☀ The Heaviness of Knowing: The Conscious Dreamer [1] - Sharolyn G. Brown

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Heaviness of Knowing, a Dystopian Science Fiction novel by Sharolyn G. Brown (1 July 2016, Sharolyn Brown, 382 pages).

This is the first book in The Conscious Dreamer series.

Don't miss our interview with author Sharolyn G. Brown.

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

The Heaviness of Knowing is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Author Sharolyn G. Brown will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card 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 | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

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Synopsis

You can't unknow the truth.

Roxal wishes she didn’t know Trebor’s gods, The Keepers, were fake. Because even though she knows the truth, to stay alive, she continues to use her Dream Traveler ability to manipulate an Earth woman named Lauren to do their bidding. Roxal’s acutely aware of what this will mean for Earth, and yet she’s content pretending to be a loyal follower. But now The Keepers are searching for non-believers, and her mate’s activities with a rebel faction have put them both in danger.

Meanwhile on Earth, Lauren is struggling to find balance at work and at home. To make matters worse, she develops an acute case of insomnia which totally disrupts her life. While trying to cure her condition, Lauren discovers that not only do aliens exist, but that she’s been in contact with one for most of her life. And that’s just for starters.

Lauren’s world has been turned upside down. And Roxal knows pretending will no longer keep her safe. Can Roxal figure out how to fight for her survival now that hiding is no longer an option?

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Teaser: Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

      Blending in to the point of being invisible was the only way Roxal knew to survive. So she stood quietly in formation with her fellow Travelers caste members, waiting to enter the assembly hall for an unscheduled Glorious Session. Unscheduled gatherings never meant anything good, but Roxal did not let her worry show. Like the sea of people all around her dressed in their identical cobalt blue uniforms, she stood erect, looking forward, with her hands clasped behind her back. Her stance matched that of everyone around her. No one fidgeted; they all just silently waited until it was time for the Travelers to enter.
      When the shrill tone sounded, everyone stepped forward in unison, right foot first. Once through the doors, smaller groups split off with precision as people went to their assigned seating areas. The room was noiseless, except for the sound of marching, even though thousands of Citizens had already entered and many thousands more were silently streaming in.
      The assembly hall was a massive, four-sided room designed to reinforce the strict caste system in which they all lived: the lower your rank, the lower your seating area. Along the outer wall where the doors were located, there was a walkway that went around the entire room. However, to get from the walkway to the seats, there were only four floating walkways on each caste’s level that connected to their assigned seat section, like spokes running from the outer section of a wheel to the central hub.
      In the case of her assembly room, the central hub was also four-sided and sloped at an angle, like the four-sided pyramids that Roxal’s Earth Connection, Lauren, had once shown her. There was a slight difference from the pyramids she had been shown, however. Instead of the sloped walls meeting at the top to form a triangular point, the top of the hub was a broad, flat platform on which the highest in their society, The Keepers’ Representatives, sat during Sessions. When seated, everyone else had to continuously look up to see them.
      The seats were arranged in concentric boxes around the hub. One level down from The Keepers’ Representatives was the seating section for the next highest caste group, the Talented and Honored Citizens. Below them was the seating section for Roxal’s caste group, the Travelers. And at the bottom was the Helpers and Laborers caste. Roxal, thankfully, had always been a Traveler, so she knew nothing about the lowest caste beyond what her various assigned Helpers had told her through the annums.
      Everything on Trebor revolved around their caste system. Children were created in birth pods of thirty beings. Once gestated, you were trained and educated together until the age of ten annums. At ten, each child began a series of aptitude tests to determine his or her caste designation. Travelers were identified first, and then the remaining children were sorted into Helpers and Laborers. Membership in the higher groups, the Talented and Honored and The Keepers’ Representatives, could only be earned through ascension. Ascension was a gift bestowed on the obedient by their gods, The Keepers. And assemblies such as Glorious Session were just one of the many ways obedience was reinforced.
      Attending Glorious Session was a solemn occasion, so once Roxal was seated, she sat in silence with her head raised so that she could see the platform where The Keepers’ Representatives would eventually sit. She watched as the last of the Talented and Honored took their seats. The Representatives would not enter until everyone else was inside. Their sacredness demanded they not mingle long with the masses.
      The thought of this lie and the many others that she once believed left her feeling anger towards those who had taught them to her and shame at how, for most of her life, she had accepted the lies as the truth. Actually, the shame she felt was also mixed with some anger, because even though she now knew the truth, she still had to pretend that she believed the lies for her own safety.
      Her conformity allowed her to be invisible. Roxal did nothing to bring notice to herself. She dressed the part of loyal Traveler. She talked the part of loyal Traveler when not around Edo, who had taught her the truth. She acted the part of loyal Traveler. Being invisible allowed her to stay alive, so she perfected her invisibility.
      [...]

The Heaviness of Knowing
Available NOW!

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About the Author

Sharolyn G. Brown is a lifelong science fiction and fantasy fan who decided the best way to deal with all of the characters in her head was to give them stories and put them in a book. She lives with her husband in Houston, Texas where she divides her time between working, writing, and spending time with him.

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