Powerful families have powerful secrets. No surprises there.
But when secrets end up creating vulnerabilities—especially when they are revealed just before a possible invasion of the Solar System…then secrets aren’t just inconvenient, they become a big problem.
The revelation of Sarah Stephens’s deepest, darkest secret kicks off a traumatic reaction in her daughter Diana—that may be tied to the potential invasion.
Sarah isn’t the only person in the Stephens-Landreth-Fielding family with problematic secrets, however. Secrets pile upon secrets as the invaders approach Earth.
It’s up to Sarah and Diana’s descendant Bess, her beloved Alex Jeffreys, and Bess’s mother Melanie to figure out how to overcome the burden of secrets and defend Earth.
Will they be able to succeed—and what will it cost them?
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.