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Emmi Itäranta

Fiction and Excerpts [1]
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Fiction and Excerpts [1]

The Weaver

Eliana is a model citizen of the island, a weaver in the prestigious House of Webs. She also harbors a dangerous secret—she can dream, an ability forbidden by the island’s elusive council of elders. No one talks about the dreamers, the undesirables ostracized from society.

But the web of protection Eliana has woven around herself begins to unravel when a young girl is found lying unconscious in a pool of blood on the stones outside the house. Robbed of speech by her attackers, the only clue to her identity is one word tattooed in invisible ink across her palm: Eliana. Why does this mysterious girl bear her name? What links her to the weaver—and could she hold Eliana’s fate in her hand?

As Eliana finds herself growing closer to this injured girl she is bound to in ways she doesn’t understand, the enchanting lies of the island begin to crumble, revealing a deep and ancient corruption. Joining a band of brave rebels determined to expose the island’s dark secrets, Eliana becomes a target of ruthless forces determined to destroy her. To save herself and those she loves, she must call on the power within her she thought was her greatest weakness: her dreams.

Emmi Itäranta, author of the critically acclaimed Memory of Water, returns with The Weaver—available November 1st from Harper Voyager.

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The Mystery of Bao in a Drowning World: Fish Tails by Sheri S. Tepper

I have always loved a narrative mystery. In my childhood, this translated into reading about the adventures of Nancy Drew and graduating into Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes later. Yet, when I think of a narrative mystery these days, I rarely think of murders, blackmail or international conspiracies. Instead, I think of a central enigma at the heart of any story, something that will keep the reader asking, wondering, hooked.

SFF has some genre-specific strategies of creating a narrative mystery. Since world-building often entails vocabulary and concepts that are aimed at constructing a setting different from our everyday reality, a technique employed by many SFF writers is to reveal the meaning of these words and concepts slowly, withholding information from the reader and thereby luring us in with unanswered questions that invite us to stay with the story.

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Series: That Was Awesome! Writers on Writing

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