Welcome to my tour stop for Sky Chariots Saga by Emily Mah! This is a YA/NA high fantasy series. This is a series tour with three books. The tour runs September 21 to October 2 with reviews, author interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for more information.
About Restless Earth:
For over a thousand years, the Tanoa have relied on their Earth Shamen to bring rich harvests, temper stone tools and weapons, and imbue pottery with strength like metal. Now, though, the bloodline has dwindled to one Shaman, Tuwa, who is trapped high in the mountains, holding bedrock together to prevent a volcanic eruption while the rest of her people flee to safety. The only way to save the village is for her to sacrifice herself and buy them the time they need to evacuate.
But her grandson, Ahote, refuses to abandon her to die. Rather than do as she asks—marry and bear daughters who might inherit her gift—he sets out to find the one person who might be able to save Tuwa’s life.
Kasha is a Tanoa girl in who lives in Solace, a city of the pale-skinned Andalanos. If the Engineers Guild ever discovers her gender or race, they could order her execution—for in violation of the King’s law, Master Engineer Seamus trained Kasha as his apprentice. She is a genius in all things mechanical and earned her master certification when only fourteen years old. Since Seamus’s death, she has been discreetly working his job as the City Engineer.
She knows there is no machine or technology that can save Tuwa. In order to complete this task, Kasha must invent a vehicle unlike anything the world has ever seen, and risk exposure and death in the process.
About Blessing Sky:
Master Engineer Kasha lives in hiding. As a Tanoa and a woman, she has no legal right to her title, and risks expulsion or even execution if the Guild discovers her identity. For over a year she has served as the City Engineer of the Andalano city of Solace, home to the Winged Riders and their pegasus mounts.
Now, though, her people need her. The last of their Earth Shamen is trapped in the mountains, holding back a volcanic eruption so that the rest of her people can escape. It is a job for only the greatest of all engineers, and that happens to be Kasha.
But when her kinsman, Ahote, breaks the most sacred law of the Winged Riders, an alliance with him means certain death. Kasha must work alone to solve the most difficult engineering problem of all time before the summer months are done and winter comes to claim the life of the Shaman and the hope of her people.
About Cleansing Fire:
Kasha has lived her life in hiding, working the job of the City Engineer of Wingmount, in a society that lets neither women, nor any member of the Tanoa race work trades. Finally, she has been offered the chance to work for her own people, who must evacuate their beloved Earth Shaman from the slopes of an active volcano. No other engineer in history could build the craft that Kasha has designed for this task: the sky chariot.
However, in order to fly it, she and her cousin, Ahote, will breach the most sacred rules of the Andalanos, the pale skinned race of people who govern their nation. Once, Kasha thought she would not mind betraying them. They had only given her grief.
But as she has grown in her talent for engineering, many Andalanos have supported her at great risk to themselves. Even high ranking government officials seek her counsel and beg for her aid in a costly war they fight on the coast, in a part of the kingdom Kasha has never seen and never thought she’d care about.
There is no way to help one people without betraying the other, and in this society, betrayal often means death. Kasha must decide where her loyalties lie, and whether she is up to the task of saving the last shaman of her people.
------------------------------------
Excerpt;
Excerpt;
As
Ahote climbed in, the craft leveled itself. The seats felt flimsy as
the wood bowed under his weight. Only Kasha’s confidence convinced
him that this rideable kite, or “sky chariot,” would hold
together. As they strapped in, the wind tugged and yanked at the
great wing that spanned over their heads, sending shudders through
the craft’s entire frame.
Air
is a substance, like water, Ahote thought. They weren’t about to
try to fly off into nothing, but rather to sail an invisible sea.
Kasha had explained this, and on its face, the concept did make
sense. Air could lift a kite, turn a windmill, or even create winds
strong enough to destroy a wood-frame house. Still, Ahote preferred
to rely on things he could see. When Kasha said that things were a
certain way, she was never wrong.
Which
was why he was sitting in a seat suspended below a large kite,
preparing to leave the ground. He took Sky’s lines in his hands,
and the brown-and-white paint pegasus, feeling them shift against his
sides, bent his neck to look back at them.
“All
right,” Kasha said loud enough for her voice to carry. “Let’s
go.”
Ahote
took a deep breath of air scented with the slightest touch of morning
dew then coaxed Sky with a slap of the lines.
The
Winged responded at once, going from a standing start to a loping
run. The harness lines went taut, and the chariot lurched forward
with a jerk. They’d chosen the smoothest stretch of land they could
find, but even still, the wooden skids on the bottom of the craft
transmitted every bump and hollow. After Ahote snapped the lines
again, Sky moved into a canter and then a gallop. His wings were
still folded against his sides.
The
chariot bounced and jostled until a gust of wind caught it and hefted
it into the air. Ahote had to admit that the chill whipping across
his skin and through his hair did indeed feel like a substance. The
great cloth wing above them billowed out like a ship’s sail, and
the ground fell away beneath them. He sucked in his breath and
focused on Sky, who was still running along the ground below.
The
pegasus looked back and up at his master.
“All
right?” Ahote had to yell to be heard.
Kasha’s
lips were pinched into a firm line, one hand gripping the wooden rail
in front of them with white knuckles. With the other, she manipulated
the omni-directional lever that controlled the chariot’s rudder and
flaps. She gave a curt nod.
“Up,
Sky!” Ahote shouted, snapping the lines a third time.
Emily writes as both Emily Mah (for science fiction and fantasy) and E.M. Tippetts (for chick lit). Her short stories have appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The Black Gate, and anthologies like The Dragon and the Stars, Shanghai Steam, and The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth. Her E.M. Tippetts novels have been on the Amazon Top 100 numerous times, and her novel, Someone Else's Fairytale was semi-finalist for the Best Indie Book of the Year - Kindle Book Review, and a runner up in Romance for the Best of the Independent Book Awards - eFestival of Words.
She is a graduate of the Clarion West Writer's Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy and Viable Paradise Writers Workshop, and she often teaches the unit on self-publishing at the Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop.When she is not writing or chasing small children, she manages E.M. Tippetts Book Designs, her company which offers formatting, cover design, and editing services to authors and publishers.
No comments:
Post a Comment