by Lan Chan
Release Date: September 1st 2015
Dominion Publishing
Summary from Goodreads:
Since the night her mother was murdered, sixteen-year-old Rory Gray has known one truth: There are no good Seeders.
In post-apocalyptic Australia, the scientists known as Seeders have built a Citadel surrounded by food-producing regions and populated with refugees from the wars and famine. To maintain their control, the Seeders poisoned the land and outlawed the saving of seeds.
It's been six years since Rory graced the Seeders' circus stage as the Wind Dancer and still the scars on her body haven't healed. Even worse are the scars on her heart, left by a Seeder boy who promised to protect her.
Now the Seeders are withholding supplies from Rory's region for perceived disobedience. Utilising the Wanderer knowledge she received from her mother, Rory must journey to the Citadel through uninhabitable terrain to plead for mercy.
However, the Citadel isn't as Rory remembered. The chief plant geneticist is dying and rumours fly that the store of viable seed is dwindling. The Seeders are desperate to find a seed bank they believe Rory can locate, and they will stop at nothing to get it.
To defy the Seeders means death. But Rory has been close to death before--this time she's learned the value of poison.
Recommended for fans of The Hunger Games, strong protagonists, circuses and nature!
Buy Links:
Smashwords / Amazon US / Amazon AU / Amazon UK / Kobo
**Poison (Wind Dancer #1) is on sale for $0.99 for
the week of September 7th-11th!**
Excerpt:
As part
of their mandate to ensure a healthy populace, the Seeders implement a rigorous
physical education program in all elementary schools. It’s the only time the
Farmer and Merchant children are allowed to have contact at school. When I was
five, one of the Farmers pushed me off a rope climb and I managed to land on my
feet. I was taken to the nurse, who did what I had thought had been a routine
check up. The Seeders assessed my height, my weight, my eyesight, my reflexes,
and a dozen other things I can’t name. They took my parents into an office and
spoke to them in hushed, clipped voices.
Six months later, the Seeders dropped four other girls and me out of an
aircraft. They wanted to see which of us could brave the dizzying heights enough
to join their beloved Earth and Sky Circus. I was the only one who remembered
to pull the cord on the parachute. The Seeders nicknamed me Wind Dancer and
promised to teach me how to fly.
For a little while, I actually believed them.
It was in the circus’ animal pens that Aiden found
me late one night after lights out, huddled in a corner, nursing a fresh cut
across my palm from the ringmaster’s whip. I hadn’t realised then, but Aiden
must have already been there when I arrived. I slid to my knees in front of the
sabrewolf pen and curled my fingers around the metal bars, crying silent tears.
Then out of the corner of the pens came a voice.
“Aren’t you afraid of them?” Aiden had said.
I backed away immediately, knowing my presence in
the pens was forbidden. Through the blur of tears, I could only make out a
faint shadow amidst the darkness, but even at eight, Aiden was taller than me
by at least a head. I sat frozen as he came to kneel beside me, his interest
captured by the pair of sabrewolves in the cage.
“They’re the first of their kind to be successfully
tamed, you know?” he said like we were old friends. “Crossed between dingo and
frozen tundra wolf DNA.” After I sat in silence too long, Aiden turned to me,
and I flinched. Pity filled his eyes, and I remember thinking I must have been
just like a frightened animal to him.
“I won’t tell anyone you were here,” he said. “I
promise. What’s your name?”
“Aurora Gray,” I said, knowing full well he knew who
I was. Just as I knew he was Aiden Forrester, son of Gideon Forrester, the
Warden of my home in Gideon’s Landing.
“Pleased to meet you, Aurora.” He took my hand in
his to shake it, and that’s when he noticed the wound. A shadow fell across his
face. “The ringmaster?” he said, and there was such cold fury in his voice that
all I could do was nod. The circus trainers never touched me
again, and every night afterwards, Aiden came to watch me soar above the
crowds. He showed me the secrets of the Citadel and promised to protect me.
That’s how I know Seeders are liars.
An Interview with Aiden:
Aiden frowned as he strode through the Arts Centre’s belly and
was accosted by a blonde girl wearing the form fitting black garb of a stage
hand. Her pupils dilated as she regarded him and a slow blush crept across her
delicately freckled cheeks. By rights, his rank as a Captain should have
intimidated her. The blinking red light signifying that a behavioural
modification chip had been inserted into his spinal cord should have dimmed her
beaming smile. But Aiden knew what he looked like and how that affected people.
Most of the girls were like this until something happened and the chip took
over, flooding his brain with aggression.
“Right this way, Captain,” the girl said. He didn’t
need an escort. In fact he didn’t need an interview. How many times had he done
this now? It must have been going on five years. He was just thinking that not
much had changed in a year and then her saw her: Rory. Or Aurora to him as she
so liked to remind him. She was probably right. It was better to think of her
as Aurora Gray, half Wanderer and Citadel prisoner than Rory who climbed too
high up the trees and spoke too often of seeds and poison.
There was a reason they called her the Wind Dancer. Her feet barely touched the ground and her shoulder length brown hair whipped about as she sprinted down the marble steps of the Arts Centre.
In the blink of an eye she had ducked inside the limo and then she was gone.
The running concerned him. As her guard inside the
Citadel it was his job to know her whereabouts at all times. After her Social
Season interview she was scheduled to spend time in the seed labs. Not exactly
a pressing engagement.
