BLOG TOUR | The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman

Welcome Wayfarers to my stop on this magical blog tour! I hope you have loved the blogs you’ve visited thus far for the celebration of The Deck of Omens release and enjoy the rest of your journey along with us bloggers and the amazing publisher, Titan Books! As I was lucky enough to land a spot on the tour, I was also awarded with an extract! Keep reading for a juicy read. If you haven’t heard of this story before, be warned it’s the second in a duology! Go read The Devouring Gray first – I loved it. Find my review of this sequel below – Spoiler Alert: 😍..

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The teenagers of Four Paths must save their home.

Though the Beast is seemingly subdued for now, a new threat looms in Four Paths: a corruption seeping from the Gray into the forest. And with the other Founders preoccupied by their tangled alliances and fraying relationships, only May Hawthorne seems to realize the danger. But saving the town she loves means seeking aid from the person her family despises most–her and Justin’s father.

May’s father isn’t the only newcomer in town–Isaac Sullivan’s older brother has also returned, seeking forgiveness for the role he played in Isaac’s troubled past. But Isaac isn’t ready to let go of his family’s history, especially when that history might hold the key that he and Violet Saunders need to destroy the Gray and the monster within it.

Harper Carlisle isn’t ready to forgive, either. Two devastating betrayals have left her isolated from her family and uncertain who to trust. As the corruption becomes impossible to ignore, Harper must learn to control her newfound powers in order to protect Four Paths. But the only people who can help her do that are the ones who have hurt her the most.

With the veil between the Gray and the town growing ever thinner, all of the Founder descendants must put their grievances with one another aside to stop the corruption and kill the Beast once and for all.

But maybe the monster they truly need to slay has never been the Beast… 

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I really enjoyed this book – mostly because I loved the town of Four Paths, the writing, the atmosphere.. It was all done so well. Violet and Isaac were my favourite of the founders, if I had to pick from my little children! They were all so relatable, though! May was the only one I truly struggled to get into, but I came around in the end. This story is wonderfully witchy and keeps you guessing right up until the big reveal! I must admit, I was quite shocked by how a few things at the end played out. Amazing story and well worth picking up as soon as you can! Excerpt below ->

He pulled a different notebook out of the stack and flipped it open, tapping on the name scrawled on the title page. Maurice Carlisle. 

“This belonged to Harper’s dad.” 

Isaac nodded. “I wasn’t sure how Harper would take it if she was here, honestly. Us rifling through his things. But you said you wanted to kill the Beast—and I don’t think we’re going to solve a mystery that’s plagued this town for a century and a half by playing nice.” 

“I know we aren’t,” Violet said quietly. “I don’t care. It messed up my family. I want it dead.” 

“So do I,” Isaac said. 

“You read these notes already. And you must have found something, or you wouldn’t have bothered with all this.” 

Isaac met her eyes, and she knew she was right. 

“Here,” he said simply, flipping the notebook open to a bookmarked page. “It’s how the Church of the Four Deities planned the ritual they tried to do on your mom. The one to turn her into a vessel for the Beast.” 

Violet looked down at the page. The words were scratched in messy handwriting. 

The Beast has warned us that it cannot survive in corporeal form in Four Paths without a host. If cut off from the Gray for too long, it will wither and die. We cannot allow this to happen. We must not seal the gate before the transfer of its soul is complete. 

Her throat went dry. This was exactly what they’d been looking for: a weakness. 

“So if we can draw the Beast out,” she said slowly, “the same way the Church did, but cut it off from the Gray…” 

“It’ll die,” Isaac finished. 
“How can we close the Gray, though?”
Isaac raised his hands in the air. “My power extends to the Gray, remember? Any portal it opens, I can disintegrate.” 

Violet winced, remembering how much messing directly with the Gray had seemed to cost Isaac, but nodded. 

“Okay,” she said. “But that doesn’t answer how we would lure it out, does it? We’d need somebody connected to it. Somebody—oh.” 

Suddenly she was back on the night of that ritual again, staring at her mother’s lifeless body lying in the circle of bone. Watching Rosie appear in front of her, in her bedroom, in the Gray, in the spire. 

She couldn’t do that again. Not willingly. Not when it had taken everything she had just to escape with her life. “Absolutely not.” Violet slammed the book shut. “I refuse to be monster bait.” 

“You just said you agreed that we couldn’t play nice,” Isaac said roughly. “And you already drove it out of your head once. I know you can do it again.” 

“This is different,” Violet whispered, thinking of how the Beast had melted the flesh away from Rosie’s face, forced her to watch it decay. “I beat it that one time, yeah. But if it comes back, it’s not going to let me get away so easily. And we don’t even know if this will work. To risk everything like this—it’s reckless.” 

“Maybe it is,” Isaac said. “But if you really want it dead, well, this might be our best chance.” 

“I have to think about this.” Violet snatched up the journal and stuffed it in her bag. “Just give me a little time, okay?” 

Isaac’s face softened. He made no move to get the book back from her, which Violet appreciated. 

“All right. But know this: Nobody’s ever changed things in Four Paths by pulling a punch. They pay for every victory.” 

Violet’s eyes strayed to the founders on the wall, all solemn, all beautiful, all dead. 

“I know,” she said, and then she turned and strode out the door.