Thanks to Sherry @ Bloggity Blog for the header graphics!
Welcome to my stop in The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy Excerpt Blog Tour! This tour has five stops, so, if you haven’t done so, please head on back to Excerpt #1, right here!
The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy
Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on August 18th 2015
Pages: 400 
Twelve years ago Stella and Jeanie vanished while picking strawberries. Stella returned minutes later, with no memory of what happened. Jeanie was never seen or heard from again.
Now Stella is seventeen, and she's over it. She's the lucky one who survived, and sure, the case is still cloaked in mystery—and it's her small town's ugly legacy—but Stella is focused on the coming summer. She's got a great best friend, a hookup with an irresistibly crooked smile, and two months of beach days stretching out before her.
Then along comes a corpse, a little girl who washes up in an ancient cemetery after a mudslide, and who has red hair just like Jeanie did. Suddenly memories of that haunting day begin to return, and when Stella discovers that other red-headed girls have gone missing as well, she begins to suspect that something sinister is at work.
And before the summer ends, Stella will learn the hard way that if you hunt for monsters, you will find them.
And now, onto the excerpt!
Excerpt #5
Fat droplets of lake rain down on us, and Cole sniffs indignantly. “Well, excuse me if this is the most fascinating thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, two little girls are playing in the front yard, they vanish, and then only one comes back. Creepy.” A chill runs from the nape of my neck down my spine. I glance over my shoulder and squint into the woods. I’m usually an unshakable pro at recounting this story—even as a precocious third grader narrating the tale for show-and-tell—but there’s something about today that makes me want to whisper its details, hushed and mumbled so the trees can’t hear.
“Don’t forget the bit about Stella’s hair being braided. Her mom swore it was in piggies when she dropped her off, but she came back with a French braid.” Zoey smacks her lips salaciously as she wades through the shallows and out of the lake. Her blond pixie-length hair hangs in her eyes, and she adjusts her too-tiny bikini top. Zoey has huge boobs; her favorite hobby is making them look even bigger by wearing the scantest triangles to cover up little more than nipple. Zoey is my oldest friend. She was supposed to be there that day, picking juicy red strawberries from the tangle of vines that lined the dirt lane in front of Jeanie’s house, the day Jeanie disappeared. Caleb came down with chicken pox the night before, and their mom put Zoey on lockdown. Funny that an infectious virus likely saved Zoey’s life. I can’t help but wonder what saved mine. The vines of berries were all hacked down soon after Jeanie went missing, like their fruit was poisonous or somehow to blame.
These are the things I focus on: Zoey home that day; Jeanie being taken; rotten strawberries smashed into the ground. I don’t like to focus on my part in the story. Not because I’m traumatized; I’m not. It gives me the creeps, though, that ultimately, somewhere in the never never land of my brain is what happened to Jeanie. No matter how much I want to, I can’t help her.
There are already too many things in the world that are out of the control of a seventeen-year-old girl. I don’t need another.
Additional pre-order links: B&N, IndieBound
GORGEOUS COVER OMG. I have a thing for gorgeous covers 😛 I just read the excerpt and I’m very fascinated by the words and the little story (even if the excerpt was kinda short). I want to read this now 😀 😀
I know I LOOOOVE the cover! It works really well with the story too! I hope you enjoy it 🙂
The totally creepy cover definitely caught my attention. Thanks for sharing the excerpt! 🙂
Aw yay! I hope you like it if you read it 😀
I’m SOOOOOO excited for this one! It sounds so creepy and creepy is my type of book 😉
Oh yay!! I really hope you enjoy it when you get to read it 😀
that cover and “Then along comes a corpse, a little girl who washes up in an ancient cemetery after a mudslide” wow!
Right? Definitely creepy! 😉
I’ve been intrigued by this book for a while, but that excerpt! I’m not usually into creepy things, but that excerpt just lured me in. So excited for this book!!
Aw yay!! I hope you love it 😀
This book has been on my list since I first heard about it. The cover is so gorgeous, how could you ever pass this one up?
Mine too! It was my Waiting on Wednesday almost a year ago I think! Hope you enjoy it 🙂
Sorry, but I can’t take the book seriously, because I just keep thinking of this. 😀
BWAHAHAHHA! THAT IS SUCH A WIN. Now that will be in my head all day.
Shannon, this book is SO creepy!! I really enjoyed the thriller aspect of this book, the characters not so much….
I AGREE! The characters really drove me insane sometimes. Why were they so damn mean to each other!? The story itself was good though!
I love the cover and the story looks really great!
I agree, the cover is SO pretty! Perfect for the story, too 🙂
This sounds like it should be read with the lights on!!!
Hahha some parts, definitely!!