Scrap

By Emory Sharplin

A fantasy world rich with ancient magic, enigmatic gypsies, palace labyrinths, and deep woods haunted by strange and forbidding creatures

On the brutal streets of Hellip, a village in the vast empire of King Ibis, lives twelve-year-old Tucker Scrap. Abandoned as an infant, Tucker is now the leader of the town orphans. Along with her friends Ash and Kally, she attempts to keep one step ahead of the king’s Blackcoats, stealing what she needs to survive and pondering her own unknown origins.

But when Ash and Kally vanish from the orphanage, perhaps headed for the faraway city where Ibis still rules, Tucker has never felt more alone. Then mysterious Vivian arrives in Hellip with a strange invitation that might help Tucker find her missing friends.

Over night, Tucker leaves the savage streets behind and enters the foreign world of private tutors, etiquette lessons, and silk dresses, and learns of her hidden inheritance. And when she unleashes supernatural powers she never knew she had, she begins rewriting the future of the entire kingdom. A bold, memorable heroine at the center of a centuries-old mystery, Tucker steps into her destiny at last.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: May 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781938416361

Book preview

Prologue

"PEOPLE OF GRIMMIC, I STAND BEFORE YOU, condemned and prepared to die a traitor. I do not refute this title, for according to our righteous and merciful king, I have sinned, bearing in body a daughter who could never be his heir. For this I deserve to die more shamefully than can be devised; but though I confirm myself a wretched sinner, I pray you will judge me sparingly, bearing in mind your own wrongdoings. Catherine Mair was pale as she addressed the crowd, her voice steady. And as I ready myself for death, I ask that you do not pity me, for I face execution with relief. And that if you must only remember one truth, I tell you beware, trust not in the vanity of the world, and especially not in the flattery of the court."

Vivian, in the crowd, pulled her hood down as Catherine climbed the scaffold and knelt upright, in the dignified style of executions. The queen’s ladies removed her headdress and necklaces and tied a blindfold over her eyes. The grating sound of metal being unsheathed made the crowd shift in anticipation.

Someone observed that the king’s last wife had endured three strokes of the axe before her head was completely severed from her body.

The hacker adjusted his grip and drew the blade high overhead. Do you forgive me my lady, for what I must do?

The queen folded her hands on her lap. Gladly.

There was a glint of silver and a wet thud, and the execution concluded with a single stroke. Vivian closed her eyes against the weeping of the queen’s ladies as the hacker lifted the head into the air.

So parish all the king’s enemies. Behold the head of a traitor.

Behold the head of a traitor, the crowd echoed in unison, shuffling back as crimson trickled off the platform. Children strained against the grips of their mothers to stain their trophy rags.

The priest raised his hand over the body and began to pray. Laveetrious Etiamorphous. May the spirit of divine forgiveness cleanse her royal blood. May the divine cross be pure once more—

Someone shoved through the crowd, yelling madly: Innocent!

There was a surprised murmur, and the people shifted, searching for the rioter.

A dozen more men began forcing through, shouting in outrage. Innocent, you murderous knaves!

The priest looked up as he was pelted with a bloody rag. Women gasped and a few brave men cried out in approval.

From the branches of a tree, someone yelled over the commotion, Dare you sing the rebel tune?

A handful of voices cried back, Yes, we sing the rebel tune! Women grabbed their children as the riot grew, crowding in.

Chase me, catch me, black and gold!

Beat me, throw me in the hold!

Everyone disperse! Blackcoats pushed through the spectators with heated blades, forcing the riot to scatter.

Vivian shoved her way out of the crowd and fled, yanking her hood up. The song was mangled in the sound of the stampede, but she still caught the next line they chanted:

"We know the light will shine eventually, but now it’s time to fight!"

1

TUCKER SKIDDED BACKWARD AS ANOTHER BOWL OF eggs crashed to the ground. Think what you’re doing over a loaf of bread! she cried, fumbling to grab the loaf from the counter. Look at it! It’s practically coal!

