A
HALF-RISEN SUN
by
Taylor Rouanzion
Sixteen-year-old
Kittilyn Kite never expected the girl on her front doorstep to be an
interplanetary fugitive. As the heiress of a large—but
crumbling—estate on the planet of Salome, Kittilyn was happy to
oblige when a friend of a friend needed a place to stay. But once
that friend arrives, Kittilyn discovers that she may have just
invited someone very dangerous into her home. Kittilyn is torn
between turning the girl in or hiding her from the government that
has so often wronged Kittilyn's own family. What Kittilyn doesn't
know is that this stranger may hold answers to questions about her
family's past and the key to finally saving her estate from financial
ruin.
A
cross between Downton
Abbey
and Firefly,
A HALF-RISEN SUN is a 71,000-word young adult science fiction novel. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed These
Broken Stars
by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner and Linked
by Imogen Howson.
I have a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University, and I have worked for five years as a technical writer and editor. A HALF-RISEN SUN is my first novel.
I have a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University, and I have worked for five years as a technical writer and editor. A HALF-RISEN SUN is my first novel.
Chapter One
I
had sixteen empty rooms but nowhere to put the rain-soaked girl who
stood at my front door.
Over
the past year, I had been forced to gradually sell off most of the
furnishings and décor within Cherishbough Hall, leaving only a few
pieces that included a small wrought-iron bed for myself, one piece
of a sheersilk sofa set in the parlor, and a rickety wooden table in
the kitchen that I had dragged up from the basement after getting
only a pittance from Mr. Burdge, who lived down the road, for my
great-great-grandmother's grand mahogany dining set.
But
despite my predicament, my genteel breeding did not fail me.
“Hello.
You must be Lennox,” I said cheerily to the girl, whose sun-browned
face had yet to change to any expression other than a scowl. Her
hair—a yellow that I guessed was bright and sunny when it was dry
but was a dour mustard color wet—clung to her face. There was a
black stripe about two fingers thick on the right side of her hair
that ran from root to tip, like an outer reflection of her inner dark
streak.
So
far all I was seeing was the dark streak and no sunny brightness. I
was already regretting having agreed to house this sullen off-planet
person.
“I'm
Kittilyn Kite. Please, come in out of that downpour and we'll get you
dry in no time.”
Lennox's
shin-high boots squeaked gratingly as she entered the foyer, her hair
and clothes dripping puddles of rainwater onto the priceless,
centuries-old marboleum floor.
