Title: The Light After the Orange Author: Beverly J. Hall Series: The Tundra Stone Series #1 Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
EVEN IN A DYING WORLD, IS SURVIVAL ENOUGH?
After the Orange and the catastrophic devastation of Earth, magic began to seep in—but will it help Alex Chegasa survive?
Hidden and protected by magic, she grew up embracing her gifts. After witnessing the only people she can call family being murdered, eighteen-year-old Alex must choose between her head and her heart in her search for a place to belong. But, her hunt for a home means having to hide her magic.
All the while, in the shadows, eight-hundred-year-old Fae Billey NicNevin, suffering from amnesia, is rediscovering her magic.
Are their fates intertwined?
What if the fantastical stories Alex’s mother told her as a child were true?
ALL MYTHS ARE BASED ON TRUTH
Sales Copy: Eighteen-year-old Alex Chegasa, one of the first generation to be raised on post-apocalyptic Earth, was taught to embrace her magical gifts.
After the Orange, as the planet burned, magic trickled in. The bombs that had wiped out most life ripped open the barrier between worlds. Can the next generation, connected to the magic, be the solution to mankind’s problems or are they destined to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors?
Did the Orange, the very thing that ravaged the planet, also provide the solution? Or is magic more than a coincidence?
While Alex searches for somewhere to belong, in Massachusetts, she questions if survival is enough when she comes to understand that magic, used by the wrong people, could be more dangerous than the power of the generations before her.
Meanwhile, in a parallel story, we meet eight-hundred-year-old Fae, Billey NicNevin. With a past she doesn’t remember, she struggles to fit into Nuadh Caled (New Scotland) as it rebuilds itself. When she meets a woman whose soul calls to her, will she find her missing piece or tumble into insanity?
Are their destinies connected?
WHAT IF THE FANTASTICAL STORIES FROM ALEX’S CHILDHOOD WERE TRUE?
Loneliness ate me up from the inside, nibbling away at me and leaving an aching emptiness. I didn.t know what I missed or who I missed but knew, deep in the part of my soul that holds my intuition, there was a person-size hole nobody could fix, except for the one.
The person we all hunt for but so rarely find. The person we were made to fit with. The one imperfect, perfect, mismatch our soul longs for. *
The trees gathered around me and protected me from the breeze that grew and took on a new life. I rested against the rough bark of the largest tree, my rear now sitting into the roots that formed a seat in the ground. The tree, I almost believed, was shaped for me. Its branches wrapped around my tiny form as I snuggled among the roots. The wind grazed my cheek and I pulled my scarf around my face, desperate to stay here for every second possible.
The sound of the wind howling through the branches vibrated the leaves and created a voice I longed to understand. I closed my eyes, listening, imagining I could hear the voices of the trees. I felt my soul combine with the tree, and contentment that existed nowhere else in my life melted my anguish and pain. My eyes shot open and I stared at where Geilis had been moments earlier. Empty space filled my view. I was, again, alone.
Beverley J. Hall was born in Kent, England, and raised in Scotland. Most of her childhood was spent with her nose in a book, and her love of stories was born.
While studying Art and Design, she discovered her love of storytelling, whether with paint, sculpture, fabric, or words.
After completing an MA in Creative Writing, she is now living her best life, writing stories at the seaside with her son, her granddaughter, and her cat Bertie.
Head over to TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter to join her overthinking and daydreaming (she’s still hoping for a pet dragon).
The bonds of family go well beyond blood. But can those bonds hold when the blood itself carries a devastating secret?
Fenlee’s opal necklace had always radiated a certain warmth since her mother’s death. But now, at sixteen, her world begins to unravel as the stone sparks to life, revealing itself to be an otherworldly artifact of untold power.
Between her mechatronics studies at the academy and scavenging expeditions beneath the sprawling city of New Cascadia, Fenlee and her adopted brother, Elliot, try to decipher the mysteries of her necklace and its link to events in Fenlee’s past.
But they’re not alone in their search.
Strange undercity dwellers offer cryptic warnings, drones track their movements, and deadly corporate agents lurk in the shadows. When tragedy rips Fenlee’s family apart, she must learn to use the artifact’s power to save those who are deeply precious to her. But nothing can prepare her for the dark truths that she will uncover on that journey…
“Lee,” Elliot mumbled. “I’m not who you think I am.”
Thoughts of etherclaw and worries about her father had kept Fenlee up, so she’d spent almost the entire night installing and integrating the Elixir chip to keep her mind elsewhere. She got it working, but sleep still wouldn’t come, so she composed a message to her father. It’d be expensive to send, but she had to say something.
