Setting Isen Free

The wolves were always hungry.

Nearly four years ago, I wrote the first words of Shadows of Absolution, a post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure love story set sixty years after the fall of Malora. I had the vague idea of an adventure and a nameless narrator who was destined to be guided across the world the Aulor Bethel. I knew who she was, the great-granddaughter of Ganebra's former Chancellor and member of a quickly evolving race, but it took me a couple of days to find a name for her. She was strong, wary, and hid her inner turmoil behind a polite chill. She became Isen Layel, a twenty-four-year-old ranger who had experienced more loss than she could bring herself to tell anyone. She left me alone for a while so I could indulge Lani with Mayfly Requiem, but came whispering this year and begged me to finish her story.

Would you like to meet her? I've decided to set her free on Monday, July 9, 2012. I would love for you to get to know her like I have. The e-book will be available on Amazon on Monday, and the paperback will chase it in a week or so once technology catches up with itself and everything comes back into balance.

Shadows of Absolution is about more than Isen's struggle to find hope in a dark world. It is a coming-of-age story for all four of the major characters. Bethel Masiona is an immortal struggling to find meaning in an unending life while he watches his friends and family age and die as he stays the same. Holly Thula is a young man cursed to never knowing touch aside from a few seconds by the only person who is still strong enough to withstand his energy vortex of a soul. Dacibrega was raised to be a willing sacrifice, and must learn to adapt and survive after a rescue by Bethel days before his scheduled death.

Journey back to Malora with me this Monday and meet the people who have walked through my dreams for the last four years. I will take you across Ara for the first time with Isen and her companions as they try to find the last lost city of the Tenjeri. A few finishing touches, and my fifth baby is ready to fly.