REVIEW: Non-Compliance: Equilibrium / Paige Daniels

TITLE: Non-Compliance: Equilibrium
AUTHOR: Paige Daniels
PUBLISHER: Kristell Ink
AVAILABILITY: Smashwords, Amazon

GENRE
Science Fiction - Dystopia/Cyberpunk

This book follows Non-Compliance: The Sector and Non-Compliance: The Transition.

REVIEW

Non-Compliance: Equilibrium brings Paige Daniels' gritty dystopian cyberpunk trilogy to a thrilling conclusion. It picks off where the second book left off, with tough-as-nails ex-engineer Shea Kelly now effectively second-in-command in the non-compliance sector, a reservation of sorts for those who refuse to accept a government brain chip. Like everyone else in the sector, Shea still holds on to the old values that the USA lost after a brutal war in this dark future – ideas like freedom and independence. While life in the Non-Compliance Sector is tough, the people are at least free to make their own lives.

Equilibrium offers a glimpse at just how rigid the Compliant world is. You need to be a "verified couple" in order to raise a child; otherwise, your "child-rearing license" could be denied, and your baby taken away. While they offer security and comfort – high tech, steady employment, access to healthcare, and the like – they demand every aspect of your life in return. Meanwhile, in the Non-Compliance Sector, Shea struggles to obtain a desperately needed vaccine for her people while dealing with government agents who bully the Non-Compliant and keeping a gang of drug-addicted youths from terrorizing the town.

It's interesting to see how Shea has developed over the course of the trilogy. In the first book, Non-Compliance: The Sector, Shea was a bartender in a hole-in-the-wall joint who resented the Boss and his right hand man, Quinn Knightley, for using brute force to maintain order. In Equilibrium, the tables have turned on her. Quinn is the new Boss, and Shea is the new Quinn. For the good of many, she's forced to make the same tough decisions she once resented Quinn for.

Yet despite her new position, she's still the same old Shea we all know and love. A takes-no-crap smart-mouth who never backs down from a fight. Meanwhile, her relationship with Quinn has reached new levels. Both she and Quinn are haunted by the specters of past tragedies, and she fears those memories will keep them from moving forward as a couple. The two have had great chemistry from Book 1, and after so many past hardships, Shea begins to hope that she might actually get a Happily Ever After of sorts.

But the world has a way of screwing Shea over, and she finds herself making some of the most wrenching decisions of her life. Not only for the sector, but for herself and the people she loves as well. Daniels is merciless when it comes to throwing challenges toward Shea and depicting the horrors of a utopian society gone wrong. All this makes for an exciting read that keeps the pages turning as you wonder how things could possibly turn out well. But Shea is nothing if not dogged, and no matter how dire her circumstances, she always finds a way to fight back.

As a whole, the Non-Compliance trilogy has been a great read, with its dark dystopian themes and gritty cyberpunk elements. And it's an interesting take on the dangers of technology – how something well-intentioned can be twisted into something horrible. What I found especially interesting was that the trilogy wasn't afraid to show a different point of view. Most dystopias today have become predictable – band of plucky rebels aims to take down an evil government. InNon-Compliance, the world depicted is considerably more complicated. The Non-Compliant are stuck in their sector, but it is their home. Crossing over to the other side is seen as betrayal. And yet they trade with the Compliant for supplies they need, since, tough as they are, they are simply no match for the government, and most citizens are happily Compliant. They're comfortable; they don't want to rebel. And so Shea and her crew do what they can within their sector.

I would recommend this whole trilogy to any fan of gritty fiction, be it dystopias or contemporary (the trilogy takes place in the near future). With its compelling characters and thrilling twists, it's been an amazing ride.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paige Daniels is the pen name for Tina Closser. When she isn't busy with her nine to five job as an electrical engineer she helps her husband with a small hobby farm complete with a mini horse, cows, and sheep. In between farm duties and running the kids to gymnastics she likes to write, thus the creation of this novel.

