I love how the cover artist, Kim Herbst, brought to life one of the mythical yeheneh, the characters from the book-within-a-book that the main character Ada adored as a child. It looks hunted and afraid, but also beckons us to follow it into the shadows of a forest where some very prickly and (justifiably) wary plants are waiting. The
glowing metal frame around the outside evokes the sci-fi reality of the story, where forcefields and other high-tech barriers are used to keep this alien planet’s nature “safely” in its place.
Ada Quintrall is heir to a dukedom and a colony planet, and she has to wrestle with her family’s legacy when she discovers they’re far from the do-gooders she thought.
One of my early readers, author M. E. Garber, described it as “if Avatar and Downton Abbey met by way of a fairy tale,” which I think captures the spirit of it—except in contrast to Avatar’s white savior complex, it’s anticolonial. It was important to me to show Ada taking responsibility for her family’s mistakes, and doing what she can to put them right. It’s my take on terraforming stories: if you love the space colonization genre, but don’t feel great about all the native plants and creatures
getting shoved aside to make room for humans, this one’s for you.
It’s also a complicated love letter to portal fantasies. For everyone who loved Narnia as a kid, only to later wonder why they needed to replace their tyrant queen with four British school kids—were there really no Narnians up for the task of governance?—this one’s for you, too.
Preorder The Final Chronicle of Yeneh now, in ebook and hardcover, wherever you buy books. If you can,
I encourage you to get the beautiful hardcover direct from the publisher. If you do, you’ll get $5 off, plus some included goodies like a sticker, bookmark, and a
thank-you postcard signed by me!