Are you ready to challenge Fate? #ya #fantasy

I published my first novel Reborn (The Fate Challenges #1) back in May 2014. After three years, I now have a second edition of Reborn available as well as two novellas! Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until 2018 for Forged (The Fate Challenges #2) and Destined (The Fate Challenges #3) are ready for me to publish.

I'm also running a sale on Reborn, which is 99c for a limited time. Determined (A bonus novella set between Chapters 24 and 25 in Reborn) is free on my website, and Marked (The Fate Challenges #1.5) will always be 99c. (Prices are subject to change by country.)

To save her kingdom, a prophetess must challenge Fate.

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On her seventeenth birthday, Phoenix Prophetess Yssa must leave her home to serve the God of Prophecy. Sea serpents and other gods endanger her travels and sour the omens. Her duties at the Temple of Apenth prove Yssa is cursed instead of blessed. Not yet permitted to give prophecies to temple goers, Yssa spends her days reading dusty scrolls, which does nothing to help her forget Tym, the boy back home. Then, there is Liam, the annoying yet gorgeous ferryman’s son. He proves to be a distraction not even a psychic can predict.

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Her boring temple life screeches to a halt when premonitions of her parents’ murders consume her. Yssa races to her home an ocean away to stop their deaths. After all, Apenth’s rare Phoenix Prophetesses are gifted with the ability to alter the future. Fate, however, won’t be changed as easily as Yssa assumes. Worse, it has plans for her and the kingdom.

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Yssa must either accept her destiny or fight Fate.

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A prophetess must prepare for war.

The city of Amora will burn, if the Phoenix Prophetess doesn’t uncover a way to alter Fate. But Yssa is a world away from warning the kingdom of its impending demise.

While Yssa learns fighting techniques from the ferryman’s son Liam and how to follow the threads of Fate from the woodwose seer Zoon, she sets out to restore her friendship with the woodwoses. She is determined to put things right before Liam and she leave at the month of beginnings.

Because when they exit Waldbaum Forest, their real challenges will begin.

Available only through Cherie Reich’s website, Determined is set between chapters 24 and 25 in Reborn and meant to be read in conjunction with the first book of The Fate Challenges.

Saving the Phoenix Guard has changed him forever.

A blade to the gut gave Liam a one-way ticket to the Underworld, but Phoenix Prophetess Yssa brought him back to life. As the second mortal man to survive a sojourn to Hupogaia’s realm, Liam strives to understand how the one he was tasked to protect saved him, why he lived when so many others died during the battle against the Great Beyonders, and, most of all, why he now sees and hears things that aren’t there.

Liam researches the God of Prophecy’s mortal son, the one who also came back, but Moran died over twenty-four hundred years ago. To say that information is scarce is an understatement, but Liam won’t give up.

After all, rumors are flying around the Kingdom of Amora about Yssa’s newfound powers. Threats loom ever closer. Liam must protect the Phoenix Prophetess at any cost. Uncovering Moran’s destiny may be the one thing that helps Liam save the one he loves, if he can find the right scroll in time.

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So are you ready to challenge Fate and read The Fate Challenges?

Review of Legacy Code by Autumn Kalquist

I discovered Legacy Code, Book One of the Fractured Era Series, via Freebooksy in July of last year. One look at the breathtaking cover, a quick read of the blurb, and I was hooked.

Blurb:

Three hundred years ago, the Earth died, and the last humans fled. Beaten. Broken in more ways than one. Their descendants carry the Legacy Code—mangled genes that force them to abort half their unborn children.

When Era and Dritan Corinth get placements on the safest ship in the fleet and win a chance to have a child, they feel lucky. Until the day Era's supposed to find out if her baby has the Defect, and the ship suffers a hull breach.

An investigation uncovers new threats. Dangerous secrets. Lies. Treason.

Era begins to question everything she’s been taught about the fleet, their search for a new Earth, and the Defect. But the answers she seeks were never meant to be found...

Legacy Code is a suspenseful, dark post-apocalyptic read that has earned five star reviews from fans of books like Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising, and has been compared favorably to Wool, 1984, and the new Battlestar Galactica.