Visit her blog or Follow her on Twitter 

BNG FRIDAY: Courage Is by Evangeline Jennings

Every Friday until its publication, I'm going to blog something about Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets, a YA sci-fi anthology featuring tech-savvy heroines. The goal is to encourage more girls to enter Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math professions. All revenues from sales of the anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers.

Today, I'm spotlighting one of the stories that will be featured in Brave New Girls, Courage Is by Evangeline Jennings

TITLE
Courage Is...

AUTHOR
Evangeline Jennings

STORY DESCRIPTION

A story of teenage angst, friendship, and dataverse hacking set on a far future Civilization Class vessel. When two young loners team up to investigate a minor mystery, they soon discover they're caught in the middle of someone else's game. The stakes could be a matter of life and death. And courage? Well, courage is Gracie under pressure.

WHY WE PICKED IT
Courage Is contains a lot of cool sci-fi concepts that are catnip for an avid fan like me - space travel, virtual reality, and hackers. The combination of cyberpunk and mystery was super entertaining, and Gracie is an intrepid protagonist who uses her knowledge of computers to save the day - a perfect fit for the anthology's theme. The story, which has a darker tone than some of the others we chose, also highlights themes of friendship and, of course, the meaning of courage.

AUTHOR BIO
Born and raised in Liverpool where they invented both football and popular music, Evangeline Jennings now lives in Austin, Texas. The black sheep of her family, she comes from a long line of Californian beauty queens on her mother's side. Evangeline gets her looks from her father. Mostly Evangeline writes stories about girls. Sometimes women. She believes in equality, so she writes about that. She also writes about gender, sexuality, and violence against women. Her characters often seek bloody satisfaction. Many of her stories are not suitable for children but she had a blast writing Courage Is, which is.

THOUGHTS ON BRAVE NEW GIRLS

Evangeline Jennings knows nothing about science and frequently struggles with math. She wants her daughter to grow up in a different world.

Visit her website.

Twitter: @pankhearst and @venalgenie

BRAVE NEW GIRLS will be released in Summer 2015! Sign up here to receive a notification when it's available to order.

COVER REVEAL: Dominick / Kara Jemal

Title: Dominick (A Prequel to Inferno)

Author: Kara Jemal

Genre: YA dystopian

Release Date: March 2015

Publisher: Glass House Press

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24376214-dominick

Dominick Grant had the perfect life: parents who loved him, a beautiful girlfriend, and a best friend who always had his back.  He knew who he was, and how he wanted to live his life.

But in Dominick’s world, that choice belongs to someone else -- a totalitarian government that dictates the lives of its citizens, decreeing that Dominick must be separated from his girlfriend and forced to work for the very government he detests. 

The question is...will Dominick accept his predetermined path, or risk making his own choices and bringing his world crumbling down around him?  

About the Author:

Kara Jemal is the writing duo of Kara Leigh Miller and David Jemal.

Kara is a 30-something, stay at home mom, multi-published romance author who enjoys writing across a variety of genres & categories: adult, young adult, new adult, romance, dystopian, and thrillers just to name a few. When she's not writing tall-tales of love, she's spending time with her family, friends, and good books. 

David is a nineteen-year-old college student with a background in real estate who is eager to breathe life into the many stories and characters banging around in his head.  When's he not writing, he's reading or working out. 

Website: www.karajemal.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/KaraJemal

Twitter: www.twitter.com/KaraJemal

REVIEW: All the Butterflies in the World / Rodney Jones

TITLE: All the Butterflies in the World

AUTHOR: Rodney Jones

PUBLISHER: Red Adept Publishing

AVAILABILITY: Purchase links on publisher's website (click here)

GENRE

Young Adult - Time Travel Romance

REVIEW

Full disclosure: I'm a fellow Red Adept Publishing author, and the below reflects my honest opinions.

