Here we are in November, in the midst of another NaNoWriMo. It's hard to believe that six years ago I was in the middle of writing A Broken Race. That year, my fourth year participating, I'd set out to write a whole story from beginning to end in thirty days. I managed to do that and then, content with completing my goal, saved the file to my hard drive one last time and went on to the next project.
It wasn't until I was considering writing a prequel to A Broken Race for my 2012 NaNo Novel, that I read the story again and realized I really liked it. The prequel effort was easily the worst thing I've written since I started writing seriously, and it will never see the light of day, but it did put me on the path to sharing One-fifty-two's story with the world so it was well worth the effort. I hope you will agree.
The fortress is home to the last of civilized humanity. The few remaining women live in a vault far below the gardens, the men who protect, manage, and labor, and the walls that protect them all. A virus generations past and inbreeding since, has left average men severely outnumbered by Simples. Humanity, as it once was, is broken.
Outside those walls live the Wildmen, starving, poor, and desperate for the treasures of the fortress. Seeking women to once again fill their ranks with healthy children, and something other than rats to fill their stomachs, the Wildmen launch one last raid. One of their number makes it inside alive.
One-fifty-two is a Simple man. The raid fills his calm and orderly world with smoke and fear, the need for the comfort of his mother, and the promises of a Wildman captive. With his eyes open to the secrets behind the order his always known, One-fifty-two must find the courage to stop being a cog and take hold of the wheel, or the fortress may be the end of them all.
A Broken Race is available in ebook and paperback: http://www.caffeinated-press.
Jean Davis lives in West Michigan and this is her tenth year participating in NaNoWriMo. She has reached 50K eight of those years and settled for 25K last year due to building her new house. Don't try to build a house and write a novel at the same time.
When not writing speculative fiction, she can be found playing in her garden, enjoying a glass of wine, or lost a good book. A Broken Race is her first novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Theian Journal, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Acidic Fiction, Tales of The Talisman, The First Line, Allegory, Isotropic Fiction, Liquid Imagination, and more. Upcoming short fiction publications include Caffeinated Press' Brewed Awakenings II, The3288 Review.
Follow her writing adventures at www.jeanddavis.blogspot.com
