Just two months until the July 4 release of The Cityborn, my eighth novel for DAW Books. Review copies have been sent out, and I’m on pins and needles wondering what the reaction will be. On the plus side, both the copy editors and my publicist told me the book was a lot of fun to read, so…from their mouths to readers’ ears!
And speaking of readers (nice segue, eh?), if you would like to one of them, you can get a head start: I’ve just posted the prologue and first two chapters online. It’s a good solid 10,000-word sample, and hopefully will whet your appetite for the additional 120,000 words that follow!
It’s never too soon to pre-order, of course. Some handy links to enable you to do so, plus the overall description, follows.
I hope you enjoy the sample! I hope you buy the book! I hope you’re a major Hollywood producer who will pay me lots and lots of money to turn it into an action-packed movie!
Purchase links:
Amazon U.S. | Amazon Canada | Indigo | Barnes & Noble | Penguin Random House
Description:
Two young individuals must uncover the dark secrets of their stratified city in this suspenseful sci-fi standalone.
The metal City towers at the center of the mountain-ringed Heartland, standing astride the deep chasm of the Canyon like a malevolent giant, ruled with an iron fist by the First Officer and his Provosts in the name of the semi-mythical Captain. Within its corroding walls lies a stratified society, where the Officers dwell in luxury on the Twelfth Tier while the poor struggle to survive on the First and Second, and outcasts scrabble and fight for whatever they can find in the Middens, the City’s rubbish heap, filling the Canyon beneath its dripping underbelly.
Alania, ward of an Officer, lives on Twelfth. Raised among the privileged class, Alania feels as though she is some sort of pampered prisoner, never permitted to explore the many levels of the City. And certainly not allowed to leave the confines of the City for any reason. She has everything a young woman could want except a loving family and personal freedom.
Danyl, raised by a scavenger, knows no home but the Middens. His day-to-day responsibility is to stay alive. His sole ambition is to escape from this subsistence existence and gain entrance to the City—so near and yet so far out of reach—in hopes of a better life.
Their two very different worlds collide when Alania, fleeing from an unexpected ambush, plunges from the heights of the City down to the Middens, and into Danyl’s life.
Almost immediately, both of them find themselves pursued by the First Officer’s Provosts, for reasons they cannot fathom—but which they must uncover if they are to survive. The secrets they unlock, as they flee the Canyon and crisscross the Heartland from the City’s farmlands to the mountains of the north and back again, will determine not only their fate, but the fate of the City…and everyone who lives there.