All the Butterflies in the World is the sequel to Rodney Jones's YA time travel romance, The Sun, The Moon, and Maybe the Trains. In the first book, John Bartley, an earnest 18-year-old from 1875 Vermont, accidentally wanders through a time warp that lands him in 2009, where he meets the spunky 17-year-old Tess McKinnon. A romance blossoms, but ends tragically from John's perspective with Tess's death at the hands of a corrupt sheriff. But from Tess's perspective, none of this ever happened – all she knows is that there's an old-fashioned bum on her doorstep claiming to know her, since another time warp landed John back in the moment before he met Tess in the first place. And that's where Butterflies begins.

Alternating between Tess's and John's perspectives, Butterflies is part sci-fi with the time travel, part historical fiction (about half the book takes place in 1875), part romance, and all entertaining. John is, of course, overjoyed that the girl he loves is still alive, and yet the reunion is bittersweet, since she doesn't remember him at all. Tess, meanwhile, isn't sure what to believe. Her first reaction is that her best friend, Liz, sent John to prank her. But even though she doesn't believe he's a time traveler, she finds his good-natured personality charming and decides to help him find his way around the modern world. The two grow close all over again, and the contrast between John's good-boy earnestness and Tess's sassy-girl snarkiness is fun to watch.

When John, in an attempt to prove his story, looks over old newspapers from 1875, he discovers that his uncle was wrongfully hanged for Tess's murder and decides he has to go back to fix the past. After he fails to return, Tess looks over the papers again and discovers that history has changed – this time, John was hanged, since he was discovered burying Tess's body. Tess isn't about to stand by and let that happen, though, and decides to go through the time warp herself to set things right once and for all.

Butterflies is a charming little story of young love featuring two sympathetic protagonists readers will easily connect with. John is instantly likable, and I, for one, was glad to see the good boy featured in a YA romance for a change. No brooding or tantrums here – John actually seems like he would make a good boyfriend (and the kind most mothers would approve of). Tess falls more into the love-her-or-hate-her category, with her sarcasm and smart-aleck quips. In other words, she acts like a typical American teenager in the 21^stcentury. But underneath it all, she's a compassionate and courageous girl willing to risk it all for the boy she loves, yet smart enough to go in prepared. One of the things I liked best about her was her intelligence – she's an interesting combination of teenage bravado and more mature reasoning. Readers who found her abrasive in the first book will probably like her better in the second, since her perspective adds more depth to her snarkiness.

I loved Sun Moon Trains, and I was overjoyed when I learned that Jones was writing a sequel. And Butterflies doesn't disappoint. It's fun and amusing, sweet and often profound. So do yourself a favor and pick up both books if you haven't already (and why haven't you? Look at those gorgeous covers!).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

While a past resident of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Florida, New York, and Vermont, Rodney now resides in Indiana, where he whiles away his days pecking at a laptop, riding his ten-speed up the Cardinal Greenway, taking long walks with his daughter, or backpacking and wilderness camping.

His list of past occupations reads like his list of past residences, though his life-long ambition was to be an artist until he discovered a latent affinity for writing.

“In art,” Rodney says, “I was constantly being asked to explain images constructed from a palette of emotions and ideas, which usually required complex narratives to convey their meaning, if there even was a meaning. In writing, the words are creating the images, images are telling a story, the story is evoking feelings. I like it. There’s nothing to explain.”

Rodney’s interests include: art, science, politics, whiskey and chocolate, music (collecting vinyl records), gardening, and travel.

LINKS

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O87R33S

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/all-the-butterflies-in-the-world-rodney-jones/1120647919?ean=2940150498266

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/all-the-butterflies-in-the-world

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Rodney_Jones_All_the_Butterflies_in_the_World?id=x1OyBAAAQBAJ

Author page on RAP: http://redadeptpublishing.com/rodney-jones/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23033647-all-the-butterflies-in-the-world

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BNG FRIDAY: Graveyard Shift by Kimberly G. Giarratano

Every Friday until its publication, I'm going to blog something about Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets, a YA sci-fi anthology featuring tech-savvy heroines. The goal is to encourage more girls to enter Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math professions. All revenues from sales of the anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers.

