Part of Series
Nes Riverborn of the Water Clans has her people's inborn magic in huge measure—but her Da refuses to train her and all of her instinctive control over tricksy, elemental Water comes down to stubbornness and good luck. So when the River Melth in fury flings a devastating flash flood at the town of Southbridge, Nes finds herself not only separated from her ship, but swept away on a quest to discover the source of the river's distress. For an untrained young woman who has scarcely set foot ashore in her life, traveling with an exotic company of talented strangers is less a source of wonder than of daily embarrassment as she runs up hard against all the things she doesn't know. Alternately humiliated, angry, frightened, over-confident, and confused by her feelings for a man not of her clan, Nes struggles to bring her talent to bear on a mystery that could overwhelm her whole world. If Water herself has chosen to join her rebellious siblings Wind and Fire in attacking Earth Mother...where in Metrenna will there be anywhere left for mortals to stand?
Author
S. A. Bolich is a fulltime freelancer with a number of published fantasy stories as well as many nonfiction articles in print and on the web, covering a wide variety of subjects from horsemanship to travel (usually with an historical slant) to the state of Flash web design. A native of Washington state, she resides there again after serving six years in Germany as a regular army military intelligence officer. She graduated summa cum laude from college with a degree in history, which she confesses was greatly aided by devouring historical fiction of every era and kind through her formative years. Since then she has taught web design, trained horses, spent a few hectic and thoroughly enjoyable years volunteering with the United States Pony Clubs (kids and horses, oh, my!), worked in global marketing and project management, and finally managed a long-overdue escape from corporate world to write. Her first published short story earned an honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror; other stories have earned honorable mentions from Writers of the Future and 5th place in the Preditors and Editors online poll for best fantasy short (2009). Her first novel, Firedancer, appeared in September 2011. She is currently working on the sequel to Firedancer, "Windrider." You can find some of her previous work in: Beneath Ceaseless Skies (December 2009) Defending the Future IV: No Man's Land Wolfsongs 2 On Spec (Fall 2010) On Spec (Summer 2002) Science Fiction Trails (March 2009) Damnation Books (September 2009, a short published as an e-book)
