Cirrus@Austlit

'She’s not your ordinary country girl, even though she might look like one. She casts webs of power, reading the feelings of living beings and telling them what to do. Nobody knows what causes it, least of all her. Her name is Jessica, but most people call her ‘freak’.'

'One fateful day, her ‘web’ connects with a stranger, and stray power causes the plane in which she’s travelling to crash in an alien world. An accident? The more she discovers about the world in which she has landed, the more she doubts it. She is a survivor from an ancient race that once travelled the stars. Her ancestors were powerful and dangerous, and it seems at least two people want her: the man who invades her mind, and the man who’s desperate to help her get back home. But Jessica grew up an Earth girl, and isn’t having any of this. She’ll pander to no one, thank you very much, even if her stubbornness enrages the tyrant race who hold the world in their grip.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Mikandra Bisumar is useless to her father: she carries the curse of infertility that plagues the Endri people of Miran. Forced to work in the hospital to pay her duty to her proud nation, she dreams of becoming a Trader, one of the people who bring great prosperity to Miran.

'To her surprise Iztho Andrahar, from the city’s most prestigious Trading family, has agreed to take her on. That is where her troubles begin.

'Her father is so angry with her that she has to leave her home. Worse, the Andrahar Traders have been accused of smuggling. Iztho has disappeared and the business license suspended.

'Mikandra has nowhere to go, except try to help Iztho’s brothers prove their innocence.

'In her last meeting with Iztho, he mentioned getting married to a woman from neighbouring city-state of Barresh. Iztho’s brothers know nothing of this, and think she is crazy.

'Going to Barresh by herself while never having left the country is probably not the smartest idea, but she’s desperate for the family’s licence to be restored, because without her job, she’ll be homeless.

'In Barresh she finds strange and creepy people who can read minds and who know things about the Endri people that can both solve their fertility problems and tear apart the ancient foundation on which Miran is built. Iztho had found out these things, which someone is trying to trying to keep secret. This is where her troubles really begin.'

'Izramith Ezmi is many things: a member of the feared, all-female guards of the world of Hedron, a war veteran recently returned from a pointless and bloody mission, impatient, angry and above all, lonely. With her contract about to run out, she may be on her way to becoming a ruthless mercenary, since what she really wants–becoming a mother–is out of the question. Her family carries a gene that causes deeply malicious madness. Her nephew was born with it and her useless sister has left him in the care of an institute. A baby. Two days old.

'She wants to ask her uncle, himself born with the condition, if he can do anything for the boy. But her uncle and his band of mad outcasts have gone missing, rumoured to be on the world of Ceren.

'So Izramith takes another hired-gun contract in Barresh which is a city-state on Ceren. The job is to provide security at a high-profile wedding. Simple and straight-forward, right? No crawling in mud, no shoot-outs, no mangled bodies and blood-drenched soil. And meanwhile, she can try to find her uncle.

'Except he isn’t there, and the job isn’t simple. Izramith and her team discover evidence of an extensive spying ring. Who is spying and why? The dictatorship of the neighbouring nation of Miran has plenty of reasons to dislike Barresh, and the city has a large group of people disgruntled with the pace of recent reforms. But most importantly, people have gone missing from the streets of Barresh for years. No one has cared much, because they were from disenfranchised groups, but Izramith sees the link with her uncle’s disappearance, and with the spying ring, and knows that the security of the entire city is severely compromised.

'Postponing the wedding would be an admission of defeat, so it’s time for desperate measures. Izramith leads a small team in what has to go down as the most hare-brained mission to ever be undertaken in the universe. Much is at stake: peace, the lives of her uncle and her nephew, and her own.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'If Miran had princesses, Ellisandra Takumar would be one. Smart, pretty, engaged to a high-profile man, everything a high-class Mirani woman should be. But things are not well in Miran. Many years of boycotts have taken their toll on society, and the regime becomes more desperate to keep its citizens under control. Revolt is brewing. As director of the state theatre, Ellisandra has been asked to stage a violent traditional play, which stands stiff with threatening political messages for the populace. She hates it, but speaking out would risk that she’d be cast out from the only world she’s ever known.

'Next to her house is the burnt ruin of the house of another high-class family, the Andrahar family. They fled Miran for political reasons when Ellisandra was a little girl and the house has lain untouched ever since. One night, she spots a mysterious young man walking around the yard, putting out pegs and pieces of string. He’s re-building the house. That makes no sense, because the family is no longer welcome in Miran, and who is he anyway?

'She is curious and investigates. He seems too good-natured and naïve for his own good, so rather than telling her brothers, she tries to shield him from her own society. And so starts the slide that leads to her being cast out from the only life she’s ever known.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.