Today, I'm spotlighting one of the stories that will be featured in the anthology.

TITLE
Graveyard Shift

AUTHOR
Kimberly G. Giarratano

STORY DESCRIPTION
Seventeen-year-old Philly Ramirez already has one criminal conviction hanging over her head because of her past as a hacker. Now, she just wants to do her job. There are worse things than being a graveyard hologram technician, taking care of the devices that shine beside the tombstones at a cemetery outside Atlantic City. Then, Zavier, who'd been one of the guards at the prison she'd been held in, barges into her life and reveals shocking information about her brother. The new revelations draw Philly into a web of deceit and danger - even murder - and force her to do the unthinkable: get back into the hacking game.

WHY WE PICKED IT
This is a wonderfully written mystery with a creeptastic aura surrounding its graveyard setting. I loved how Philly is a reluctant heroine - she's already had her adventure and been burned for it, but ends up getting dragged into a new situation. The tension of story really drew me in. 

AUTHOR BIO
Kimberly G. Giarratano lives in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania with her husband and small children. She is a former ESL teacher and YA librarian. Kimberly dreams of moving to Key West where she can write in a small studio, just like Hemingway.

THOUGHTS ON BRAVE NEW GIRLS
Kimberly is excited to participate in the anthology and show her baby daughter that girls can and do make big contributions in science and engineering.

Twitter: @KGGiarratano
Website: www.kimberlyggiarratano.com

BRAVE NEW GIRLS will be released in Summer 2015! Sign up here to receive a notification when it's available to order.

REVIEW: Binds That Tie / Kate Moretti

TITLE: Binds That Tie
AUTHOR: Kate Moretti
PUBLISHER: Red Adept Publishing
AVAILABILITY: Purchase links on publisher's website

GENRE

Contemporary Fiction - Women's Fiction / Thriller

REVIEW

Binds That Tie is a gripping tale of two ordinary married people who find themselves in a heap of legal trouble after the wife, Maggie, kills an intruder and the husband, Chris, decides to hide the body instead of reporting it. Chris is an ex-convict whose once bright future was yanked from under him after a drunken bar fight in college that landed a classmate in a wheelchair. As such, he has little trust in the police or the justice system. Maggie, meanwhile, would rather do the obvious "right thing" and call in the authorities.

Audiobook cover

The book alternates between Chris and Maggie's points of view. I listened to the audiobook version, which had two narrators. As longtime audiobook listener knows, the narrator can make or break a character. Maggie's narrator did a good job of bringing the character to life. However, Chris's narrator was the real standout. Something about the way he imbued tension and emotion into the words made the character completely sympathetic, even though Chris is not a good person by any means. He cheated on his wife even as she was struggling through the emotional toil of miscarriages, and he strong-armed her into agreeing to lie to the police. So why the heck did I feel bad for this guy and want him to get away with his wrongness?

Apart from the brilliant narration, Moretti's subtle and well-constructed prose allows you to dig deep into the characters' thoughts and really see the world from their points of view. Maggie is no angel either. She's been through a lot, and so it's easy to feel bad for her, but she's not the nicest of people (especially with what she does at the end, though I won't spoil the twist here).

The plot itself seems simple on the surface, starting with a depiction of Maggie and Chris's crumbling marriage and then moving into a legal/courtroom drama as the police and lawyers get involved. The police form a convenient theory that Chris murdered the intruder in cold blood, further complicating matters. We the readers know what Chris and Maggie do – yes, crimes were committed, but there were extenuating circumstances. Maggie was defending herself. Chris was trying to protect himself and his wife from what he believed to be a corrupt system.  Something about the way the story is told makes each moment tense and left me wondering, "Oh my God, what's going to happen next? Are they going to get away with it? Is Chris going to be wrongfully convicted of murder?" after every chapter. In fact, Moretti's writing held my interest so well, I actually missed my exit once (I listen to audiobooks during long drives) because of it.

