Book Tour and Giveaway: Eve the First by Teresa Edmond-Sargeant

Eve the First:

A Fairy Tale Revision

by Teresa Edmond-Sargeant

Genre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retelling

A retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Wicked Prince," "Eve the First" introduces a princess unlike any other in popular fairy tales: ruthless, power-hungry and ambitious enough to conquer Heaven. After successfully monopolizing the known world, Eve lays her eyes on taking down God so she can reign supreme over Heaven and Earth.

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She was called Eve the First.

And once upon a time, that name, and its infamy, petrified the hearts and minds of anyone familiar with her conquests, capabilities, and cunning tenacity fueled by her volatility.

Eve’s innocent beauty belied her passion to conquer the world. Her doe-like eyes concealed the twinkle that reflected her megalomaniacal thirst for power. With her youthfully plump, pink lips, Eve barked demands at her subjects and soldiers, threatening to execute them if they failed to carry out her commands. She wore her lustrous locks in braids and pinned up into exquisite loops with hair ornaments crafted from the bones of her enemies and decorated with precious jewels like pearls, diamonds, and sapphires.

In Eve’s kingdom of Regnum, the populace sought for worldly knowledge, wealth, and prestige. Above all, the people pursued the supreme form of existence: immortality. To these ends, they excelled in architecture, arts, music, literature, alchemy and science. With the practices of Pagan worship, drunken orgies, and human sacrificing, they prided themselves on being their absolute best in knowledge and wealth, while their crude and barbaric natures situated them at the bottom of human existence.

Eve ruled the land of Regnum with the utmost passion of all kinds: love, fear, cruelty, and intensity, but mostly the last three. Every day she studied maps of foreign kingdoms, plotted her next conquest, and trained her soldiers until their feet bled and their sanity broke. Wherever she went, her subjects genuflected and lowered their heads, averting eye contact. If Eve caught anyone sneaking furtive glances at her, she screamed the dreaded words, “Away with him and off with his head!”

The next time that person was seen, his headless body was at the bottom of a ravine near Eve’s castle.

As she brandished her sword and ambition, Eve led her army all over the world, from the nearest to the most remote lands. She left behind trails of bloodshed, death, and tears. With every swing of her sword—a stab here, a beheading there—Eve radiated joy as blood splattered all over her armor and corpses piled up. Villagers said their bountiful fields, once ripe with harvest, were cultivated with the blood of the dead. Whole carcasses and body parts littered the meadows, turning them into rolling graveyards, as though the dead had been dug up.

“I have unyielding determination that cannot be matched,” Eve once said. “If that makes me an evil woman, so be it.”

Once Eve conquered a village, she marched into its public square and staked her coat of arms into the soil. Her soldiers kept the crowd back while the crowd admired Eve’s glorious beauty sullied with dirt and blood. Clutching the flagpole, Eve placed her right hand over her heart.

“Today’s victory is in memory of my dear mother, the late Queen Catherine the Third,” Eve said to her new subjects. “She would have been proud to know that I will bestow upon all of you a new day, a new life, and a new era. I acknowledge that from this day forward, this is the age we start to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and heal the sick. I have ushered in a Golden Era of Peace where the sun will always rise in the east, trees shall forever bear fruit, and harvest season shall forever be abundant. This is the time when we unite as one to remake this land so it will transcend our utmost expectations and ideal selves.”

Eve then signaled her soldiers to present her newly conquered subjects with baskets of bread and meat and vessels of cider.

“Today, what I have done was quite a sacrifice, but it was all done for you my beloved people,” Eve continued. “I will give you whatever you yearn for—food, shelter, clothes—and promise to alleviate you of the agonies you long suffered at the hands of your demon of a king. That will happen if — and only if — you crown me your ruler and allow me to erect my statues everywhere in your village.”

Then her soldiers demanded that the peasants form lines in front of them. Cries of “Long live Eve” rang throughout the land as soldiers passed out equal rations of food and drink to the peasants.

Teresa Edmond-Sargeant is an Orlando, FL-based poet, author and journalist originally from northern New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies featuring NJ poets. During her time as a reporter in Jersey, she won two NJ Press Association awards.

In 2006, she published her debut poetry book, "How Fate's Confusion Connects"; the book's second edition will be released later in 2014. She is the author of three (so far;-)) Amazon Kindle ebooks: "Eve the First," "An Estella Exclusive" and "Ethical Strains," all short stories.

Edmond-Sargeant is a member of the Florida State Poets Association. She is now a staff writer for The Apopka Chief, a newspaper that covers the Apopka, FL, area (http://www.theapopkachief.com).