Hi, Dad. Hope you’re well. Me? I’m great. Except that I’ve been shitting myself because, you know, aer Mom died, we all promised we’d never leave each other. And that’s kind of what you’re best at these days. But, hey, it’s all fine because I found a chip that’s most likely stolen and worth probably half this apartment block, but in order to get it to work, I had to go into the Lunarinto Market for an adapter. But the adapter wasn’t exactly free, so I’m going to start working a part-time job while you’re gone to pay it off. In the Lunarinto Market. You know, the place you hate for me to even go near. One of my legs is just short enough to be constantly uncomfortable because I decided to wreck the one you gave me, my underwear is somehow still riding up my ass from the bike ride home yesterday, and I’m hyperaware of how bad my pits stink. Doesn’t matter because I got no sleep and I don’t have time to do much about it before academy. Also, Mom’s opal, which isn’t real, by the way, might actually be some kind of weird magic device from aliens. Woo! Oh, and your adopted son is smuggling a stray cat. Thought you should know. Don’t get yourself blown up. Love you!
She stared at the comm unit for an eternity before deleting it. Her opal felt cold on her chest in the morning gloom.
Matty Roberts began their career in journalism where they earned an Emmy and had the privilege of working on several other award-winning projects. They hold an MS from Johns Hopkins University and are now an engineer in renewable energy in Denver, Colorado where they live with their wonderful partner, two extraordinary kids, and the best doggie ever.
In addition to writing, engineering, and parenting, Matty is a vegan enby nerd who is in love with this world and will forever be doing all they can to make it a better place. And they may be known to occasionally play in a punk band here or there.
Elena has always been a disappointment. Her magic is practically non-existent and now, on her sixteenth birthday, she is expelled from magic school by the strict headmistress–also known as her mother. Cast out into the world of the magically inept with only her familiar for company, Elena feels lost and alone until she meets a strange boy in the woods.
Quinn is a thief, a hunter, and a hothead. His unexpected friendship with Elena awakens a fiery side in him–quite literally–and uncovers new and surprising magical abilities. Except men aren’t supposed to be capable of magic.
With Quinn’s help, Elena carves a safe new life as a barmaid, but when she is attacked, her powers awaken with shocking ferocity. Elena’s explosion of magic creates a power surge that attracts the attention of magical investigators, sent to uncover and contain the source of the power surge.
But the awakening of their powers kickstarts an ancient prophecy. Will they be able to escape those that hunt them? Can they fulfill the prophecy, destroy the turmio and save magic from being destroyed once and for all?
When you grow up in an orphanage, you learn to read people pretty quickly. When you grow up in an orphanage run by an abusive drunk and his neglectful wife, you learn that everyone is full of shyt and you have to fend for yourself if you want to survive. The former enabled Quinn to do the latter. Reading people helped him find good marks, then he and Lyra would rob them blind. Lyra was quick and clever, like most foxes, but she was special. She could start fires with the flick of her tail, which came in very handy when you needed to distract a mark to pickpocket them, or on cold nights when you didn’t have an actual roof or walls to protect you from the harsh frost seasons. He’d learned long ago that they had to take care of themselves. That meant doing whatever it took to survive.
Q didn’t like looting corpses, but he wasn’t above it either; sometimes they had the best shyt. When he saw her lying there half-curled against the cold, on the side of the road just outside the Dark Woods, he couldn’t pass up the golden opportunity. She had a whole bag of who-knows-what lying next to her. It could just be food, but it could be decent enough stuff to sell or use themselves. Even if it was food, he and Lyra weren’t exactly feasting these days. Besides, she was dead. What did a dead girl need with whatever was in that bag?
“Lyra, you know the drill,” he whispered. As a fox, she was innately adept at sneaking, which was why she always made the initial approach. They’d tried other ways when they first started out on their own, but this was by far the most effective. Q sat back, partially hidden behind an old oak tree, and waited.
As Lyra crept closer, he could feel her heart rate slow and her senses heighten. She was inches from the corpse when he felt a violent shock, as though he’d been struck by lightning. He cried out, as did Lyra, before nearly blacking out. Q pulled himself from behind the tree, barely able to crawl to his knees before a second, more powerful blast struck them and he keeled over completely.
Mallory lives in Texas with her husband and their two young boys. She spends her days homeschooling and full-time parenting. Her nights, and any free time she manages to carve out during the day, are devoted to reading and writing.