Kate Moretti may be the new kid on the block for women's fiction, but I have a feeling that's going to change soon. She's a real force to be reckoned with, between crafting complex emotions and weaving tense plots that leave you flipping the pages even though no one's holding a gun to anyone's head. I really, really enjoyed Binds That Tie, even more than I did her previous novel, Though I Knew You (which is also excellent, by the way!). And I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Moretti lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, two kids, and a dog. She’s worked in the pharmaceutical industry for ten years as a scientist, and has been an avid fiction reader her entire life.

Visit her blog, Find her of Facebook, or Follow her on Twitter

BNG FRIDAY: Of Cat's Whiskers and Klutzes by Martin Berman-Gorvine

Every Friday until its publication, I'm going to blog something about Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets, a YA sci-fi anthology featuring tech-savvy heroines. The goal is to encourage more girls to enter Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math professions. All revenues from sales of the anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers.

Today, I'm spotlighting one of the stories that will be featured in the anthology.

TITLE
Of Cat's Whiskers and Klutzes

AUTHOR
Martin Berman-Gorvine

STORY DESCRIPTION
Life on Mars isn't easy, especially when you're wheelchair-bound, like former Texas resident Katie Webb. In the years that have passed since she was sucked into this surreal alternate reality of pulp sci-fi come to life, Katie has mostly accepted her new life. But what she can't accept is that Martian military is planning a vicious takeover. One piece of tech from the life she once lived on Earth could make all the difference - if only she could recreate it. But she ain't had no darn luck yet, and time is running out.

WHY WE PICKED IT
I loved the unique and rather surreal setting of this book - a world of pulp sci-fi brought to life by the imagination. Katie is a spunky young protagonist who uses her technical know-how to save the day - a perfect fit for our theme.

AUTHOR BIO
Martin Berman-Gorvine is the author of five published science fiction/fantasy novels: the Sidewise Award-winning novel The Severed Wing (Livingston Press, 2002); 36 (Livingston Press, 2012); Seven Against Mars (Wildside Press, 2013); Save the Dragons! (Wildside Press, 2013), which was a finalist for the Prometheus Award; and Ziona: A Novel of Alternate History (Amazon/CreateSpace, 2014). Wildside Press is publishing his science fiction novel Heroes of Earth in the spring of 2015.

THOUGHTS ON BRAVE NEW GIRLS

"I have always been a proud feminist and cannot fathom why any society would insist on hobbling half of its people. I am also drawn to powerful, active female characters in my own writing, which certainly implies that they have high scientific and technical skills in the best traditions of speculative fiction."


Website: http://www.martinbermangorvine.com/
Twitter: @MeshuggeWriter

BRAVE NEW GIRLS will be released in Summer 2015! Sign up here to receive a notification when it's available to order.

All hail the mighty mailing list!

One of the things I hear over and over from book marketing gurus is: "Set up a damn mailing list!" Fellow Red Adept author Stephen Kozeniewski lays out the reasons pretty articulately over on his blog. The gist of it (or, at least, my interpretation), is that social media comes and goes, but email is pretty much forever (hence why my personal email is stuck on the silly handle I chose for myself as a cat-loving 12-year-old). So a mailing list is the best way to guarantee that you'll keep in touch with your followers, even if next year everyone abandons Twitter for, oh, I don't know, some new image-swapping site called Pictamazing or something.

I've always known it was a good idea, but, for whatever reason, had trouble making myself set one up. Probably because I was already feeling overwhelmed from trying to spread myself over so many social media sites (Facebook! Twitter! Tumblr! This blog! Google Plus... wait, what's that again?). I've always had the "sign up for new releases" option on my website (and email people when things get released), but doing it manually can be a real bother.

So I've finally done it - and fulfilled my new year's resolution in record time (yes, my new year's resolution was to set up a mailing list). Click here to sign up! The form is also over on the right hand side of this blog.

