Zara is a star-shooter—a member of an elite class of space workers who travel throughout the galaxy delivering supplies to space stations and newly settled planets. A minor accident causes Zara’s ship to be delayed on an unexplored world. The crew is enchanted by the planet’s lush beauty, but when the star-shooters' idyllic interlude is suddenly interrupted by a distress call they discover their paradise has a dangerous secret. After a near-death experience, Zara wakes up in a hostile place and discovers her crew has left her behind. Held captive on a decadent pleasure station, Zara must live the life of a prostitute, forced to perform on a never-ending stream of space cowboys. The life is bearable only through a haze of drugs and alcohol, and through it all Zara desperately grasps at the last vestiges of hope that if she stays alive, and stays sane, she might one day escape. The only refuge Zara has is her journal, a place where she can reveal her secrets: how her path became entangled in her eccentric family's quest for the solution to time travel, and how an unavoidable tragedy proved to her that spacetime is real, that the future is the past, and that life and the universe are bound in extraordinary ways. In The Nomad time is fluid, not linear. Zara’s journey is told in alternating timelines, stories that swing around to reconnect events that are woven together to create the complex fabric of her life. "A bold and adventurous vision of humanity's future history, tapping into elements of sci-fi, philosophy, and pop culture. Readers are pulled into a well-crafted puzzle of prose, as Tillar has a sharp and clever pen. Compelling characters may drive this novel, but the futuristic worlds Tillar builds are highly inventive. The Nomad has a deeply creative premise, savage plot twists, and a narrative style that playfully bends the boundaries of storytelling." Self-Publishing Review
Author
Debra was born in London and grew up in NYC. She studied art in high school, majored in anthropology in college, and became an archaeologist. Seeking adventure, Debra lived on a small island in Micronesia for four years where she began to write travel and human interest articles that were published in Pacific area magazines and newspapers. During that time she also worked with the local historical preservation society to promote the island's stone ruins and museum. Debra has traveled all over the world and has visited over 50 countries and all seven continents. She wrote travel articles and published a travel zine while raising two daughters in southern New Hampshire. Several years ago, when rereading HG Wells' classic The Time Machine, Debra noticed a character named only once in passing. This sparked the idea of writing a story about the Time Traveler's assistant. The short story became a novel; the novel became a two-book series. Debra is currently writing a third book which is part prequel, part sequel to The Nomad series. When not writing, Debra creates art from natural objects and is a juried member of the NH Art Association. Her work is displayed and sold in local galleries. She lives on the seacoast of New Hampshire and she still loves to travel. A FAVOR: If you leave a review here on Goodreads please copy and paste it to Amazon. Goodreads is the place for discussion, but since Amazon is where people go to buy, reviews greatly affect book promotion on that site. THANKS! About The Nomad: Book One: "A bold and adventurous vision of humanity's future history, tapping into elements of sci-fi, philosophy, and pop culture. Readers are pulled into a well-crafted puzzle of prose, as Tillar has a sharp and clever pen. Compelling characters may drive this novel, but the futuristic worlds Tillar builds are highly inventive. The Nomad has a deeply creative premise, savage plot twists, and a narrative style that playfully bends the boundaries of storytelling." Self-Publishing Review
