Author: Karissa Laurel
Genre/Age: Fantasy/YA
Series: The Stormbourne Chronicles Series (Book One)
Publisher: Evolved Publishing
Links: Goodreads
Synopsis: The Lord of Thunder’s sudden death leaves his daughter, Evelyn Stormbourne, unprepared to rule Inselgrau in his place. Weeks before Evie’s ascension to the throne, revolutionaries attack and destroy her home. She conceals her identity and escapes under the protection of her father’s young horse master, Gideon Faust. Together they flee Inselgrau and set sail for the Continent, but they’re separated when a brutal storm washes Evie overboard.
In her efforts to reunite with her protector and reach allies on the Continent, Evie befriends a band of nomads who roam the world in airships fueled by lightning. She also confronts a cabal of dark Magicians plotting to use her powers to create a new divine being, and she clashes with an ancient family who insists her birthright belongs to them.
If she’s to prevail and defeat her enemies, Evie must claim her heritage, embrace her dominion over the sky, and define what it means to be Heir of Thunder.
EXODUS FROM INSELGRAU
Chapter 1
A rumble of thunder woke me. I shifted under my quilts, turned towards my window, and searched the sky for clouds. Storms always made me smile; made me feel a little less lonely. Black clouds, lightning, and rain reminded me of better times, when thunder was a regular event in our household. My father used to make the loveliest thunder—more like percussion in a heavenly orchestra than cannonade and ordnance. I had never mustered the necessary energy to expulse that kind of force. My attempts always sounded more like the blast of a large pop gun.
Another report rippled through the air, but it sounded wrong this time—a little too sharp and cold for something as organic as thunder. A third, angry blast proved the source was nothing harmonious with nature. The clamor had a cadence, a rhythm, and when I slid out of bed, the vibrations from it quaked through the stones under my feet.
Boom!
“1... 2... 3... 4....” I counted off a half-minute and—Boom!—another explosion. I counted a half minute again, which concluded with another detonation.
My bedroom door flew open, and Gerda rushed in still wearing her rumpled nightgown. The braid she wore for sleeping had slackened during the night, and stiff rust-colored curls sprang around her face. Fear and worry crackled from her like static from a wool blanket. “Evie, my dear, you’ve got to get dressed.” She pulled me to my feet and yanked my sleeping gown over my head.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Gideon was just at my door. He told me have you out to the stables as quickly as possible.”
“Did he say why?”
“He did not, but I won’t be the one to contradict him. The look on his face was murderous.”
“How is that different from any other day?”
Boom!
Gerda didn’t laugh, and that worried me more than the persistent racket. “What in the world is making all that noise?” I asked.
“I haven’t had the time to look, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.”
“I figured out that much for myself,” I said under my breath.
If she heard me, she chose to ignore it and tossed me a pair of wide-legged trousers disguised as a skirt.
I slipped them on while she scurried to unearth my boots. “I take it we’re not using the carriage?”
“Gideon said you would be riding.”
“What about you?”
Gerda backed out of my wardrobe, wide rump first, and turned to face me. A stern expression hardened her face as she clamped her hands to her hips, and in a sharp tone said, “You are our main concern, Evie. Let’s get you safely away, and then I’ll worry about myself.”
“Safely away from what?”
Boom!
Glass shattered in a room somewhere below us and the whole house shuddered.
“From whatever is making that horrible clatter. Quit asking questions and get dressed!” Gerda rarely lost her temper, especially not with me.
Her abnormal temperament stirred me into action. I wrestled a high-collared blouse over my head, buckled on a wide belt, buttoned up a short suede waistcoat, and laced up my favorite riding boots.
She shoved me onto a stool beside my vanity and yanked my hair, forcing it into a tight braid. “Your hair’s straight as a stick and slick as a snake. I can never seem to weave it into a proper plait, even when I have plenty of time and my hands aren’t shaking.”
“Forget it. I’ll twist it up like usual.” I reached back to take over the familiar routine, but Gerda smacked my hands away.
“No, I’ve almost got it.” She grunted once and yanked again.
I winced but had the sense to keep my protests to myself.
“There.” She retrieved a ribbon from one of her ubiquitous pockets, wrapped it around the end of the braid, and double-tied the knot for reinforcement. “I don’t want any of it coming loose while you ride.”
I reached back and patted the careful arrangement. “Thank you, Gerda. Now, you get dressed and we’ll go.”
“No!” She stomped a stubby foot. “Gideon was clear. He only wants you. You must go. Now.”
Another explosion rocked the floor, and Gerda stumbled against the wardrobe. She leaned on the heavy piece of furniture until she regained her footing. The house shook and groaned as something structural gave way. Yells and shouts carried up from the lower floors.
“Are you going to meet us?” I asked. My heart raced, dancing a flittering beat. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“I don’t, but Gideon will take good care of you.”
Tears welled in my eyes, but the steely look on her face kept them from falling. “What will you do?”
“I’m going to get dressed and gather up Stephen and our boys. We’ll be out the door a short bit after you.”