Ellie's Review:

It's all to easy to download countless free books, only to leave them languishing for years in digital oblivion, or to read them and wish you'd chosen another. Not true with Legacy Code. I'd hoped after reading the blurb I would not be disappointed. I need not have worried - I was hooked from the opening scene until the last sentence.

Legacy Code was a breathtaking introduction into the world of 17-year old Era and the young man she's paired with, Dritan. Their world is a fleet of aging spaceships searching for a new planet to call home, set 300 years into the future. What remains of humanity is plagued by a gene defect, and all unborn babies with the mutation must be aborted. Those who do not comply, or challenge the myriad of rules, are dealt with quickly and harshly. So when pregnant Era begins to question the rules, you know conflict and heartbreak are not far behind. 

Kalquist's writing is assured, her characterization and world-building utterly convincing. It's not hard to read this book and understand why it's become an indie bestseller.

This is a book that deals with some hard questions concerning morality, life, and what it means to be human. It will keep you guessing until the last page, wrench your heart out on more than one occasion, and have you downloading its follow up Parragon before your eBook battery runs out. By the end of July I'd read books one and two, the prequel, and two short stories set in the Fractured Era universe. I can't wait for the next in the series.

Why I write YA

YA has always existed as a genre, though when I read books as a pre-teen, I'd never heard terms like MG or YA; it was all labeled "juvenile", at least in the UK where I grew up. What a horrible label, don't you think? These days, YA has hit the mainstream, largely due to the monster successes Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Adults everywhere are proudly proclaiming themselves YA readers, and I say "amen" to that.

Why do I write YA? Let me start with why I read YA:

My reading tastes are eclectic, though I confess a huge bias to sci-fi and fantasy. When work turns stressful, and life seems to yak on me at every opportunity, I take comfort from a great YA story. The trials and tribulations of the YA protagonist pull on my fears and insecurities. I shudder at the memory of my teens, when every hill became a mountain, every cruel comment signaled the end of my life. Despite the age gap, I can empathize with the YA protagonist. Everyone and everything seems against him or her, but somehow through tenacity, quick-wits and a noble soul, they win through and save the day. Good YA is a tale of innocent courage and friendship against adversity, yet the simple wisdom of the young can teach even the eldest of us.

It feels good to leave our complicated, adult lives behind. I find most YA books to be a wonderful escape from reality, often a page-turner that keeps me reading late into the night. The plot and pacing are usually simple and easy to read, yet rarely childish or patronizing. These days, I'm thankful not to suffer ponderous back-story  long-winded characters and yawn-inducing talking head scenes that go on for tens of pages. I fear that some adult writers have forgotten how to entertain their readers.

And there lies the crux of the matter. I want to entertain. That's the main reason I write YA. I don't want to impress, I don't want to show off my encyclopedic knowledge of literary style. In truth, I don't have one. I have no aspirations of becoming the next Hemingway or Faulkner. In my head, I relive the wondrous imaginations of my teens, and I want to share those adventures. I believe that none of us has truly let go of our youth, and we yearn to recapture the innocent wonder of those times.

The youth of today are our future. Kids are bright and spunky, willing to see the good in everything, untainted by adult perceptions and neuroses. I owe my own intense curiosity, love of adventure, knowledge and science to all the books I read as a child. I want to pay that forward. This is the second reason I write YA. I want to encourage youngsters to read, and imagine, and know that life is what they choose to make it. As adults, we may be mired in the realities of economic depression, world conflicts, spiraling costs, etc., but kids need and deserve a more creative outlet.

If I can convince one child that the world, nay universe, is an astonishing place in which they can grow and mold for the good of all, overcoming any challenge; then the time I spend writing a book is worthwhile. If I can assist one adult to escape into a world where friendship, moral fiber and the courage to do the right thing can renew their tired souls, and let them put my book down with a smile; then I am happy. Am I a crazy dreamer? Hell, yes, and proud.

That's why I write YA. I can end in no better way than quoting the elegant mission statement of Flux Books: "Where Young Adult is a Point of View, Not a Reading Level."

[This post originally appeared in 2012 on Obsession With books.]