Tag: Hope Gardens
Free Hope Gardens Chapters
Sam’s too smart to fall for the captain’s daughter–or to get stuck in the greenhouses. Isn’t he?
Get your free Hope Gardens chapters HERE.
Note: If you are a newsletter subscriber, you have probably seen all of these chapters already.
Hope Gardens is a story in the Golden Terrace Colony Universe (This is also the world of Leaving Hope). The remainder of the story is coming out chapter by chapter in R.L.S. Hoff’s twice-monthly(ish) newsletter (You can sign up to receive it here.)
Hope is still a couple of generations away from Shindashir, but the ship is already nearly worn out. Sam’s family lives in one of most delapidated sections, and he knows they’ll likely have to move to an even more crowded area soon. With his academic skills, Sam’s his family’s best hope for changing their fortunes.
He knows all that, and still Sam is strangely attracted to two things that could derail his hopes to land a scholarship and good job that will pull his family out of poverty—the greenhouses (a dead-end work detail if anybody ever saw one), and the captain’s daughter (a thoughtlessly rich beauty who couldn’t possibly bring him anything but trouble).
Sam must do right by his family, but he also can’t help his greenhouse fascination—or his growing interest in Eleanor.
Hope Gardens Chapter Twelve Out Today
Hope Gardens Chapter Twelve came out in the R.L.S. Hoff Newsletter this morning. The excerpt above comes from that section of the book. In case you have trouble reading in the image, it says:
Mom jerked her head up from her tablet. “What’s this about Eleanor Mackey?”
Sam glared at his sister. “Eleanor and I were working together yesterday in detention, but we weren’t messing around. We stopped a leak and probably saved this season’s wheat harvest.”
“Maybe so, but that girl is trouble, Sam.” Mom set the tablet down and turned to the cupboard to grab nuts and dried fruit for their lunches.
Sam rolled his eyes.
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Hope Gardens Excerpt
Here’s a small taste of Hope Gardens–the serial that’s coming out in my newsletter and on Channillo.com. If you’d like to read the story so far (and sign up for my newsletter), you can do so here. If you’d like to read the first chapter only, that’s available here.
Hope Gardens Chapter 6 Out in the Newsletter Today
Excerpt:
Eleanor asked him once or twice if he was all right, and he snapped out something about not breaking his concentration. He felt a bit bad about that, but he was, after all, swaying near the top of a low-grade wooden ladder, trying to figure out a computer that had probably been designed before his great-grandfather was born. He didn’t have the brain capacity for politeness at the moment.
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Hope Gardens Chapter 5
Came out in the newsletter today.
Excerpt:
Before Sam could protest, she ducked into a path perpendicular to the one they’d used to get there. Within a few steps, she completely disappeared into the wheat.
Eleanor was gone long enough that Sam began to wonder if he could find his way back to the greenhouse’s main entrance if she didn’t return. His conclusions on that score did not reassure him.
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Hope Gardens Chapter One
Sam Greeley never intended to fall in love with the greenhouses. He knew they were a dead-end work detail, never meant for kids like him who had high enough mod scores, even in ninth form, to qualify for university scholarships.
In fact, when he’d first been assigned the detention that sent him up to the food-growing zones, he’d meant to protest it. He hadn’t been part of the singing, dancing group of students who had blocked the corridor, making everyone late to class. He’d tried to scoot past, and that was when the teachers zoomed in, assigning detentions to everyone in the immediate vicinity.
Sam was going after Mr. Lewis to explain when Eleanor Mackey grabbed his left arm and turned it, so she could view the armband screen on his forearm. “Sam, you have detention, too? Thank goodness. Last time they sent us to the greenhouses, I was stuck doing some horrible, dirty, mindless task without even any intelligent conversation to break up the monotony.”
Wilson Cartier strolled up and draped his arm over Eleanor’s shoulders. “I thought you were with me repairing superwheat supports the last time you wound up in a greenhouse detention.”
Eleanor shrugged out from underneath his arm and winked at Sam. “See what I mean?” Then she picked her school tablet up off the corridor floor and sauntered toward her next class, her blond hair swinging in loose waves long enough to violate ship code. But who would report the captain’s daughter for something like that?
“What a tease, huh?” Wilson said, bumping Sam’s arm. “But, hey, I know you weren’t part of this mess. If you want me to vouch for you to Mr. Lewis or Ms. O’Day, we can probably get you out of detention.”
Sam stared at Wilson’s nearly new uniform and tried to figure out what the GenM heir was up to. Wilson and his cronies never talked to Sam. They certainly didn’t do him favors. “That’s OK. I was in the hallway when I should have been in class, and the greenhouses always need more hands, right? It won’t hurt me any.”
Wilson shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. The greenhouses can be plenty dangerous. Especially for guys who can’t keep their eyes off other guys’ girls.”
“Other guys’ girls?”
“What, you think I don’t see the way you look at Eleanor?”
Who did the idiot think he was fooling? “Eleanor doesn’t have a boyfriend. She’s certainly not yours.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. Eleanor may not realize it yet, but she’s definitely mine.” Wilson slapped Sam on the back in a way that probably looked friendly to the cameras but that felt anything but. Then Wilson ambled down the hallway toward the gym.
Sam scowled after him.
Cretin.
But the guy often understood people better than Sam did. If Wilson thought Sam was a threat, did that mean Eleanor liked him? An unfamiliar swooping sensation swept through his gut, and the corner of his mouth quirked upward.
Eleanor Mackey might like him.
He hummed the song his classmates had been performing as he made his way to Calculus.
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