I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the JADIE IN FIVE DIMENSIONS by
Dianne K. Salerni Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About the Book:
Authors: Dianne K. Salerni
Pub. Date: October 5, 2021
Publisher: Holiday House
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 288
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD,
Bookshop.org
A thirteen-year-old girl seeks answers about her past in the fourth dimension--and beyond--in this think-outside-the-box adventure.
Reviews:
EXCERPT
1. Jadie
My target holds her phone against
her ear, scurrying down the sidewalk in high heels. She’s dragging a wheeled suitcase and
carrying a tapestry bag over her shoulder. The bag has sunflowers on it, which
is how I know I’ve got the right lady.
Coasting behind her on my skateboard, I weave between pedestrians.
One man snarls at me—“Watch it, girl!”— even though I didn’t touch him.
Great. Last thing I need is someone drawing attention to me.
Luckily, the woman is too busy talking on her phone to notice.
She’s heading for a subway entrance a block ahead, so I have to make my move.
A lot of kids on my middle school soccer team talk about getting
into “the zone.” I call it Jadie 2. 0— an alternate me
that pushes the regular Jadie Martin aside and tells my body what to do. Speed up. Bend your knees. Lean left.
Bearing down on the woman, I hook my fingers under the st rap of
her tapestry bag and hurl it as far as I can into traffic.
The bag strikes the windshield of a taxi, spewing its contents
over the car and into the street.
The woman whirls toward me with a furious shriek, her hands curved
into manicured claws. Cutting sharply away on my board, I call over my
shoulder, “Sorry!”
I only did what I was ordered to do.
Other people shout after me, but only the guy who yelled at me a
few seconds ago gives chase. “Come back here, you little punk!”
I steer into the closest alley, which turns out to be a mistake. A
delivery van blocks the exit, and two guys are stacking crates around the
vehicle. There’s no way I can get through them with the angry man ten steps
behind me.
What I do next is against protocol, but I don’t see an
alternative. Hopping off the skateboard, I stamp on the back end and grab the
front axle. As my pursuer barrels toward me, his hand outstretched, I stab the
round button on my metal bracelet and vanish.
Or at least that’s what it looks like to the man in the alley.
For me, it’s like being knocked from my skateboard while traveling
at top speed— a sudden wrench in a new direction.
Not a normal direction like up, down, left, or right. I’m flying kata, out of three-
dimensional space.
Shutting my eyes to keep from getting dizzy, I hold out my arm.
Only when my feet hit a metal platform and my bracelet clicks into a port- lock
do I blink and look around. The alley is gone, replaced by what
looks like a modern art painting sprung to life. In front of me, gold loops
squirm and blue orbs pulse. Off to my right, silver tubes intersect in
impossible ways like an optical illusion— but this isn’t an illusion.
This is 4-space.
I glance down between my feet, through the metal grid of the
platform. Earth isn’t visible to human eyes from this position, but it’s there.
My planet, the solar system, the Milky Way Galaxy . . . the entire three-
dimensional universe, in fact, is nest ed inside the vast ness of this four-
dimensional universe the way one Russian doll fits inside another.
A red glow illuminates the space around me— bright enough to see
by, but not as satisfying as sunlight or even a strong lightbulb. It reminds me
of a fi re burning in the wilderness, which always makes me wonder if these
platforms are inside or outside. Or if inside and outside aren’t
the only two options when you have four spatial dimensions.
The only things that make sense to my eyes are the platform I’m
standing on and the items I brought with me: my skateboard and my bracelet,
where today’s assignment is spelled out on a small screen.
Woman with luggage walking toward subway station. Sunflower
tapestry bag. Throw into traffic.
Underneath these instructions are the spatial coordinates of the
event— a string of numbers that mean nothing to me.They placed me in the
correct location for my mission, but they aren’t necessary to get me home.
At the edge of the platform there’s a clunky console that looks
like something from the 1960s. It has large, numbered keys for entering
coordinates on the way to a course correction, and three buttons labeled
Complete, Incomplete, and Return to be used afterward.
Hugging my skateboard under my arm, I push Complete.
The screen on my bracelet goes blank.
Assignments like this leave me conflicted. On one hand, I’m pumped
with adrenaline, like when I intercept a ball on the soccer field. On the other
hand, what I did was an aggressive act against a player unaware of the game.
It feels like a foul.
I hope things turn out okay for that lady. Maybe she would’ve been
flattened by a bus at the next intersection and the delay I created saved her
life. Or maybe, when she misses her train, she passes the time before the next
one by buying a winning lottery ticket.
But Miss Rose tells us that the desired outcome of our missions
rarely involves the target. The end result of throwing a purse into the street
might be four steps removed from the act. Maybe the taxi that
got hit with the bag misses a fare, and because of that, two people meet who wouldn’t have met if the
taxi had been there. They fall in love, get married, and have a kid who someday
cures cancer.
That would make throwing a stranger’s bag into traffic totally
worthwhile.
After I’ve registered my assignment as complete, I push the Return
button. The platform whirs into action, sliding past four identical but
unoccupied platforms. Traveling through 4-space creates a shortcut between any
two locations in 3-space. Therefore, it’s only seconds before my platform
stops, the port- lock releases my bracelet, and I’m yanked ana, the direction
opposite from kata. The machine returns me to the same location I departed from
earlier today: my bedroom in my house in Kansas, slipping me between the walls
and the roof through the open fourth dimension (which is visible from 4-space
even though humans can’t perceive it). The adult Agents nicknamed this machine
the Transporter because when it deposits me on the fuzzy blue rug in the center
of my room, I appear in the blink of an eye, like in Star
Trek.
