A New Adventure + Giveaway: The Student and the Slave

Good morning, dear Reader!If you are tuning in from the States, I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving. And from anywhere else, I hope you had a lovely week of November! Today I have the pleasure of participating in a blog tour for Annie Douglass Lima and her newest book, THE STUDENT AND THE SLAVE, which is part of her fantasy-adventure series. Some of you may remember that I had one of her characters over for an INTERVIEW a while back, which was a lot of fun.The Student and the Slave is the third book in the Krillonian Chronicles, set in an alternate world much like our own, but with a few major differences. One of those differences is that slavery is legal in the Krillonian Empire. Slaves wear metal collars around their necks, making their status obvious to all. Another difference is the sport cavvara shil, a popular martial art style of combat in which the opponents face each other with a cavvarach (a sort of sword with a steel hook that protrudes from one end).

Is this what freedom is supposed to be like? Desperate to provide for himself and his sister Ellie, Bensin searches fruitlessly for work like all the other former slaves in Tarnestra. He needs the money for an even more important purpose, though: to rescue Coach Steene, who sacrificed himself for Bensin’s freedom. When members of two rival street gangs express interest in Bensin’s martial arts skills, he realizes he may have a chance to save his father figure after all … at a cost.

Meanwhile, Steene struggles with his new life of slavery in far-away Neliria. Raymond, his young owner, seizes any opportunity to make his life miserable. But while Steene longs to escape and rejoin Bensin and Ellie, he starts to realize that Raymond needs him too. His choices will affect not only his own future, but that of everyone he cares about. Can he make the right ones … and live with the consequences?

The Student and the Slave: an excerpt

In this excerpt, a series of choices have thrust Bensin into involvement in a battle between two street gangs.

The Corner Creepers fought with renewed desperation, as though the two trucks’ approach signaled the end of hope for them. The guy currently going at it with Bensin tried to edge him into the street as though to block the big truck’s way. Out of the corner of his eye he saw several others attempting the same thing.

The truck slowed, honking, as fighters forced each other into the road in front of it. One Corner Creeper sprang onto its back step, fumbling with the closed metal doors, but a Silverhead leaped out of the pickup and tackled him. The two of them fell onto the asphalt, the pickup barely swerving in time to avoid them.

The man fighting Bensin suddenly broke away and leaped toward the vehicles, club extended, and Bensin was startled to see a knife blade spring out from the club’s tip. Does the one I’ve got have a hidden blade in it too? But there was no time to investigate. Realizing his opponent was planning to slash the tires, Bensin sprinted after him, tackling him there on the pavement, grabbing for his weapon. The truck rolled by inches from their struggling bodies.

Intrigued? Click here to order The Student and the Slave from Amazon for a discounted price of 99 cents through November 31st!

About the Author

Annie Douglass Lima spent most of her childhood in Kenya and later graduated from Biola University in Southern California. She and her husband Floyd currently live in Taiwan, where she teaches fifth grade at Morrison Academy. She has been writing poetry, short stories, and novels since her childhood, and to date has published fifteen books (three YA action and adventure novels, four fantasies, a puppet script, six anthologies of her students’ poetry, and a Bible verse coloring and activity book). Besides writing, her hobbies include reading (especially fantasy and science fiction), scrapbooking, and international travel.