The baker, a stout man with a red, sweaty face and fewer teeth than kind words, eyed the burned bread with his rolling pin clenched overhead. He scowled, his chapped lips curling. Enough excuses, orphan!

But when it burns—

You aren’t to steal it! Is apprentice work so hard?

He moved forward; she scrambled around the table. I can do better, I swear!

With a deafening crack, the baker slammed the pin on the counter. "Oh, I’ve heard that before! he spat. A hundred times, orphan. And this time I’ve had it! He regained his grip and shoved back from the table. I’ve had it with you!"

Her eyes widened and she skidded to the floor, diving for cover. It’s not stealing if it has no value! No one wants to buy burned bread! The baker grabbed for her neck and she scrambled back. Just look—that loaf is worthless as ash!

So you burned it on purpose then! He dragged his apprentice out by her hair and yanked her upright. I knew it!

I did not! Tucker twisted. "Let me go!"

He pinned her back against a pile of grain sacks and pressed his face nose-to-nose with hers. I’ll hand you over to the Coats next time. You hear that?

She shoved him. Hand me over, then, you brute! They couldn’t hurt me!

Ha! The baker scoffed and grabbed her shirt. Stealin’s punishable by death, and they’ll kill you like any other.

Get off me! She spat. "I said, get off!" She felt his grip loosen and lunged forward, her feet skidding on the powdered wood. The baker caught her by her braid and forced her into the grain sacks. She twisted. "Let me go!"

Dishes shattered and the kitchen was blusterous with the sound of their scuffle. Tucker landed a sharp cuff to his nose and the man howled.

You little— He shoved her roughly against the wall and drew a fist back.

Hello? The sound of footsteps made them freeze. Borus, where are you?

The baker glanced toward the doorway, Of all the luck, foul Loretta’s here—

Let go of me, brute! Tucker landed a knee in his gut. He wheezed and she tried again to twist out of his grip.

Quit, the baker rasped. There’s a customer here!

Good! She spat in his face and opened her mouth to yell, but the baker slammed a fist into her windpipe, cutting off her cry.

I’ll scream, she said, her voice a gasp. Let me go or I’ll scream—

He shoved her flat against the wall. You best stop that.

Help, she wheezed, craning her neck toward the doorway. Help—

All right! The baker slammed her into the stone, knocking the breath out of her. I’m letting you go. But next time you steal, I swear—

Tucker writhed and his grip tightened for a moment, quivering. You hear me? I’ll hand you right over to those Blackcoats.

Yes, I hear you! Now let me go!

His eyes narrowed. You’re an ungrateful girl, you know that?

She scowled. "You better go before that witch comes back here!"

The comment hung tersely between them, and then the baker grunted, dropping Tucker roughly onto the grain sacks and storming back to the counter in the other room. Clean this up, orphan.

Tucker huffed. That’s the third time this week, you know!

I said clean it up! He didn’t look back.

She leaned against the wall and scowled, watching him leave. You know the bruises are adding up! And if I didn’t help you work, this whole store would—

The man jerked the doorway curtain shut, blocking her out.

Blood and piss! She pulled herself up. If I didn’t work for you, I’d destroy this kitchen and steal everything I could carry! She stalked over to the bread rack angrily. "Everything!"

Her eyes flickered down the fresh loaves and she imagined the baker’s face, watching her storm out with an armful of hot rolls.

Immediately, Ash’s words began prodding at the back of her mind, warning that she was convincing herself of something foolish. You’d be an idiot to walk away from that job, Tucker. A rash, starving idiot.

The girl ran her fingers along the rack, still wrought with temptation. She could load her arms full of bread and climb out the window—

And then what? Gorge yourself for a week? How long does that last? Revenge is hardly satisfying if you come crawling back in hunger at the end of it.

Tucker frowned. Ash was right. If she marched out of the bakery, the orphans would suffer at no cost to the baker.

She dropped the loaf back in its place. All right, Ash … you win. But I’m not working fifteen hours a day just for bruises. She slipped a biscuit in her pocket. I’m doing it because I refuse to sell the most sacred of gifts.

