Blog Tour: We Are the Ghosts by Vicky Skinner (Excerpt + Giveaway!)

Happy Wednesday and welcome to my stop on the We Are the Ghosts blog tour!! I’m so excited because I get to share an excerpt of the book with you today! Read on to find out more about the book and the author, follow the rest of the tour, and enter a giveaway for a print copy of We Are the Ghosts!

After her estranged brother suddenly dies, a girl embarks on a road trip to rediscover who her brother really was in this contemporary YA novel.

When Ellie's estranged brother, Luke, dies in a car accident, she's not sure whether to be devastated that she lost the person who was once her best friend or enraged, still, that he left without a word a year ago. Now, the only people who seem to understand what she's going through are Luke's best friend and his ex-girlfriend, who she bonds with over their desire to figure out where Luke went when he walked out of their lives.

As she gets closer to them, and closer to Cade, a boy who seems determined to get to know her better, she realizes that she’s not the only one with reasons to be angry at Luke. And when Ellie makes a discovery that changes everything, she and her new friends hit the road, hoping that following Luke's trail will bring them answers about the life Luke was living away from them.

My hands tremble as I rip open the envelope and pull out the contents. I stare at the folded map in my hand, seeing just fragments of highways and state lines and blue bodies of water before I unfold it. 

I recognize it immediately, and it’s my first instinct to drop it, my heart beating loud in my ears. Because it’s like having Luke’s ghost in the room with me. I press my hands to my stomach and look down at it, lying sprawled open on my carpet. I can’t really be looking at this map. That map can’t really be on my floor. That map has been lost for ages. 

“These are all the places we have to visit before we die,” Luke said when he brought the map home. It was the summer before my freshman year of high school, before his junior year, and he spread the map across the dining room table like we were about to discuss war strategy. “If you want to add anything to it, just put X’s over the places, but I’ve already got most of the big stuff. Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Times Square . . .” 

For months, we took turns researching new places to add to the map, and eventually we brought Wes into it. We picked big cities, ghost towns, weird attractions along the side of the highway. It was a whole summer of daydreaming about adventures in the mountains, relaxing on the beach, soaking up history and culture and sunshine. 

I slowly reach down and pick it back up. All the X’s, in different color marker, his and mine and Wes’s, are so plentiful, I almost can’t see the city names beneath them. Notes in the margins about gas mileage and hotels and entrance fees. It’s been folded and refolded and laid out flat so many times that the original creases are gone. It was just a stupid thing he got excited about, the way he got excited about things and then didn’t usually follow through on them. The map was our world for a few months and then it was forgotten about, and that was that. 

That was three years ago. Three years ago, and here it is, in my hands, and I feel dizzy with confusion and disbelief and maybe even a little fear. Where the hell did it come from?

Born and raised in Texas, I don’t act like much of a Texan. I like cold weather and hate country music. I have a gorgeous husband, two dogs, and a Literature degree from the University of Texas at Dallas. If I’m not at home reading a book or doing laundry, I’m probably at the bookstore, nannying three rambunctious boys, or stuck on the side of the road with car trouble. I’m a reader, a writer, and a bit of a crazy person.