BooksChatter: ☀ Moonburner: Moonburner [1]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Moonburner, a Young Adult Fantasy by Claire Luana (14 June 2016, Soul Fire Press, 308 pages).

This is the first book in the Moonburner series.

Don't miss our interview with author Claire Luana.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first five chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Claire Luana will be awarding a copy of Moonburner, a free e-copy of Burning Fate, the prequel to Moonburner (only available in electronic form), and a $50 Amazon gift card (INT) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Can a young sorceress fighting for her right to live save her people in the process?

When 17-year old Kai is exposed as a female sorceress—a moonburner, she knows the punishment is death. Despite the odds against her, Kai escapes her fate and undertakes a harrowing journey to a land where moonburners are revered and trained as warriors.

But the moonburner citadel is not the place of refuge and learning that Kai imagined. The ongoing war against the male sorcerers, or sunburners, has led the citadel leadership down a dark path that could spell the end of all magic. Armed with a secret from her past and a handsome but dangerous ally in the sunburner prince, Kai may be the only one able to prevent the destruction of her people.

Teaser: Excerpt

Prologue

THE THICK WOODS muffled Hanae's anguished screams. Raiden had chosen this location carefully. They did not want anyone near when their child was born.
      "It will be a daughter," Hanae had said. "And they will try to kill her."

Her mother's intuition came to pass. Hanae's labors were joined by the first wail of a new life—a perfect glistening daughter.
      Raiden bathed their tiny child with a damp cloth and placed her in her mother's arms.
      Just like delivering a calf, he thought, and then chided himself for having such a thought about his wife.
      He bustled around the cabin, if it could be called that—only four ramshackle walls guarding a square dirt floor. He cleaned up the worst from the delivery and sat on an old wooden stool by his wife's side.
      Hanae spoke softly to their daughter, entranced and oblivious to the danger that faced them.
      "We need to perform the Gleaming ceremony," Raiden said, smoothing his wife's sticky hair back from her soft brow. "We need to know."
      Hanae's arms tightened around the child. She didn't look at him. He could see that in that moment, she only had eyes for her daughter.
      "She's weak—she's barely taken her first breath. Let's wait a little longer. Until she has a chance to gain her strength."
      "My love. No daughter of yours could ever be weak. We talked of this. It must be now. We must know. Everything depends on what it shows."

Her eyes flashed and she jerked away from his extended hand. "No." Her voice was steel. "I won't let you hurt her."
      "Hanae. We must. So they do not." He stroked her cheek softly. "We swore . . . that we would not let them do to her what they did to Saeko." Why they had named their first daughter, he didn't know. She had only lived two days.
      Hanae's shoulders slumped, and the iron grip of her arms loosened. She turned back and offered him the bundle.
      "You are right," she said, as a tear slid from the corner of her eye to her ear, leaving a trail through the dried salt of her sweat. "But I can't watch."
      She turned away from him, pulling her knees to her chest in a ball.
      He stood before the small basin of water, resting on a rickety table on the other side of the cabin and unwrapped their daughter. She was so beautiful. Even red and wrinkled, he could tell she had her mother's fine hands, delicate but strong. She had his square jawbone. He wondered whether she would be as stubborn as he was in his youth. But he was delaying.
      He plunged her into the water and held her there, his own heart hammering in his chest like a wild beast desperate to be set free. He began counting. Ten. She flailed under the water, her tiny limbs no match for his strong calloused hands. Thirty. At sixty, he could let her up. And try to save her. Fifty. Relief and hope began to well in him.
      And then a bright, white light exploded from his daughter. He stumbled back, throwing an arm over his eyes. She illuminated the cabin, shining silver light into cobwebbed corners and dusty crevices.
      After a few seconds, the light died, and his daughter was herself again. Tiny, pink, floating on top of the water peacefully. He and Hanae locked eyes. She had turned over and was half sitting up on her cot. The look of helpless horror on her face was mirrored on his own.
      "I knew she would be," Hanae said softly. "A moonburner. And a strong one."
      "What do we do?"
      "We hide her. We keep her alive."

Moonburner
Available NOW!

The Series: Moonburner

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Burning Fate: A Moonburner Novella [0.5]

**FREE when you subscribe to the author's newsletter**

Azura, heir to the throne of Miina, is resigned to her fate. She must marry her mortal enemy in the hopes of ending a centuries long war. But when a handsome and enticing stranger appears on the horizon, she is swept up in an illicit but undeniable romance.

When a false accusation puts her new love’s head on the chopping block, Azura must give up all she knows in a daring and desperate plot to save him.

[Published 12 June 2016, 103 pages]

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About the Author

Claire Luana grew up in Edmonds, Washington, reading everything she could get her hands on and writing every chance she could get. Eventually, adulthood won out and she turned her writing talents to more scholarly pursuits, graduating from University of Washington School of Law and going to work as a commercial litigation attorney at a mid-sized law firm.

While continuing to practice law, Claire decided to return to her roots and try her hand once again at creative writing. Her first novel, Moonburner, will be published in 2016 with Soul Fire Press, an imprint of Christopher Matthews Publishing. She is currently working on the sequel, Sunburner. In her (little) remaining spare time, she loves to hike, travel, run, play with her two dogs, and of course, fall into a good book.

Follow Claire Luana:

Giveaway and Tour Stops

Enter to win a copy of Moonburner, a free e-copy of Burning Fate, the prequel to Moonburner (only available in electronic form), and a $50 Amazon gift card (INT).
a Rafflecopter giveaway