That idea made her smirk as she wiped down the counters and collected toppled bowls of dough off the floor. Then, like always, she began humming the tune that had been stuck in her head for thirteen years.

The baker had been threatening to kick Tucker out since day one, but for whatever reason, he continued to keep her around. Perhaps it was their long-standing partnership, or perhaps it was his need for cheap labor. The reason had never genuinely bothered her, and she didn’t intend to change that.

In fact, Borus had found Tucker, blue-lipped and scrawny, pawing through his garbage in search of scraps. She couldn’t have been older than five, yet she moved with such determination that the man had stopped to watch her from the window. Surely, he thought, she was the girl he had been told to look for: Tucker Scrap, an orphan with pale eyes and a silver anklet. According to the manor girl who had delivered him a message weeks earlier, he would receive a generous reward for offering her work.

Unsurprisingly, he did, and the two had sported a less than harmonious partnership since then. They never discussed how they had met, and he never told her about the money he received for keeping her in his service.

By heritage, Tucker was a stubborn girl with shockingly pale eyes and a quick impulse when it came to fighting.

Growing up, the other orphans had called her Tucker Scrap, since she was one of the few children who had been abandoned with a note on a scrap of paper pinned to her blanket. Although the nickname had mostly worn off over time, Ash still used it every once in a while. Tucker always found it strange that no one used the nickname for Kally, who had also been abandoned with a note. But for some reason, the nickname had never stuck to the other girl. Tucker figured it was because Kally had quickly proved many other titles to be better fitting. Her friend made a point of disregarding Ash’s seek no mischief philosophy.

Tucker glanced out the window, realizing it was almost closing time. She peered through the doorway, waiting to see if the baker was watching her. He was bargaining with the town’s bedraggled candlemaker. Her lips pulled up in a sly smirk. Perfect.

Cautiously she slunk back to rifle through the jars and cupboards, stealing rosemary and mint leaves as she went. Perhaps one of the other orphans would be able to snag some vegetables, and they could make a soup.

When the kitchen was scavenged clean of whatever she could steal, Tucker’s eyes flickered out to the counter, making sure the baker was still busy. Then, suppressing a grin and double-checking that all of her stolen goods were safely stashed, she ventured out into the main part of the bakery.

The store itself, even given its crumbling stone walls, dirt floor, and disgusting owner, was the nicest shop on the main street of Hellip. Dusk was starting to show through the open doorway. The bakery opened at sunrise and closed at sundown, but they stopped baking bread at noon. The leftovers were selling at half price now.

She was usually free to leave once the bread was baked and the kitchen cleaned, but she often stayed until closing anyway. She had nowhere else to go, the bakery was warm, and sometimes the baker would let her have any stale bread that hadn’t sold by the end of the day. Not often, but occasionally.

Wisely standing out of arm’s reach, she waited until the baker had helped the last costumer. May I leave, sir?

Borus rattled through the coin box. Kitchen clean?

Yes, sir.

He slammed the cupboard shut. Dismissed, orphan. And tell that impish friend of yours to keep away from my street.

Tucker snorted. I’ll pass that reminder along to Kally, sir.

Good, he grunted. Now get out of my store.

Yes, sir. She slipped out the doorway with a smirk, wondering what trouble her friend had caused most recently.

Tucker’s feet left flour prints on the damp stairs as she skipped over them and onto the street. It was the start of winter, and the early night air was bitterly cold.

The girl crossed her arms and picked up speed. Business hours were over and the last shop owners were locking up. The sky was a dismal gray, clotted with heavy rain clouds. It was a usual evening in Hellip, and the workers were bustling home. The town’s full name was Hellipanaryara, Hellip for short, yet despite the large name it was a tiny town on the outskirts of another small town. That town lay outside the city of Mattleshire, which in turn lay outside of Grimmic, which was the center of the kingdom. And although her imagination was the only way Tucker had of picturing what the center city was like, she knew it couldn’t be worse than Hellip.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but the town seemed to be growing more and more deserted. She had heard a dozen men tell the baker they were going to try their luck in the city, and it seemed like they had finally picked up and left. Maybe we’d try it too, if Ash’s leg wasn’t so bad, and if Kally—

Somewhere just behind her, chain mail rattled.

