Oh, Julia Rios, where have you been all my life?
What a lovely, satisfying, and well written tale.
In this story we meet a young lady named Kayera who isn’t Ghabrie, but who is frequently suspected of being her on the slim evidence of having dark hair. People do tend to believe what they want to believe and see what they want to see, don’t they. Even fictional people.
“I’m sorry.” Kayera spoke more softly this time, as softly as she could over the roar of the grinder. She made eye contact with Eneri, willing her to know that if she could help she would. “I’m not her. I don’t have the gift. I’m just a girl who’s willing to do hard work. That’s all.”
Eneri grabbed her arm. “But surely if you try—”
“No,” Kayera said. “I have tried. I don’t have it.”
When the last of the grain spilled from the sack into the grinder’s hungry maw, Kayera took it to the pile of empties and then signalled to the foreman asking to go on a break. “Please don’t follow me,” she said to Eneri. “I need to be alone.”
At any rate, in this story we meet another faction – one that goes by the name of The Green Stripes, and that is likely a militarized version of greenpeace rather than something started by the descendants of Jack and Meg White. They value nature and so forth and, as with most groups with a similar bent, forget to include people within their concept of nature. They aren’t very nice.
The story revolves around the aforementioned Kayera, who has run away from home to avoid the Promethean Alliance, and finds out that, while they have moved on, the city is now controlled by the Green Stripes, who are unlikely to leave her aged grandmother in peace.
There’s some good suspense and decent action in this story, but above all it seems to be about hope and rebuilding and responsibility. This was one of the highlights of the book so far for me.
As usual, the book is available at Lulu.com in paperback and e-book formats. It is also available at Barnes and Noble as paperback and for the Nook, and at Amazon (paperback) and Amazon (kindle). All proceeds go to Water is Life, so you should buy it. Also, it is a very good book (so far) so you should buy it.
Leave a Reply