Wings UnseenAuthor: Rebecca Gomez Farrell
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publication Date: August 22, 2017
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Description:
To end a civil war, Lansera’s King Turyn relinquished a quarter of his kingdom to create Medua, exiling all who would honor greed over valor to this new realm on the other side of the mountains. The Meduans and Lanserim have maintained an uneasy truce for two generations, but their ways of life are as compatible as oil and water.
When Vesperi, a Meduan noblewoman, kills a Lanserim spy with a lick of her silver flame, she hopes the powerful display of magic will convince her father to name her as his heir. She doesn’t know the act will draw the eye of the tyrannical Guj, Medua’s leader, or that the spy was the brother of Serrafina Gavenstone, the fiancèe of Turyn’s grandson, Prince Janto. As Janto sets out for an annual competition on the mysterious island of Braven, Serra accepts an invitation to study with the religious Brotherhood, hoping for somewhere to grieve her brother’s murder in peace. What she finds instead is a horror that threatens both countries, devouring all living things and leaving husks of skin in its wake.
To defeat it, Janto and Serra must learn to work together with the only person who possesses the magic that can: the beautiful Vesperi, whom no one knows murdered Serra’s brother. An ultimate rejection plunges Vesperi forward toward their shared destiny, with the powerful Guj on her heels and the menacing beating of unseen wings all about.
Readers of all ages will enjoy Wings Unseen, Rebecca Gomez Farrell’s first full-length novel. It is a fully-imagined epic fantasy with an unforgettable cast of characters.
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Garadin followed the swinging, clanking mass of brown velvet robes and bones, making sure not to trip over his own in his haste to keep up. The ache in his hip killed him, but it would be far more fatal not to eavesdrop on the walk to Mandat Hall. The heads of his two closest fellow priests locked together as though a pair of swans in love. Squawks of excitement occasionally punctuated the steady drone of their conversation, but they were well-trained plotters, and Garadin could not make out their words. One head twisted around, hunting for curious ears, and Garadin rubbed his hip and groaned with augmented pain.
"Adver Garadin," the schemer inspected him with the indigo eyes of the Deduins. They took on that inhuman color from the flesh of the sheven that swam the moat of Thokketh. "Why do you walk alone?"
Garadin always imagined being pricked by a sheven's thousand sharp teeth when a Deduin looked his way. "I did not want to interrupt, Adver Votan. You seemed quite intent on your conversation."
"Never too busy for you." Votan wrapped an arm around him, causing a rattle as a row of sharpened bones sewn onto his sleeve rubbed against the ones on Garadin's shoulder.
"Besides, it does not matter what you hear, old man. You are no threat to me."
"And why should I be?" Garadin's shoulders tensed, the movement undetectable beneath the layers of his robe. "I have no desire to become the Guj."
"Who said anything about the Guj? We were not talking about the Guj, were we, Yan?"
Votan did not break his gaze while addressing the second priest.
"No, no." The milky Yarowen replied raspily. "We merely wondered what ghastly things the cook would declare 'food' this year."
"Saeth's fist!" Garadin pounced on the excuse to reach into his wealth of stories. "Do you
remember the murky pool of entrails he called 'Feast of Flavor?' That was the worst soup to ever pass my lips or anyone else's. I will never understand why the Guj didn't lop off his head right then and there!"
The three of them laughed high and hollow, a chorus of teakettles, and went on to the dinner feast. Garadin's maturity made him suppress a sigh of relief at how the interaction went. He rarely came under suspicion, and that was precisely how he liked it. It had taken many years of work to be so pitied by his peers. This crop of priests was young, inexperienced twits—they hadn’t even realized he rarely ate at Mandat Hall. None had been alive during the Revolution and only he and Romer, the Guj, had survived the fifty-odd years since—Romer because he was too powerful to touch and Garadin because no one paid him attention.
Garadin's memories of the Revolution were often clearer than recalling whether or not he
had locked the door to his chamber at whatever manor he was assigned to that year. He accepted it as part of aging, but he also knew loss of memory was not the same as loss of clarity—a mistake his comrades often made.
In all but one career aptitude test Rebecca Gomez Farrell has taken, writer has been the #1 result. But when she tastes the salty air and hears the sea lions bark, she wonders if maybe sea captain was the right choice after all. Currently marooned in Oakland, CA, Becca is an associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her short stories, which run the gamut of speculative fiction genres, have been published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Pulp Literature, the Future Fire, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and an upcoming story in theDark, Luminous Wings anthology from Pole to Pole Publishing among others. Maya’s Vacation, her contemporary romance novella, is available from Clean Reads. She is thrilled to have Meerkat Press publish her debut novel.Becca’s food, drink, and travel writing, which has appeared in local media in CA and NC, can primarily be found at her blog, The Gourmez. For a list of all her published work, fiction and nonfiction, check out her author website at RebeccaGomezFarrell.com.
Thanks for hosting today, Steph! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Steph, for sharing this excerpt from Wings Unseen!
ReplyDeleteI like the concept of this novel.
ReplyDelete