Hey—girl. The voice was deep. Wait where you are.

She turned back to lock eyes with the burly Blackcoat who had spotted her. The man wore dark leather and chain mail, the king’s emblem on his chest and a golden plume standing up on his helmet.

Tucker took a sharp breath, wondering why he had stopped her. Oy—I would, sir, but my mother is waiting on me for dinner. She shuffled backward through the crowd. I make this same journey every day. I’m no stranger, sir.

I said, wait where you are. The knight’s face was shadowed by chain mail, but his voice sounded menacing.

She glanced at his rank stone, a yellow gem mounted to his helmet. Yellow … Her mind flickered. Was yellow high or low in rank? She strained to remember as she shuffled back from the knight, But sir, I promised my—

In the name of the king, stop where you are! he announced, moving toward her.

Blood and piss— She spun around, taking off at a full sprint. It was common knowledge that the Blackcoats were always chasing down undocumented girls.

Behind her, she heard the rustle of chain mail, the sound of racing feet, and the scrape of metal as he drew his sword. Stop where you are, orphan!

She ducked around a corner and he continued to give chase. In the name of the king, halt!

In the name of your duty, catch me! He had no chance, but she liked the sport of a good chase. I dare you!

The knight scoffed indignantly and grabbed for the back of her shirt. You’ll be hanged for this, girl!

She forced herself faster, singing breathlessly as she ran. Chase me, catch me, black and gold! Beat me, throw me in the hold! Strike me, hang me out of fear! But no surrender you’ll find here! Once she’d run fast enough to escape danger, her gait switched to a skip, and she rounded a corner, imagining the rage on his face.

The orphan song echoed down the alley behind her and she grinned. Singing like that could earn her public execution—but then again, so could the majority of her daily chores.

She hid and listened, waiting for the sound of retreating footsteps that meant the Blackcoat had abandoned the chase, as they all did eventually. When everything was silent, she picked back up to a jog and grinned.

Since the age of five, she had been able to outrun even knights on horseback. It was an abnormality she had shared with no one but her closest friend Kally, who supposed that the gift had been induced by witchcraft. Tucker supposed it might have something to do with the anklet on her left foot, the anklet that she never seemed able to get rid of.

She glanced down at the strange piece out of habit. It had gained chain lengths as she grew, never fitting even a pinch too small. She could take it off and throw it away, try to smash it, melt it in Borus’s oven, but whatever she did, the next morning she and Kally would always find it fastened back around Tucker’s ankle. At one point they had made a small career out of selling it to different merchants who didn’t know that it would disappear from their storerooms overnight, but now no one in the town would even buy it anymore. Instead, they snapped at Tucker to keep her demonic trinket away from them.

Kally, of course, supposed that it was cursed. But if it was connected to her ability to outrun the king’s men, Tucker supposed it was more of a blessing. Or perhaps it’s just another curious thing that follows Tucker Scrap around. She grinned wryly. Just another treasure of the Hellip orphans.

She kept up her jog, lost in her rancor for the king’s men. Chase me, catch me, black and gold—the king’s colors. His knights patrolled every corner of the kingdom, beating the king’s subjects into obedient submission and collecting taxes. Even her little town of Hellip wasn’t overlooked, though in a town so small it was rare to spot any stone of high rank fixed upon their helmets. The really dangerous knights plagued the cities.

Tucker’s skin crawled, thinking of the stories she had heard.

There were about a dozen different gems, but this was the first time she had ever run into a yellow knight. She tried to recall what that meant. Green to yellow, lowly fellow, red to black, run run jack. The rhyme was known by claimed-child and orphan alike, but there was no telling who had invented it.

She skipped a murky puddle, humming the tune again.