“Then why can’t you go with me?”
“Now’s not the time for whining, Evelyn. Be a good girl. Do as I say.” She used the same mother-hen tactics she had employed when I’d proved to be a tempestuous child. It set the proper tone to rouse me from my panic.
“Hug me,” I said. “I’ll miss you.”
She threw her thick arms round me and pressed me into her abundant bosom. “I’ll miss you too, my girl.”
I inhaled her scent—a mixture of all the herbs in her garden, and especially comfrey, her favorite cure-all.
She squeezed me again and broke away. “Gideon will keep you safe, if you’ll listen to him and not let your impetuousness get in his way.”
She gathered my raw silk cloak from its hook by the door and tossed it at me.
I snapped it from the air and swirled it over my shoulders. When the cloak caught a beam of sunlight streaming from the window, the fabric shimmered with rainbow swirls like a soap bubble.
“Go now. Hurry.” Gerda yelled her final command over the screaming of tortured metal, as if a giant-toothed creature had bitten into the soul of the house.
I hugged her again and dashed out the door.
In the hallway, several of the house’s other occupants hurried past me in various states of dress. Tolick, the all-purpose houseboy, ran toward the stairwell. He had managed to button on his trousers but had neglected to remove his nightcap.
On the bottom floor, I turned for the kitchen.
The cooks had abandoned their breakfast preparations. A large porridge pot bubbled over on the stove, and thick strips of bacon burned on a griddle. A babble of excited voices drifted in from distant corridors, but no one came my way as I scurried toward the rear door of the kitchen. Beyond the exit, my route led me through Gerda’s garden, a sanctuary of herbs and vegetables protected by a stone wall enclosure rising high overhead. Thick vines of ivy and budding wisteria climbed the tops of those barriers. She would need to prune them soon, but we were all running, fleeing these familiar walls.
Would we return before the ivy took over? Would the house survive long enough for it to matter?
I ran past the garden’s iron gates and my breath puffed in thin, vaporous spurts. Spring had arrived less than two weeks ago, and the mornings still lingered in the recent days of winter. I pulled up my hood and wrapped my cloak tighter around me as a shield against the cold.
At that moment, I could have turned around for an unobstructed view of my house, but that would have meant witnessing its destruction. The house cried to me, but what relief could I offer? A feeling of helplessness settled in my gut like curdled milk. Father would have known what to do, but I was merely his daughter, his masterwork left incomplete by an untimely death.
I hacked a derisive cough at that thought. As if death ever comes at an appropriate time.
Curiosity overrode my fear. I slowed, stopped, and turned on my heel. As I wheeled around and looked up, my heart plummeted to my feet.
The house stood ablaze, smoke billowing from several of the first floor windows. Its wooden floors and beamed ceilings would surely feed the flames and turn the billows into a monstrosity of acrid, black plumes. The exterior might survive the fire—an ancestor had constructed Fallstaff from large granite blocks that had withstood tide and time for hundreds of years—but it wouldn’t survive the volley of explosive fodder from the trebuchet now installed on the front lawn.
One of my father’s war manuals showed illustrations of that vicious machine, but I had never seen one in reality. Someone with a brain for engineering had rigged this one with a system of levers, pulleys, and gears. A steam engine automated its processes, and every few seconds a conveyer belt fed another iron missile into a waiting bucket attached to a long wooden arm. From this distance, the trebuchet looked like an assemblage of toothpicks and hungry metal teeth, yet its ammunition tore holes through Fallstaff’s stone and mortar like a moth devours a wool sweater.
A group of men stood around its base, guarding the machine with rifles and crossbows. No one tried to engage them or fight back, as all were too concerned with escape. From that distance, they appeared as little more than stick figures.
I stepped closer in hopes of recognizing their uniforms or gear.
“Evie, what are you doing?” Gideon’s unmistakable bellow interrupted my thoughts. My father’s young horse master waited at the gate of the small paddock beside the stables, clutching two reins in his fist. One leather line led to his giant black stallion, Gespenst—a Dreutchish name meaning specter, or ghost. The other tether led to my horse, Nonnie, a gray-coated mare with a dappled rump.
“Gideon, what’s happening?” I jogged toward him. Something exploded behind me, and the aftershock sent me stumbling, but Gideon’s free hand shot out and latched around my elbow. I locked eyes on his stoic face and refused to look back.
“This is no time for an explanation,” he said. “Mount up, we’re riding south.” He tossed my horse’s reins in my direction and slid onto Gespenst’s back with an ease that demonstrated his familiarity with the saddle.
Nonnie snorted and rolled her eyes, announcing her displeasure over the noise and brusque treatment she had inevitably received from Gideon as he’d arranged her tack.
Nonnie and I managed most of our adventures on nothing more than wild oats and a few apples lifted from the larder. This journey would undoubtedly last longer than any we had taken in all our years together, and she must have felt some of the same trepidation as I. She stomped an eager hoof as I mounted, and when I nudged her forward, she fell into a canter behind Gideon and his horse.
