Book Excerpt - A Class Apart

I don't normally read self-published books (I'm a bit of a snob that way, I find most of the ones I've seen have been rife with grammatical errors and/or in severe need of editing).  So it's with great pleasure that I post this excerpt from Stephen Henning's self-published novel, A Class Apart.  I'll be posting my review of it tomorrow, but wanted to show off its prologue (with the permission of the author), which was so well written I agreed to give the book a chance.  The rest of the novel is just as well written, and is the start of a series involving teens who acquire super powers.

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Prologue

Sunday 12 June

Samantha Blake sat up in her hospital bed. She tried to read the article about her on the 24/7 Interactive News website, but her eyes kept flicking nervously to the door of her private room. Nobody was there.

      The article had been updated only five minutes ago. It was chilling and surreal to read about the events that she was experiencing – as they were actually happening. The text flowed across the screen of her phone.

      Breaking News – School Bus Bombing – Were Twins Targeted?

      Fears that teenage twins were targeted in terror attack, amid reports of SECOND strike in victims’ hospital!

      Sam could feel her heart thumping and her pulse quickening as she read the piece. Targeted? Really? Her and James? They must be the twins referred to, as there hadn’t been any others on the coach. Surely the bombing hadn’t been an attack on them? It was stupid! Who would want to target them?

      Sam looked around nervously. The report claimed there been an attack on the hospital. Within the isolation of these four walls, she had heard nothing, seen nothing. She was alone, but she could almost imagine an assassin in the bathroom, or a bomb under her bed. She had no way of being sure, because she could not move from the bed or leave the room. She wished her brother, James, was here.

      Eight days ago it had been their 14th birthday. They’d had a big party with all their school friends. Many of them were no longer alive.

      Now she lay in this hospital bed, cold, alone, scared and hungry.

      She scrolled further down the page. There was another video report, but this one was from three hours ago.

      Mystery Death Dive at Bomb Survivors’ Hospital

      Bosses refuse to confirm whether a teenage boy has fallen out of 36th-storey window at Brent Valley General

      Sam watched the video, her heart in her mouth. The reporter was standing outside the hospital, pointing at fragments of glass on the ground and a broken window at the top of the huge building. The reporter said that eyewitnesses had claimed that a body had come through the window, although the whereabouts of the body was unknown and unexplained.

      Three hours ago, James had told her he was heading up to the 36th floor. That was the last she had heard from him. Could it have been James who had fallen out of the window?

      Sam jumped in fright. Through the glass panels in her door, she saw a shape. A figure in the corridor. She couldn’t see who it was. Friend or enemy?

      Samantha Blake shrank down into her bed. Even with the amazing things that she could do, she had reason to be fearful.

      The door opened, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. It was a friend. Everything was ok.

      And then all of a sudden, it wasn’t...

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The Author has also set up some cool websites, one for the book itself, one for 24/7 Interactive News (with a few 'news broadcasts') and a blog written by the twins.