She already knew green meant less than a year into knighthood, and everyone knew that a black gem meant sorcerer and a red stone meant a knight blessed by the king himself. According to rumor, there were only a few dozen red knights in the entire kingdom, and if you found yourself close enough to catch the color, you had best pray for your sins and prepare to meet your doom. It was also said that every red knight’s gem was colored by the king’s blood.

As always, the eeriness of the alleys began creeping under her skin and she switched to humming her favorite tune. It was a rhyme that had been stuck in her head since the day she first climbed out of her cradle.

SO SLIT THE THROAT AND GOUGE THE EYE

MURDER EACH AND EVERY WIFE,

RIP A NAIL FOR EVERY LIE

OUR DEAR OLD RULER, IBIS.

YOU MUST HAVE LAUGHED WHEN HE WENT BY

AND SO YOU WERE THE NEXT TO DIE.

AND NOW YOU WILL MOST SURELY MISS:

OUR DEAR OLD RULER IBIS.

The song had been the orphan lullaby for decades. She hopped from stone to stone through the alleys, adding verses as she pleased in her mind. Years earlier, before the children of the villagers realized that the orphans were strays, they had taught Tucker silly street games to the tune. She followed their rules now, landing on cracks and stones as the children had explained.

… his crown adorned with snake eyes—left toe on a crack.

… his cape dyed with blood—both feet on a stone.

… the king does kill his every wife—right hand to the wall.

… with an axe, a laugh, and a soft wet thud—she spun around and then stomped eight times, once for each wife.

The game had never seemed gruesome when she was a child, but the number of stomps had only gone up since then.

SO DARE YOU SING THE REBEL TUNE?

FOR HIS DAUGHTER’S RISING SOON

WE DARE YOU SING THE REBEL TUNE,

IF HIS DAUGHTER’S RISING SOON

According to the game, anyone who answered, Yes, I sing the rebel tune, for his daughter’s rising soon had to prove it, and anyone who answered I will not sing the rebel tune, for she is not rising soon had to cross their heart and sing the king’s anthem.

She thought back to all the times when she had proudly sang the rebel’s song.

I was every bit as stupid as Ash claims I was, she thought wryly, trotting on ahead. I ought to be dead. Gadzooks, with any normal luck I would be.

After all, she’d seen countless peasants executed just for humming the tune. One minute they were walking home, and the next, before they even knew what had happened, the Blackcoats were dragging them down the street to jail, followed by the scaffold. It was never a pretty sight, but according to the law, inciting rebellion was high treason and would earn you death in the most torturous of ways.

So naturally we children dared each other to sing. Tucker rolled her eyes.

Ash had eventually convinced her to quit singing the song so flippantly, explaining to her that stupidity and bravery were entirely different concepts.

Stupidity is singing the rebel anthem and hoping you won’t get caught, Tucker, he had chided her. But bravery is singing it proudly, hoping the king will come to fight you personally. Don’t you get it? That’s the entire concept of the anthem!

Tucker had snorted, so to seal his point, Ash had dragged her to the scaffold to watch her first drawing and hanging. That had shut her up for good. Leave the bragging for the idiots, she had decided. And leave the idiots for the scaffold.

Now, alone, she kept humming. So dare you sing the rebel tune? For his daughter’s rising soon. Her mind flicked over the idea of the king’s supposed daughter. Ash was a passionate believer that the girl would really rise and overthrow the king, but Kally and Tucker found more drama in the songs and stories. They had decided that until the daughter actually rose, they would just fill the void with fantastic stories of her adventures. Sometimes Kally even dreamed of feasible ways to bring down the king. Those were the best stories of all, the kind that strengthened the orphans’ hope.

She kept her eyes open for any danger as she walked. The Blackcoats were especially on guard lately, considering that the eighth queen had been executed only days earlier. From what she had overheard while eavesdropping from Borus’s kitchen, it sounded as if there had been an open battle at the scaffold.

Twenty-seven dead and eighteen branded as anarchists, she had overheard one woman say.

It’s a right good reason to be angry, Borus had replied, dropping his voice. With that brute of a king raising taxes every time he doesn’t get an heir, we’ve got reason enough to be rebellin’.

