Sometimes happy endings don’t stay that way.
Over a year after Melanie Fielding helped her mother Diana Landreth overthrow a repressive North American government headed by her grandmother Sarah Stephens, she faces even more problems.
The new Netwalk technology that allows Sarah’s personality to exist after death is developing in unpredictable ways. Rogue Netwalkers emerge, allied with Diana and Melanie’s long-term foe, the Freedom Army.
Worse, Melanie is forced into an alliance with her estranged brother Andrew Stephens, at the demand of the international Corporate Courts. The Courts control a mysterious entity, the Gizmo, which is somehow connected to Netwalk. As they learn more about the Courts and the Gizmo, Melanie and Andrew realize that Diana may not be trustworthy.
That the Gizmo and the Courts have a dangerous agenda that isn’t what it seems—and Sarah may be their best tool to stop the Gizmo from fulfilling its goals.
Joyce Reynolds-Ward has been called “the best writer I’ve never heard of” by one reviewer. She has published over 32 books that include themes of high-stakes family, corporate, and political conflict, digital sapience, personal agency, realistic strong women, and (whenever possible) horses, frequently in Pacific Northwest settings.
She is the author of six speculative fiction series: The Netwalk Sequence, Goddess's Honor, The Martiniere Legacy Quartet, The People of the Martiniere Legacy, The Martiniere Multiverse, and The Cost of Power as well as standalones Vision of Alliance, Federation Cowboy, Beating the Apocalypse, Klone's Stronghold: Reeni and Alien Savvy.
Joyce is a Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Semifinalist, a Writers of the Future SemiFinalist, and an Anthology Builder Finalist. She is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, co-chair of SFWA’s Independent Author Committee, and a member of Soroptimists International.