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Book Tour and Giveaway: Ethical Strains by Teresa Edmond-Sargeant

 Ethical Strains:

A Short Story

By Teresa Edmond-Sargeant

Genre: Dystopian, Fantasy SciFi

In a dystopian future, a rogue journalist uncovers what may be a revolutionary scientific discovery: a way for DNA to be extracted from the bodies of 'morally sound' people and injecting them into criminals as a way to reduce recidivism, and therefore the overpopulated prison system.

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The street was as quiet as the dead that lay in the cemetery. Jacob crouched outside the metal gate in the shadows. The moonlight waxed silver onto the graveyard’s greenery, giving off a choral glow of peace and terror. Jacob’s heart pounded, refusing to allow the silence to tease him into thinking the street was empty. He moved his hand to his side, above the holster that cradled his gun around his waist.

Jacob extended his arm – covered with the sleeve of his leather jacket – and glanced at his digital wristwatch. 10:10. He returned his attention to the street. The wind escorted the fallen leaves along the deserted sidewalk, scratching the pavement.

She said she’d be here at 10. She did say she’ll be late.

He moved his hand away from the gun and adjusted his collar. He paced in front of the cemetery gate, his mind an agitated rush of thoughts.

Down the street, two uniformed soldiers with ammunition strapped to their bodies marched on opposite corners of the intersection. Emotional rigidity hardened their faces, while the shadows that their hulking physiques cast swept the concrete. Jacob tried to study the face of one of them, but it was difficult with the masked helmet obscuring the soldier’s face.

For twenty years I haven’t seen a street without soldiers. Doesn’t matter if I’m a kid or I'm now working as a reporter underground – things haven’t changed. Those government goons are always on people’s backs, always patrolling these streets. The beatings, the arrests, the murders. It’s a miracle I’m still alive.

Receding further into the shadows, Jacob pressed his back against the cemetery gate’s brick wall.

So many laws I’m breaking –hanging out in the streets after 10, meeting with someone crazy enough to tell me at this time she has an exclusive. What’s next? Grave robbing?

The soft shuffle of footsteps made Jacob look up. Across the street, a woman broke through the screen of darkness and crossed the street. Her low heels tapped on asphalt, while the faint moonlight unveiled her petite hourglass frame cloaked in a trench coat. A purple floral scarf covered her head, face and neck; only her eyes revealed a personal aspect.

“Jacob? Jacob Franklin?”

Jacob nodded. “That’s me.”

The woman untied her scarf and presented a gloved hand. “I am Dr. Sydney Pelham. We have spoken over the telephone. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I apologize for my tardiness. I had an imperative appointment that ran long. This this meeting is unusual, but given the nature of my overall work, we have to be discreet. Although I work for the government counseling prisoners, the information I’m about to disclose with you is quite crucial.”

Jacob nodded. Discreet. Somehow by the time I’m done here, that word will reek of irony.

Dr. Pelham began walking. “Follow me. I know a way underground that will lead us to my experiments.”

Jacob shadowed her. “Experiments, yeah, I remember you mentioning about them.”

Dr. Pelham chuckled. “Actually, it is more than that. It is a cause. I could not divulge the details to you over the phone because someone might have tapped the lines. You have reservations about meeting a mad scientist, quote-unquote. But given that we have so many problems surrounding us – with the rampant criminal activities and the federal government demanding the construction of more prisons at taxpayers’ expense – you will understand there is a method to my alleged madness.”

Jacob wondered if it were possible to withhold his sweat from bursting onto his forehead, similar to how people could hold back tears. As a self-proclaimed maverick journalist working with a ring of underground reporters, he didn’t dare to give Dr. Pelham the impression he was shaken at the ideal of being among “experiments.”

Their footsteps crunched the fallen leaves under streetlights that cast a dim, bluish-white glow on the foliage. Both turned a corner and into the woods behind the cemetery. They walked another few yards, and then Dr. Pelham stopped. Jacob almost bumped into her.

“We’re here,” Dr. Pelham said.

She looked around and crouched down; her modest length skirt rode up her leg. With her gloved hands, she cleared the leaves to reveal a wooden trap door. She retrieved some keys on a chain from her coat pocket and unlocked the door. The pair descended the staircase into a brick tunnel. Water drops echoed and the coldness bore down on Jacob.

Teresa Edmond-Sargeant is an Orlando, FL-based poet, author and journalist originally from northern New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies featuring NJ poets. During her time as a reporter in Jersey, she won two NJ Press Association awards.

In 2006, she published her debut poetry book, "How Fate's Confusion Connects"; the book's second edition will be released later in 2014. She is the author of three (so far;-)) Amazon Kindle ebooks: "Eve the First," "An Estella Exclusive" and "Ethical Strains," all short stories.

Edmond-Sargeant is a member of the Florida State Poets Association. She is now a staff writer for The Apopka Chief, a newspaper that covers the Apopka, FL, area (http://www.theapopkachief.com).

Facebook * Twitter * Website * Goodreads * Amazon

a Rafflecopter giveaway