Watch that talk! The woman leaned over the counter, and Tucker could barely hear her through the curtain. I heard that the Coats were even trampling women and children.

Tucker felt that image play out in her mind. Ash was constantly reminding her to beware the Blackcoats.

The time to challenge them will come, he said, talking with his hands. But you’ll have to be alive to enjoy it.

She turned her thoughts back to her friend. Ash had injured his foot a few weeks ago, and they both knew the cut was infected beyond any help available to them in Hellip. The knowledge felt like a hole in Tucker’s chest, but she was keeping her promise to stay practical. Even Kally was scraping together a couple of spare coins in hopes of giving Ash a better chance once he left the village in search of help in the larger towns. They might all have to leave soon. She had no memories from before she had come to Hellip’s Home for Abandoned Children. She had been there as long as anyone in the town or orphanage could remember. Now Ash was going away, and soon everything she knew might be gone as well.

While the omnipresent grief kept her hunger at bay, Tucker continued her routines, stealing biscuits and humming peasant songs in the hope of staying alive. Like Ash was always reminding her: strength in pain, grace under pressure, unbreakable spirit, conquer the odds.

The later it grew, the more dangerous the streets became. She slipped on toward the orphanage, detouring around the sound of danger. Overhead, the light of dusk had faded to darkness.

There was a noise up ahead and she halted, instinctively pressing her body against the stone and listening for the rustle of chain mail. Two shadows were moving past from the street next to hers.

A man’s voice echoed urgently. I’m tellin’ you what he said!

Well, I’d sooner join the Coats than put money on that!

But you’ve gotta admit it’s an interesting conspiracy—

The shadows slowly vanished and the arguing voices echoed to silence. When she was certain the moonlighters were gone, she slipped back onto the street and continued her journey, wondering what they had been talking about. Probably the king’s daughter, or a rumor of rebellion … She shook her head, thinking them fools.

As she made to cut through the town square, the silhouette of the gallows stopped her. She knew the two figures hanging in the nooses well. They were both her age, a brother and sister.

Goosebumps crawled on her skin. She picked up her pace and cut through the skeleton of an abandoned cottage, avoiding the square.

Hellip hadn’t been so bad until the taxes tripled, which happened after the king’s seventh wife.

It wasn’t pleasant in the town, but at least the people living there knew where they stood. Apparently King Ibis believed his people should suffer as compensation for his own misfortune, however, so he began raising taxes with each heir he didn’t receive. Hellip, being a smaller town, had crumbled into poverty almost instantly.

As a parasite of the town, she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was forced to follow the people who had left already. The idea wasn’t new, but leaving Hellip seemed like a better idea day by day, assuming she could keep her eyes down and not attract attention. Everyone knew the cities were crawling with Blackcoats, and she wasn’t exactly the ideal citizen.

The girl slowed her gait, contemplating what she had learned about the law.

There were plenty of crimes, but treason was the most common. Around the time his daughter went missing, the king had even declared that a warning be etched into the scaffold:

BY THE AUTHORITY OF A MOST RIGHTEOUS GOD, THE KINGDOM OF GRIMMIC HAS BEEN UNITED UNDER A SOVEREIGN LORD. AND AS MEN RISE IN THE NAME OF TREASON, ON THIS SCAFFOLD PENANCE HATH BEEN EARNED.

The weathered words were always carved directly in the view of the condemned. Tucker imagined it wasn’t a pleasant last sight, but didn’t intend to find out personally. After all, execution was always the result of a foolish misstep, growing overconfident or letting your guard down. Those were the slips she had to be careful of. It was easy to be a traitor, but difficult to evade the noose.

Tucker’s eyes flickered up and she began tallying her crimes mentally.

The only offense she’d avoided was wearing the divine cross without royal blood … She didn’t have much reason to do that. No one did. In fact, for all the executions she’d witnessed, only one had been for falsely bearing the emblem of royalty, and that had been the town’s pet, Avril, only a few months ago.