I promise, I'll only email actual announcements (like new releases) and maybe a few entertaining book-related things (like the stuff I post on this blog). And I won't email you more than once a month. There, it has been written on the Internet, and the Internet is forever, so it shall hold me to my word!

I spent way too much time picking out this font.

BNG FRIDAY: Exploring a Character's Past

Every Friday until its publication, I'm going to blog something about Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets, a YA sci-fi anthology featuring tech-savvy heroines. The goal is to encourage more girls to enter Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math professions. All revenues from sales of the anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers.

For my own contribution to the Brave New Girls anthology, I wrote a little one-off short featuring the titular protagonist from the Jane Colt novels as a teenager. By the time she shows up in Book 1, Artificial Absolutes, Jane is a somewhat jaded recent university grad who dislikes the idea of virtual reality (which is commonplace in the futuristic space opera society she lives in) and dating a young man whose nice-guy ways she finds a bit boring on the surface, but comes to appreciate.

Since my short for BNG would serve as a prequel of sorts, I wanted to shed a little more light on parts of Jane's back story that didn't make it into the novels. In Takes a Hacker, 16-year-old Jane is competing in an interstellar competition for young programmers. When a fellow contestant is falsely accused of breaking tech regulations with her project, Jane's efforts to expose the real culprit leads her into the depths of cyberspace. It's there that Jane's dislike for virtual reality begins.

Takes a Hacker also depicts the kind of guy Jane was accustomed to dating before she met Adam in Artificial Absolutes. Being a pretty girl running around in elite circles, Jane had no shortage of suitors. She just had the terrible habit of picking the ones that checked off certain status symbol criteria – rich, handsome, smooth talkers, etc. – no matter how unappealing she found their actual personalities. The boyfriend depicted inTakes a Hacker is representative of her youthful romantic entanglements. Being a sucker for happy romantic pairings, writing a not-so-happy one was a bit of a departure, but a lot of fun.

While there are a few references that readers of the novels may appreciate, Takes a Hacker is a standalone story. The challenge with writing a standalone short set in a pre-existing world is that I had to resist the temptation to jam all the details. It was a lesson in trimming to include only the immediately relevant information and leave out the rest.

Of course, BNG being an anthology about tech-savvy girls, I also took advantage of the opportunity to let Jane show off her programming skills (which aren't mentioned in the main novels since, by the time they start, she's focused on other things). And to demonstrate how such abilities can come in handy.

The nice thing about writing "bonus" types of stories (like prequel shorts) is that you get to explore elements you had to leave out of the main novels. To finally nurture a few of those darlings you killed in edits. I hope readers will have as much fun reading Takes a Hacker as I did writing it!

BRAVE NEW GIRLS will be released in Summer 2015! Sign up here to receive a notification when it's available to order.

REVIEW: Kira Part 2: Horizon / Ross Harrison

TITLE: Kira Part 2: Horizon
AUTHOR: Ross Harrison
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
AVAILABILITY: Amazon and other e-book platforms

GENRE
Science Fiction - Steampunk

REVIEW
Ross Harrison's steampunk short story, Kira Part 2: Horizon, picks up where the first Kira tale left off. Let me start by saying that I LOVED the first Kira story, and if you read my review of it, you'll see that it ended with a plaintive plea for a sequel. Well, two years later, my wish was finally fulfilled!

Kira 2 picks up where the first story left off. After Kira's town, which resides in the desert outside a totalitarian nation run by the powerful Government, is destroyed by airship bombardment, Kira is left alone, having lost everyone she knows. Except for one person: Flip, a somewhat awkward but totally adorable teenage boy who seems to hero-worship her. With nothing but desert around them, their only option is to head toward the ruined city they spot on the horizon. But it turns out, there are residents of the city, and they're not very friendly. Between cruel thugs and wild beasts, Kira has more than her fair share of danger to deal with.

