before I choose another winner. 
Winner will be chosen using random.org