Hoshiko and Ben have been on the run since they burned Silvio Sabatini's circus down to the ground at the explosive finale of SHOW STOPPER. But Ben's mother will stop at nothing to track him down and get her revenge: backing him into a corner where he is forced to sacrifice himself to save Hoshiko. The deadliest show on earth has been resurrected and if Ben thought he'd seen into its dark corners as an outsider, the true extent of the horrors that lurk beneath the Big Top are about to be revealed as he becomes the circus' new star attraction...
And today I am thrilled to be sharing an extract from Show Stealer! If you like what you see be sure to grab the book for your summer holidays or to cure your back to school blues :)
Ben
As we approach, a helter-skelter looms in front of me, rising up over the fences and, in the distance, an enormous big wheel towers over everything. It’s not enough any more to just to have the shows and the side stalls – there’s a fairground now too. No, not a fairground, a theme park: vast, expansive.
I think of everything we’ve been through, Hoshi and Greta and me.
We blew up the arena. We escaped. So what?
They killed Amina, the person Hoshi loved most in all the world – strung her up in the arena and auctioned off her parts on the internet to the highest bidder. They killed Priya – the first person in the world to ever tell me the truth about anything—and turned her into a zombie, there to be used as target practice by excited thugs with their shotguns.
What did they die for, Amina and Priya?
Nothing. We achieved nothing.
The Cirque has picked itself up, dusted itself off and risen up, bigger, better, stronger than ever.
People will go on dying in the name of entertainment, just like they always did; there’ll just be someone new at the helm.
Still, whoever it is can’t be as bad as Silvio Sabatini. I shudder just thinking of him. At least we destroyed him. They’ll never be able to take that away from us.
“Why have you brought me here?” I call out, as the car rolls ever onwards.
The officers ignore me.
We pass a road sign. The Cirque, it says. Two hundred metres.“Stop the car!” I shout.
We turn left, past a huge plastic clown face grinning inanely at us as we pass, its wide eyes moving from side to side, and proceed up a long driveway, past the huge empty car parks until we reach a wall, covered in bright three-dimensional images of lions and elephants and acrobats and more clowns.
The officer driving the car winds down his window, tapping a code into a panel outside.
The wall moves then, and I realize it’s not a solid wall at all; it’s a pair of huge double gates. They swing slowly open, the action apparently signalling the start of music.
It’s the same music as before, gaudy hurdy-gurdy circus music which once, a lifetime ago, filled me with excitement but now fills me with dread and fear and loathing. Waves of panic rise up inside me.
“Stop the car!” I cry again. They just ignore me. I try the door. It’s locked. “Stop the car! Stop the car!”
There’s nothing I can do.
I don’t want to be here. I should never have let them take me. Once I’d seen Hoshi and Greta and Jack were gone, I should have just shot myself.
We’re in a huge open-air entrance hall lined all across with ticket booths, gleaming and new and unused. In the middle of them, a huge sign flashes its greeting in bold neon
lights.
Welcome to the Cirque! it declares. The Show Must Go On!
Make sure you guys check out the rest of the spots on the blog tour <3
Buy Show Stealer here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Show-Stealer-Stopper-2/dp/1407179683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534267845&sr=8-1&keywords=show+stealer
Check out Hayley Barker here: https://twitter.com/hayleyabarker?lang=en
Until next time :)
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