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  • Rachel Rossano
    • Sep 12, 2018

Blog Tour: Through the Pages by Annie Louise Twitchell

Spring will always follow Winter.

Misty doesn't know who she is. Nineteen years old, she's trapped inside who she has been, with no idea who she could be.

When she goes to Mill's End to take care of her stubborn, book-loving grandmother, she finds herself torn between past and present. The answer to who she is lies hidden in her grandmother's library. Her path to find herself takes her through the fading pages of dusty books and the memories of a woman who has lived a full life. It is up to Misty to write the final chapter to the dearest story of them all.

Annie Louise Twitchell is a homeschool graduate who is obsessed with dragons and fairy tales. She enjoys reading, writing, poetry, and many forms of art. When she’s not writing, she can often be found reading out loud to her cat, rabbit, and houseplants, or wandering barefoot in the area around her Western Maine home. In addition to seven published works, she has several poetry awards and pieces in four anthologies.

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Books And Quills Magazine – Annie Louise Twitchell


This is a first draft excerpt from a potential companion/prequel novel, telling the story of Harper and Irene.

Irene isn’t on her front porch. I thought she would be.

I go up the steps and knock on the white door. Like everything else in town, the door is chipped and needs new paint. New paint is the last of our worries right now. Blood paints Europe, and I ship out tomorrow to add to the mess. Irene told me to go, but I know she wishes I could stay. I wish I could stay.

Her father opens the door, tall, stern, and gray-haired. He wasn’t gray haired when he left us all, little more than a year before, but then, he had two hands when he left. Now his left sleeve hangs hollow at his side, and he reaches out the door, pulling me into a strong one-armed hug.

I return the hug, my heart pounding dull rhythms in my ears, and wordlessly he draws me into the house and shuts the door. He nods towards the parlor, and I follow the nod, grateful that he drifts off to some other room in the house.

Irene is seated on the couch, hands clasped in her lap, wearing a plain blue house dress. She starts when I enter the room, her eyes casting over my uniform, and I see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. I step towards her but she stands and meets me in the middle of the room, wrapping her arms around me, pressing her face against my chest. “Harper, please,” she breathes, and I tighten my embrace around her. I know what she wants. It’s the same as my mother, my father, my brother… It’s the same thought that’s being uttered around the country.

Please don’t get killed.

Please come home.

Irene holds me for a minute that lasts into eternity and I stand still, holding her, memorizing the scent of her perfume and the feel of her curls against my cheek.

She lets go after a minute and steps away, looking up at me with a small, shaky smile. I muster as much of a smile as I can manage in return, and she takes my hand and says, “I’ll walk you to the station?”

I nod and we walk out of her parents house together, down the silent, somber street, and I wish it would stretch for ever and ever, and we could just walk into the sun, and I could hold her hand for always.

I, for one, am looking forward to reading more.

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