That would be yet another problem for later on. He seemed to have quite
a lot of problems now that she was back.
Then the blonde girl was pushing open the interview
room door and Katrina Winters the Social Season interviewer was there grinning
at him and beckoning him with open arms. To her credit the blonde girl seemed
to shrink back as though her prey instincts were telling her there was unknown
danger ahead.
“Thanks,” Aiden said to her as he closed the door behind him, shielding her
from Katrina’s predatory gaze until it was shut. Aiden shuddered inwardly as
Katrina’s sinewy arms encircled him and then she was leading him towards the
tea table which held an array of sandwiches and muffins.
Another dawn raid by the Wanderers had meant he’d
skipped two meals today but suddenly food was the last thing on his mind.
Still, he found himself dry swallowing a triangle cut bacon sandwich to block
out the pheromones radiating from Katrina.
She made small talk that he barely heard and then out came her digital recorder
and notepad. “Let’s start with your name, age and region of origin shall we?”
Katrina said.
Instead of questioning why these details needed to be rehashed year after year
Aiden simply complied. “Aiden Forrester. I’m nineteen and- ” The words died in
his throat for a moment because he was about to say he was from Gideon’s
Landing. In truth he’d spent more of his life in the Citadel than anywhere
else. “The Citadel is my home.”
“And how does it feel to be the youngest ever Captain in the history of the
Citadel guard?”
The answer lay conflicted on his tongue. On the one hand it felt like a
betrayal of everything his father had ever taught him. On the other it allowed
him to be here for the people that needed it. For Ace and Yuri. For Rory,
despite her lack of gratitude and her hurt wrapped in hostility.
“It has its perks,” Aiden said. He sounded like a right royal jerk and he knew
it. How would Gideon feel if he read this interview? Not very proud of his
wayward son turned Citadel watchdog.
Katrina’s smile became lewd and Aiden felt himself recoil. It was ridiculous
that he’d wrestled sabrewolves and dingoes with his bare hands but he couldn’t
keep a straight face against the assault of a middle aged woman’s admiration.
“There are rumours flying about the Citadel that you’ve been seen out and about
with a certain aerialist,” Katrina said. Aiden froze at the implication as
Rory’s impassive face materialised in his mind. But then Katrina was
continuing, “I’m sure many of the young ladies would like to know the status of
your relationship with Skylar.”
He broke into a genuine smile as his muscles relaxed. “I do a bit of personal
bodyguard service during my free time,” he said. “Skylar and I are strictly
business.”
“That’s good to know! And where do you stand on this long awaited aerialist
rematch between the Wind Dancer and the Skylark?”
Aiden reached for the butter knife and a muffin to give him something to do.
That was odd. There was only one knife on the table. It spoke to how paranoid
being a guard had made him because the first place his mind went to was that
Rory was here before him. Coupled with her hasty getaway it wasn’t hard to
imagine where the knife had gone.
Katrina’s expectant lean forward brought him back
to the present. In life there would be no contest. Skylar was the daughter of a
Warden. Her days would be lived in luxury and protection inside the Citadel.
Evelyn Gray had been a Wanderer rebel and the taint spilled over to her daughter,
scarring Rory both physically and mentally. On the stage however, it was
difficult to judge. Skylar had trained with the circus longer as Rory’s
replacement but though they were both ethereally graceful there was a maniacal
edge to Rory’s performances that couldn’t be taught.
“I guess all eyes will be on the circus stage when
the Wind Dancer makes her return debut,’ He said.
“Indeed.”
Aiden ran a hand through his cropped black hair.
His fingers grazed the bump of the indicator light at the back of his neck and
it seemed to set Katrina on a different line of questioning.
“This is the third year of your sabrewolf pilot
trial is it not?” Katrina said. “What can you tell us about this innovative
program?”
What could he tell anyone? That of the hundreds of
candidates who volunteered only a dozen had survived the operation? That his
chip in particular was an untested prototype? That pain of varying levels
radiated from the site of the chip throughout his body every second of every
day? That the modification allowed him to communicate on an almost instinctual
level with predatory animals but that it also confused his human senses?
The Chief Warden had made the secrecy of the
program abundantly clear. So he just smiled and said: “You know I’m not at
liberty to reveal any details about the program. But I understand Harlan will
be here shortly. Why don’t you take it up with him?”
Katrina returned his smile but the way she was
scrawling on her notepad told him she’d be doing just that. When the interview
finally ended and he escaped without being mauled, Aiden made his way out into
the car park. A black limousine pulled up just as he reached the bottom
step and the driver ran out to open the back passenger door. Aiden struggled to
keep his expression neutral as Harlan Dempsey alighted from the car and passed
him on the stairs.
The surveillance radio crackled as soon as he slid into his patrol car and
turned on the engine. Aiden reached over and switched off the white noise. He
needed to go and see a girl about a knife before she went and got herself
killed.
Lan Chan is a writer, gardener and professional procrastinator based in Melbourne, Australia. She is still waiting for her super powers to manifest but until then she writes young adult novels featuring strong female protagonists, minority characters and has a particular interest in dystopias and urban fantasy. Lan's debut novel POISON, the first in her WIND DANCER series is due for release in September 2015.
Author Links:
Book Blitz Organized by:
0 comments:
Post a Comment