Alia Malik looks up without any surprise and says, “Hey, Jadie.”
She’s lying on my bed, scrolling on her phone. “Where you been?”
“A city. Not sure where.” I drop my skateboard and nudge it with
my foot, sending it off to a corner of the room. Alia isn’t surprised that I
appeared out of nowhere, but I’m a little surprised to see her. She’s my
neighbor and a fellow Agent, but she’s not usually waiting in my bedroom when I
get back from missions.
“I went to Thailand,” she says. “Third time this month.”
Alia, her sister, and her parents often get sent to Thailand, the
country of Alia’s grandparents. I wish I would get assignments overseas. “Did
you see anything interesting?”
Alia snorts. “I was in a fi eld. I opened a fence. What’d you do?”
“I threw some lady’s purse into traffic.”
“Jadie!” Alia gasps in partly fake, partly real horror. “You get
all the mean ones.”
She’s not wrong. I hope it’s because I’m athletic and not because
Miss Rose thinks I’m a criminal at heart.
Alia flashes a wide, forced smile. “I have a favor to ask. Any
chance you’d babysit for me tomorrow?” She holds up her arm and rattles a
bracelet identical to mine.
Babysit. She wants me to take her bracelet and cover
her assignments, which is against the rules. Course corrections are designed
specifically for each Agent. We aren’t supposed to swap them.
Alia sees my hesitation and starts begging. “Please, Jadie!
There’s a Cosmic Knight tournament tomorrow. I can’t leave in the
middle without forfeiting.” Alia is obsessed with the online game Cosmic Knight, a
race- slash- battle among alien players— water- breathing assassins, murderous
spider ladies, poisonous floating gas bags— seeking a mysterious token that
will protect the finder’s homeworld from destruction. I played once, but I
prefer soccer.
“If you tell Miss Rose, she won’t give you a mission while it’s
going on,” I point out. Our 4-space liaison doesn’t assign course corrections
during activities where our disappearance would be noticed. When Alia chews her
fingernail and avoids my eyes, I get it. “Ohhh. You’re grounded again.”
She grimaces. “I failed a history test . I’m not supposed to be
out of the house this weekend, except for course corrections, and Mom says no
online activities for two weeks. But she and Dad will be at Tehereh’s color
guard competition tomorrow, soooo . . .”
“I have a soccer game in the morning.”
“I wouldn’t need you until one o’clock.”
I sigh.
“I already asked Huan and Jin.” Those are the fifteen-year- old
Agents across the cul-de-sac. “But they’re visiting colleges this weekend. I
know your brother would do it— Ty probably would, for a price— but I don’t trust them to get the job done. No
offense to Marius.”
“None taken.” My brother, Marius, is always willing to help a
friend but sometimes lacks good judgment. As for my next- door neighbor, Ty
Rivers, I wouldn’t want to give him that kind of blackmail material if I were
Alia.
She presses her hands together. “Help me,
Jadie Martin.
You’re my only hope.”
I recognize the line from Star Wars but
shoot back, “You mean your last hope. ’Cause you already asked Huan and Jin,
crossed off Marius and Ty, and you can’t ask your sist er or one of the adults
to do it.”
“C’mon. I probably won’t get an assignment during the couple of
hours you have the bracelet.” She hesitates. “I know you don’t want to get in
trouble with the Seers because of . . . you know . . . but—”
“Because of what?”
Alia shrugs like she doesn’t want to bring it up. “Because you owe
them your life.”
My shoulders hunch automatically, but I try to look like it’s no
big deal.
Twelve years ago, my natural- born parents abandoned me by the
side of a highway in the middle of a snowstorm. Like trash.
I should have died. But superintelligent beings from a higher
dimension sent their best Agents to rescue me and raise me as their own
daughter. I grew up in a loving family with great parents and a brother who’s
an idiot sometimes, but still my brother. For the past six months, since I
turned thirteen, I’ve had the honor of serving as an Agent myself, assisting
the Seers in their mission to put Earth on track for a brighter future. When
they tell me to mug a lady on the street, I do it and do it well.
I see that Alia’s face is falling, and I feel
like trash on the side of the highway, disappointing my friend rather than
break one tiny rule. It’s only a couple of hours, and if Alia is asked to close
a fence in Thailand, I can close that fence as well as she can. In fact, I bet
I can close a fence like it’s never been closed before.
“I’ll do it.”
About Dianne K. Salerni:
Dianne K. Salerni
has written many books for children and young adults, including state-award
nominated series The Eighth Day and Junior Library Guild selection Eleanor,
Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts. She attended the University of Delaware and
the University of Pennsylvania before teaching fourth and fifth grades for
many years. Now Dianne spends her time hanging around creepy cemeteries,
climbing 2,000-year-old pyramids for book research, and volunteering at her
local rescue animal shelter.
Website
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Giveaway Details:
3 winners will receive a finished copy of JADIE IN FIVE DIMENSIONS, US Only.
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
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10/18/2021 |
Kickoff Post |
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10/18/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/19/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/19/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/20/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/20/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/21/2021 |
Review |
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10/21/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/22/2021 |
Review |
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10/22/2021 |
Spotlight/Excerpt |
Week Two:
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10/25/2021 |
Review |
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10/25/2021 |
Review |
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10/26/2021 |
Review |
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10/26/2021 |
Review |
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10/27/2021 |
Review |
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10/27/2021 |
Review |
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10/28/2021 |
Review |
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10/28/2021 |
Review |
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10/29/2021 |
Review |
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10/29/2021 |
Review |
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