Gespenst bore saddlebags stuffed to the brim. The tip of Gideon’s compact repeating crossbow, Sephonie, poked from the edge of the flap.
I thought of my own crossbow, which I’d never felt a need to name, and wondered if it had made its way into Nonnie’s packs. Gideon could take a stag from horseback with one shot; I could shoot a slow moving rabbit... if I had time to focus and plenty of solid footing.
I had no idea where we’d go, but at least we wouldn’t starve on our way there.
Five Favorite Movie Scenes of All Time
by Karissa Laurel
The Matrix
Trinity Escapes the Agents
In this instance, I am only talking about the first movie and pretending the other two don’t really exist. When The Matrix came out, nothing like it had been seen before and it blew. My. Ever-loving. Mind. I watched it in the theater four times before it went to video because it was the greatest visual spectacle I had ever witnessed. 15 years later, the awe has worn off. We’ve seen those effects so often since then, they don’t seem special anymore. Regardless, the movie holds a cherished place in my personal cinematic history.
Why didn’t I pick one of Neo’s fight scenes (He is the hero, after all)? Because this scene is the first moment when you know something funky is going on, and I love that “juris-my-diction” line. The slow-mo scene of Trinity jump-kicking that cop was in the original trailer and it was the clip that made me NEED to see this movie. Also, I love tough women who can fight (Underworld’s Selene is an all-time favorite) and Trinity is hot AF in pleather.
The Dark Knight
Joker Philosophizes to Batman
I love superheroes and comic books. Truthfully, I’m more a fan of the Marvel movies than most of the DC ones, and I especially adore Captain America (that elevator fight scene in Winter Soldier is the best: "Before we begin... anyone want to get off?). However, I think no one will argue that Heath Ledger’s Joker was one of the most masterful performances in cinematic history. There are so many scenes from this movie that sucked me in, and I could put the Joker’s “Why so serious?” on repeat and never get bored of it. But in this scene, when Joker explains to Batman the way the world really works, he has me utterly convinced. “I’m not a monster... I’m just ahead of the curve.”
We all know Batman was supposed to be the hero. We were supposed to be rooting for him. So how amazing was Ledger’s performance that he managed to make us want to cheer for the villain instead?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
The Death of Severus Snape
I saw this movie in the theater with my brother-in-law who, at the time, was the only one willing and available to watch it with me. He wouldn’t sit beside me, had to sit one seat over, so it wouldn’t look improper. He’s a gentleman and an all-around nice guy like that. When Snape died and the tears were rolling down my face, I was glad he wasn’t sitting close enough to hear me blubbering in my popcorn.
2016 has been a tough year, and we’ve lost an amazing group of artist. Alan Rickman’s death hit me hard because I’ve been a fan of his since I was a teen obsessed with Austen and he was Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. I absolutely can’t imagine anyone else as Severus Snape, and watching this scene in light of Rickman’s death makes it cut even deeper.
The Princess Bride
Inigo vs. Count Rugen
This movie is chock full of fantastic scenes. Picking a favorite is virtually impossible. It could be when Westley says “As you wish” after Buttercup shoves him down the hill. Or when Westley, disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts, has a battle of wits with Vizzini (Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!).
But when I think about the one moment when Princess Bride really stabs me in the feels, it has to be when Inigo Montoya confronts Count Rugen. It’s the famous scene from which we get that wonderful quote: “Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father—prepare to die.”
Revenge has driven Inigo for years, and now here he is, broken and bleeding and finally facing the man he has been searching for most of his life.
Oh, that last line. "I want my father back, you son of a bitch". That line hits me hard, because it comes out of the blue in a movie that's otherwise so very lighthearted. Gets me every time.
Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope
Obi Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader
It was a close tie between this and the “No... I am your father” scene in The Empire Strikes Back, but viewing the Star Wars universe as a completed concept, I chose the moment that Obi Wan allows Vader to strike him down as the most gut punching, pivotal moment in the franchise. It’s the fulcrum of the entire Star Wars storyline: the inevitable conclusion of one narrative and the powerful beginning of another.
Only with Obi Wan’s death does Vader’s transformation to the dark-side reach its pinnacle (and, therefore, he can begin his downslide toward redemption). Only with Obi Wan’s death does the reluctant Luke become truly motivated to learn the ways of the Force. As Luke’s power grows, so does Vader desire to possess him, which is his ultimate fatal flaw. If this scene hadn’t happened, I’d argue most of the Star Wars events wouldn’t have happened, including the fateful events in The Force Awakens.
Karissa lives in North Carolina with her kid, her husband, the occasional in-law, and a very hairy husky. Some of her favorite things are coffee, chocolate, and super heroes. She can quote Princess Bride verbatim. She loves to read and has a sweet tooth for fantasy, sci-fi, and anything in between. Sometimes her husband convinces her to put down the books and take the motorcycles out for a spin. When it snows, you'll find her on the slopes.
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