Kira 2 brings back much of the awesome from the first book - steampunk setting, action-packed plot, and, of course, two fantastic characters. Kira is an irreverent, Cockney-accented spitfire in a corset and half-top, and she's an absolute delight to watch. Having lost so much and faced with tough moral decisions, she wrestles with darker demons than in the first part, which Harrison successfully brings to life. I feel like he added a lot more depth to the character in just a few short paragraph by depicting her inner turmoil. And the adorkable Flip has a much bigger role this time around, though it's still Kira's show. 

Sadly, Kira 2 ended on another cliffhanger. The mysteries of the first tale are alluded to a few times, but this story is more about the journey and survival. I just hope I don't have to wait another two years to find out more...

All in all, the Kira series is action-packed, entertaining, and unafraid to expand upon the exciting steampunk world it's set in.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ross Harrison is the author of three novels and two short stories. Although he doesn't stray from science fiction, he has ventured into multiple sub-genres, including space opera, thriller, noir, and steampunk. He has been writing since childhood, and occasionally likes to revisit those old stories for a good cringe and nervous laugh.

Ross lives on the UK/Eire border in Ireland, where he moved from England in 2001, hoping the rain will help his hair grow back.

BNG FRIDAY: Story Line-Up

Every Friday until its publication, I'm going to blog something about Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets, a YA sci-fi anthology featuring tech-savvy heroines. The goal is to encourage more girls to enter Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math professions. All revenues from sales of the anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers.

Here comes 2015, and with it, Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets, a YA sci-fi anthology I'm co-publishing with fellow sci-fi author, Paige Daniels. For those of you just tuning in, Paige and I both believe fiercely in increasing the number of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) professions. At the moment, only 26% of STEM professionals in the U.S.A. are women (even though women make up half the workforce), and if you break down the numbers into individual professions, the numbers get even more dire.

Though many young girls express interest in math and science as children, the number of them who intend to make a career out of STEM tends to drop off around their early teens. Paige and I believe that this is because of cultural prejudices, which says that girls should be pretty and nothing more. Or, if you want to be smart, you have to give up the things you love about being a girl. We intend to change that. 

Brave New Girls depicts strong, intelligent young heroines who aren't afraid to unleash their nerdier sides and use their technical prowess to save the day. Paige and I raised the money for the publishing costs through a crowdfunding campaign last summer, and we've recently contracted a talented group of authors to bring you these stories. Here's the story line-up:

BLINK by Kate Moretti, New York Times bestselling author of Thought I Knew You
COURAGE IS by Evangeline Jennings, author of No Christmas, Niagara, andValentina
THE DATA TOURIST by Davien Thomas
FLEDGLING by Jason Kucharik
FLIGHT OF THE ZEPHYR by Aimie Runyan, author of the forthcoming novel Ice Flowers
GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Kimberly G. Giarratano, author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards
HELEN OF MARS by George Ebey, author of the forthcoming Phoenix Saga
THE HIVE by Kate Lansing, award-winning short story author
THE KEYS TO THE STARS by Stephen Kozeniewski, author of the bestselling novel Braineater Jones
A LITTLE BIT TRUER by Valerie Hunter
LYRA by Lisa Toohey, author of Escaping Ivernee
THE MAD SCIENTIST'S DAUGHTER by Leandra Wallace
OF CAT'S WHISKERS AND KLUTZES by Martin Berman-Gorvine, award-winning author of The Severed Wing and Seven Against Mars
THE OUTPOST by Paige Daniels, author of the bestselling Non-Compliance trilogy
PANIC by Tash McAdam, author of the international bestseller Slam
ROBIN HACKER by Ursula Osborne
ROBOT REPAIR GIRL by Josh Pritchett
TAKES A HACKER by Mary Fan, author of the Jane Colt, Flynn Nightsider, andFated Stars series

Plus a foreword by Lara Hogan, Senior Engineering Manager at Etsy and author of Designing for Performance.

I love each and every one of these stories, and I can't wait to share them with the world!

BRAVE NEW GIRLS will be released in Summer 2015! Sign up here to receive a notification when it's available to order.