The woman had been soft in the head. She used to wander through the alleyways and exchange childish drawings for anything that glittered. The townspeople had always been fond of her, but the Blackcoats couldn’t say the same. After the knights claimed one of her drawings resembled the divine

Reviews for Scrap

[corazie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a pretty original idea and I was pleasantly surprised throughout the whole book. Ok, so a few of the concepts have been done before more than a few times, but this story was a recipe for success.

This is not your usual rags-to-riches story.

This story got off to an excellent start, although I was often confused as to what type of world this was - a lot of the time it felt like a medieval-type fantasy world, but then there'd be the mention of an elevator and I'd stare dumbly at the page trying to re-imagine the world. But this is a pretty fantastic world filled with magic and multi-coloured gypsies, an evil king and a poverty-ridden kingdom.

The characters are strong, and if they're a little predictable, then they're meant to be. Colt and Napier are boys after all, and Kally's a whore. Really, she's a whore. Tucker is a strong and feisty young woman, even if her name seems very out of place in this world where all of the other names are so elegant sounding. I liked how her past isn't ignored and instead is being brought into every part of the book.

This would have got a full five-stars from me if it wasn't for the talking. Oh god, the talking. Back-and-forth and round-and-round with all this banter and it's so irrelevant at times and distracting from the story. SO MUCH TALKING. I just wanted them to shut up and get on with it.

I have to say I was a little disappointed with the ending - yet at the same time I'm quite happy with it. I thought this was a standalone book, but with an ending like that with so much more still to happen, this is surely part of a series. About 30 pages before the ending excitement was building in me - all I could think was how AWESOME AND ACTION PACKED this ending would have to be. There is action and it is awesome (and scary!) but it's not the holiday I thought I'd packed for. Oh well, this just means I have to keep an eye on Emory Sharplin and see if there is a follow-up (or two?) to Scrap.

A copy of this was provided by Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

[jljaina · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Note. My opinion of this book is very based on the hopes of a second book. If there is no second book then this is only worthy of 3.5 stars. Too many things currently unanswered. It was worthy of a 4.5 star journey but it has been 2 years and not even a whisper of a second book being worked on.

This was a very well done book. A great debut novel from Emory Sharplin!

The story quickly drew me in with the hard life of young Tucker. A young girl/women of 12 years, who was left as a baby on the steps of a small town 'orphanage.' I say that lightly as there is no one that seems to be running it or adding the children and in fact children found to be orphans are hung when caught. Her life changes when a women named Vivian whisked her away, creating a fake identity for her.

This book does a great job painting the backround for Tucker. A fantastic job portraying her history, and often snarky personality. Smart, quick-witted and compassionate. I absolutely loved her character! Vivian seems to be well portrayed but is such a mystery through the entire book it is hard to peg her down.

The world that they live in is nicely portrayed. I can clearly see in my mind Tucker running from the guards, the maids trying to dress her for the first time, the run-down church/orphanage. It all had a very nice medieval setting and feel, with the slightest undercurrent of a fantasy element. That element grows stronger throughout the book in the form of alchemy.

And then there were riddles! I love riddles to this appealed to me heavily. Here is an example from the book: "I am the beginning of the end. I enclose eternity and time. I am within reason, but not though. What am I?”

Now my concern for this book. I did not realize that it was a series when I first got this. I was reading toward the end as the pace picks up, on edge wondering how the author is going to finish in such a short amount of space. Then I find out, this is book 1. My concern is that I can find no mention about book 2. No website/blog, no title, no hopeful release...I don't even know if it is being worked on yet. One, I hate long waits. by the time the next books come out, I am no longer looking for them. Two, so many authors drop out of series writing and never finish. This is even more so for new authors. So my rating is very generous in the hopes that there will soon be a book 2.

Overall, nicely done! If you like Tamora Pierce, be sure to check this out!

I received this book from Netgalley. So I would like to thank them, the publisher at Greenleaf Book Group and Ms Emory Sharplin for this opportunity. This was given to me in return for an honest review. I actually like this enough to go buy the book one I am sure there is going to be a book two.