_____________________________________________
“Is that my dress?” _____________________________________________
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one.” _____________________________________________
“This goes a lot faster if you hold still.” _____________________________________________
“Is this you?” _____________________________________________
“You kids don’t seem to realize that interrupting elite study time merits a week’s detention.” _____________________________________________
“I need you to take me to see Wylie.” _____________________________________________
“You shouldn’t waste your talent on such ordinary defenses.” _____________________________________________
“No, Mr. Sweeney.” _____________________________________________
“Ready?” _____________________________________________
“I guess this means the Council has decided to make good on their threats.” _____________________________________________
“Thanks for taking care of her, guys, but I’ll take it from here.” _____________________________________________
“If you’re thinking it’ll get easier, it won’t.” _____________________________________________
“You’re covered in dinosaur fluff!” _____________________________________________
“Mom!” _____________________________________________
“Good morning, prodigies. First and foremost, whoever put reekrod in my desk over the weekend will—It’s not funny!” _____________________________________________
And here are some other characters’ first lines!
MR. FORKLE: “Looking for someone?”
EMERY: “Please be seated.”
KENRIC: “We don’t know.”
FALLON: “A lot can happen in six months.”
LORD CASSIUS: “Well, well, who do we have here?”
TERIK: “It works better one-on-one—you know that.”
TIERGAN: “You’ve got some nerve summoning me.”
UMBER: “Ugh, now I get why Keefe was always going on about this one.”
VERTINA: “My goodness you have strange eyes.”
VESPERA: “The answer you seek does not exist.”
ALVAR: “Sorry I’m late, Mom.”
SIR ASTIN: “Where’s your seventh star?”
BRONTE: “What?”
LIVVY (AS PHYSIC): “It looks worse than it is.”
LUZIA: “Yes. I liked the view.”
ORALIE: “Give me your hand, Sophie.”
RUY: “That’s enough of that.”
ANSWER KEY: 1. KEEFE; 2. ALDEN; 3. LINH; 4. JENSI; 5. BIANA; 6. WYLIE; 7. ELWIN; 8. FITZ; 9. MAGNATE LETO; 10. MARUCA; 11. LADY ZILLAH; 12. SOPHIE; 13. DEX; 14. FINTAN; 15. MARELLA; 16. TAM; 17. EDALINE; 18. STINA; 19. DAME ALINA
IGGY COLORING PAGE
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT IGGY GETS a new fur color (and style!) in every book of the Keeper series—and many of you also know that my readers are the ones who choose his look every year. But you might be wondering why I give away that kind of control, and it’s because a reader inspired the idea in the first place.
I decided to have Dex turn Iggy pink (in Exile)—but I wasn’t planning to change Iggy again, until an adorable little girl (whose name I sadly forgot to get—author fail!) asked me at one of my Exile tour events what Iggy’s color was going to be in Book 3. I opened my mouth to tell her, “The pink will wear off, and he’ll be gray again,” when I thought, Why not have someone change his color again? So I asked her what color she wanted Iggy to be, and she leaned in, looking very serious, and told me, “Orange.”
And so, Iggy turned orange in Everblaze—and every year since, I’ve used my social media channels to let readers pick the next new color and style. You’ll see how this year’s winning Iggy look gets worked into the novella. But I also thought it’d be fun to give you your own Iggy coloring page, so you can turn him whatever color (or colors) your heart desires! If you want to color in Iggy, just click this link for a page you can print and color!
PS: If you’re not following me on Instagram—@SW_Messenger—you *might* want to (or have a parent follow me, if you don’t have an account), so you can vote for Iggy’s color/style in Keeper Book 9!
RECIPES
I LOVE TO BAKE—SO when I first started coming up with the elvin foods for this series, my goal was to create desserts that I’d be able to make recipes for, so that my readers could enjoy the same treats as the characters.
(Okay, fine, I wanted to eat all the yummy things too!)
And while there are sadly a few delicacies that have defeated my baking skills (so far—I’m not giving up!), I’ve also been able to create several that taste exactly like what I was imagining when I wrote those scenes. Hopefully you’ll love them too.
If you decide to give these recipes a try, make sure you have a parent or adult with you to help, since baking is a lot of fun, but it needs to be done safely!
MALLOWMELT COOKIES
Technically, mallowmelt is a gooey cake—and you can find a recipe for it on my website (shannonmessenger.com), as well as a recipe for mallowmelt-flavored cupcakes (because cupcakes are always a good idea).
But, as any of you who follow me on Instagram already know, I’ve recently spent a lot of time baking cookies. (It’s an excellent stress release—and they’re so easy to serve and share!) And one night I thought, What if I could make mallowmelt-flavored cookies?!
It took a few tries