​



Blurb
 
Sera is the last runner from Earth, bringing badly needed supplies to the Tharassas Colony across a twenty-five year gulf between the planets. Jas works on a hencha farm to make ends meet, harvesting berries from the semi-sentient plants.
 
Neither one that knows their lives—and worlds—are about to change forever.
 
Buy Links:
 
Amazon eBook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WWH579T/
Amazon Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1688284907/








Excerpt:
 
Sera’s back arched as she gulped a lungful of air, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. She collapsed back on the memory foam of her sleep pod, sucking oxygen into her lungs gratefully.

It was a bit stale, but not immediately fatal—a good sign given how they escaped near-certain destruction by the skin of their teeth, as Earth and her local colonies fell into chaos and self-imposed destruction.

Sera’s throat was raw, dry—the antiseptic spray either hadn’t worked or hadn’t been administered by the Spin Diver’s wake-up protocols. “Waaaater.”

A slim white feeder line slipped down from above to mouth level. She took the sipper between her lips and sucked in the gloriously wet liquid.

Like the air, it tasted a bit off. She sighed. Time enough to figure that out later.

She drank her fill and sat up, swinging her feet off the edge of the couch to look around the sleep room.

The other three pods were dark.

“Tavi!” Sera slipped off the couch and winced. Every one of her muscles ached.

She hobbled her way to the closest pod. Please—no.

It felt like just minutes before—when their fingers had been intertwined, Tavi giving her a quick kiss as the ship shuddered all around them, the air filling with noxious smoke. Staring at each other as the hardened plas lids slid closed over them.

Sera fumbled with the manual release controls on Tavi’s pod, frantic. They were unresponsive, as dark as the pod itself.

Sera stumbled to the wall and retrieved the axe that was strapped there for emergencies. She managed to lift it up, her shoulder muscles on fire from the weight. She brought it down blade-first on the plas cover of the dark sleep pod. The reinforced plas cracked but didn’t break.

She lifted the axe again and brought it down hard on the slick surface.

The axe blade skittered across the smooth shell, and the handle slipped out of her grasp. The axe fell on the metallic floor on the far side of the pod with a loud clatter in the deceleration-created gravity.

Sera squeezed past the pod to retrieve it, sparing a quick glance for the two unoccupied pods.

Jace and Herrol hadn’t even made it to the ship. They were long dead by now.

Sera lifted the axe once more and brought it down on the cover with all her weakened strength.

The plas shattered at last, revealing the pod’s contents.

The musky smell of decay slammed into Sera, driving her back toward the exit hatch. She couldn’t believe that it was true—that Tavi was long dead, her corpse a shrunken mess of bones and dried flesh.

“Oh God.” Sera stumbled backward and slammed her hand on the hatch release. She practically fell through it, slamming her hand on the door control outside.

It spiraled closed, shutting off the horrible sight, but leaving the sickly-sweet smell lingering in the air.

Sera fell to her knees and retched.

After almost twenty-five years in suspension, there was nothing left in her to come out, but still her stomach heaved. It was a primal reaction, far beyond her ability to control. She’s gone.

Then she just lay there, wrecked and broken. “Tavi.” How did this happen?

Time slowed and dilated.

Her mind refused to process what she had just seen. It was too visceral, too real.

Too painful.

She closed her eyes and sobbed.

​
 
Author Bio:
 
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
 
He decided that if there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
 
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is an associate member of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association (SFWA).
 
Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/
FB Personal: https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth
FB Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/jscoatsworth/

GENRE: Adventure Romance

MAIN PAIRING/S: F/F

HEAT LEVEL: Low. Implied only.

​‘The Fletcher’ is K. Aten’s debut novel and, bearing that in mind, does a rather good job of engaging the reader and constructing strong characters. You can certainly see the evolution and development of her storytelling skill since then, though.

As a lesbian born in the mid 80s, I went through my entire teenage life alongside Xena: Warrior Princess and, of course, this was where I first learned of Amazons, the legendary women at the heart of Aten’s book. Though Amazons, historically, were likely Scythian and not Greek, I’m drawn to anything that has such an intriguing backdrop as the Ancient Greek world and Amazonian women.


I noticed many similarities with Xena at times, however, as nearly all the details featured in the classic episode “Hooves & Harlots” cropped up in The Fletcher. From the centaur conflict and eventual birth of a hybrid child, to the challenge to the queen’s power, fights with chobos, or the use of an overhead gesture as a sign of peace. There’s still plenty here to show off Aten’s imagination and it’s not necessarily a negative to see so much content mirror the first (and I believe, best and most iconic) appearance of the amazons on Xena, but I found my internal monologue about the overt parallels distracting -- particularly in the first half of the novel.

The book features some fun and adventurous moments, including (and please read this as though you’re Cary Elwes in Men in Tights) an archery contest! There's a touch of magic in Kyri's athletic feats, hinting at a larger fantasy arc that I imagine Aten picks up in Book 2. She's done well to create a platform for the rest of the series. Not at all easy to do!

Our main character, Kyri, goes through some very sweet personal growth, building a new family and realising a host of new things about herself. At times, her reasons for avoiding her romantic interest seemed a little unconvincing, but she herself realises this eventually too, which is great to see. It was also so great to see a sweet story unfold without any overly graphic scenes, as such stories seem to be few and far between.

The story does lack a strong through-line though, in that there’s no real external conflict. Kyri wants to be an Amazon and that’s the crux of the story: passing the tests and assimilating into the culture. I myself have struggled to learn to balance internal and external conflict in my writing and I know from reading Waking the Dreamer that Aten has already made huge leaps in this area. I imagine I can learn lots from her--as a writer--as I continue to read her books, which are released with impressive frequency.

Despite this lack of conflict, there was enough happening in The Fletcher to keep me interested and engaged. I’m actually so terrible at following up on a series and the fact I want to read the next one tells me there’s a certain something in this story that’s got me hooked.