Book Title: TO THE NINES
Character Name: Blake Wilder
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
When I was in kindergarten, I told my friend Rena she could come to my house that night when her daddy started hitting her mom, and both of our lives changed forever. My parents told me it scared people when I shared my visions, whether they were traumatic scenes from the past or warnings about the future. My mom did call our teacher, so I’m sure it’s no coincidence Rena’s family moved away soon thereafter, and I was forever branded as that weird Wilder girl.
What is your greatest talent?
I’m not sure if it’s a talent, but I’m smart. Combined with the dark lessons in humanity I’ve learned from enduring thousands of visions, I think I’m a pretty good judge of character.
Significant other?
When you see countless visions of betrayal, infidelity, and abuse, it’s hard to let down your guard long enough to let someone in, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting a boyfriend. Since starting college and discovering The Nine—a centuries-old paranormal society—there are now two guys who know I’m a voyant, but aren’t afraid of what I can do.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Have I mentioned the whole “I can see into your past and future” thing? It’s gotten easier to control as I’ve gotten older, but not many guys are brave enough to take on a girl who can easily unearth the most painful moments from their past or predict future events most would prefer not to know.
Where do you live?
I grew up in the Salad Bowl of Central California (a nice way of saying I’m from a dusty farm town), and I recently moved to So Cal to attend Cal State Santa Carla. It’s not a big school (or a big city, for that matter), but Los Angeles is just an hour’s drive away.
Do you have any enemies?
I didn’t when I first came to Santa Carla, but one semester and several murders later (that I had nothing to do with, I might add), I’ve racked up quite a number of people who would be happy to see me breathe my last.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
All I ever wanted was to be normal, and I’d really hoped going away to college would mean a fresh start. When my best friend Scarlett and I both got accepted into Santa Carla, it seemed like everything I wanted was within reach. Now, one stupid premonition later, and everything has changed. Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful to have learned there are thousands of other Nines out there, and that Santa Carla is a sanctuary city for us—but being my friend is no longer safe for Scarlett. And as more people within The Nine learn how powerful I am, it’s probably not safe for me either.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
I’m an eighteen-year-old college freshman who works part-time as a barista. Kids aren’t even on my radar, but I have a feeling a rescue dog is in my dad’s future.
What do you do for a living?
My parents cover my tuition, rent, and books, but everything else comes out of my paycheck from Jitters, a coffeehouse as unlike Starbucks as a rap song is from a nursery rhyme. Since the owner and my fellow employees are all a bit odd (except for the cute high school cheerleader who works weekends), it suits me.
Greatest disappointment?
The funny thing about disappointments is they can often be blessings in disguise. Someone I love and trust kept a secret I thought might tear us apart when I first learned the truth, but I’ve come to understand things aren’t quite so black and white.
Greatest source of joy?
It would have to be my best friend and roommate, Scarlett. She first learned about my clairvoyance when we were kids, and other than making me swear not to share what I saw in her future, she didn’t care. She’s paid a steep price for our friendship, such as people turning away when they learned who her best friend was, but I don’t think I’d have made it this far without her. Only once did I break my promise, and the brief loss of her trust still haunts me.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
All sanctuary cities have a gathering place exclusively for Nines, and Santa Carla is no exception. We have The Lower 8, a private nightclub where no one has to hide what they can do. It’s run by the seriously gorgeous Texan, Jessie McCabe, who’s a phantomist (he can see and speak with the dead, which is not as creepy as it sounds). He’s a bit of an opportunist, but I can’t help liking the way he looks at me.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
I lie way too easily. I didn’t think much of it at first, considering it a necessary survival skill, but now I sometimes omit the truth just to suit my needs. If my parents knew I’d been stalked by a killer or how close I’d come to being unalived more than once, they’d make me transfer schools and live at home. I love my family, but it’s time for my own life to start.
What keeps you awake at night?
I think I’m falling for Nicholas Thorne, the son of The Nine’s chancellor, but does he feel the same about me? Or is he doing what he must to get me to support his father’s leadership? You see, there’s a major faction in The Nine who’d like nothing more than to end the convenient restricting Nines from influencing politics or religion. Can you image what might happen if, say, a telepath became a world leader? (That actually happened once with Henry the Eighth, and it ended with him beheading anyone who ever had a traitorous thought). Or what if a voyant like me aligned with a warring nation, and he or she could predict the outcome of every military strike? That entity would become unstoppable.
Chancellor Henry Thorne wants to uphold the covenant, but as dissatisfaction grows, his grip on power is waning.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
When I first moved to Santa Carla, the only thing I worried about was someone from back home recognizing me and telling my new classmates they were in school with the main character from a Stephen King novel. Since then, I’ve tracked down murderers, fought for my life more than once, and now I’m worried about my sixteen-year-old sister, Jordan. We’re kind of estranged because it’s been hard for her to follow in the footsteps of a wildly unpopular sibling. The problem is, I’ve recently learned paranormal traits tend to run in families. What will happen if she wakes up one day to discover she’s an elementalist and accidentally sets her bedroom curtains on fire? Or what if she becomes an evanescent and unwittingly electrocutes her boyfriend?
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
I’d like to drag The Nine into the modern world. They still follow all these ancient traditions, like deciding who becomes the next telekinetic regent with a cage battle using weapons inspired by a trip to Home Depot, or meting out justice to their own kind in brutally barbaric ways. I’ll soon be expected to pledge my loyalty to The Nine—to refuse means abandonment by the society, and the protection they offer from other Nines who would think nothing of forcing a voyant like me to do their bidding—but I’m chaffing at doing it with a patron at my side. Why should someone else stand for me when I am perfectly capable of speaking for myself?
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
A peaceful existence. The quest for power and control is more important to the leaders—and would-be leaders—of The Nine than democratic rule. I didn’t expect to be any kind of catalyst for change, but as my reputation and status within the society grows, I may not be able to avoid being sucked into the middle of it all. I’ve recently come to suspect Chancellor Thorne isn’t as noble as he pretends to be, but I don’t think ending the covenant and outing Nines to the world is the answer either. Governments would weaponize us if they discovered members of their population were telekinetics or materialists (they can conjure almost anything non-mechanical) or whatever. Only time will tell if differences can be decided diplomatically—or with bloodshed.
Hidden truths are revealed and loyalties questioned in the third book of The Nine series.
When eighteen-year-old clairvoyant Blake Wilder unwittingly stumbles upon a secret that should have stayed buried, her discovery sets off a chain reaction she won’t fully comprehend until fellow Nines try to frighten her into silence—and a friend turns up dead.
Blake’s troubles continue to mount when a vision paints boyfriend Nicholas Thorne in a duplicitous light, and Jessie McCabe, the man who haunts her dreams, finds love with another. When almost everything she cherishes is tarnished or stripped away, the person she relies on most—her best friend, Scarlett—goes missing.
With her back against the wall, Blake will do anything, risk everything, to divine friends from enemies as she races to uncover the truth behind Scarlett’s disappearance.
Young Adult Romance | Young Adult Paranormal [Owl Hollow Press, LLC, On Sale: October 23, 2024, e-Book, / ]
A native of Los Angeles, Kes Trester is a veteran of the film and TV commercial industry. Her debut novel, A Dangerous Year, is currently being developed for film/television. The Nine, the first entry in a multibook, contemporary YA/NA romantasy series published by Owl Hollow Press, hit shelves October 2022, with the sequel, Alder House, released September 2023. The third book, To the Nines, comes out October 22, 2024. She is repped by Stonesong & UTA.
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