Soon to be featured on Twinja's Blog for a Cover Reveal!

The super fab gals at Twinja are going to do a cover reveal for my upcoming science fiction novel, Daughter of Zeus.

The reveal will most likely happen on Wednesday May 21st, with the book's release happening on July 7th. Until then, here's a teaser for Daughter of Zeus. Be ready for the cover reveal, which will include a giveaway!

A human battery...

Too bad she didn’t really know what she was doing. Ada’s powers had recently manifested, and she was still learning how to use them. Zapping roaches and overriding ATM machines came to her naturally, like breathing. Powering a car would hopefully come as naturally.

Ada closed her eyes and took deep breaths, the kind of deep breaths her mom would be proud of. She imagined her mom on the brink of one of her many anxiety attacks, and it was hard not to smile: Just doin’ my breathin’ exercises. Deep breathing worked, brought her out of the panic bubble. In her state of rest, she reached out with her mind to the dormant engine. She imagined the car alive with electricity. The car started. Immediately, Ada felt a pull, like an invisible harness on her chest. The harness was tied to the engine, pulling and pulling but she wasn’t going anywhere. It hurt being a human power source.

“Route to home.” Ada gasped.

“Routing to home. We will reach your destination in five minutes.”

Five minutes? She doubted she could withstand another ten seconds.

One of the first (feminist) Utopian stories, "The Book of the City of Ladies"

In The Book of the City of Ladies, Christine de Pisan imagines she is transported into another world, a world in which women have rights they never had before. Given the year she penned her story was 1405, some of her ideas of freedom are limited, but they were a step in a much bigger direction.

Pisan starts her story by recalling male-penned stories and articles, all with one thing in common: their negative view of women. As the criticism and outright derision happens so often, Pisan shares her confusion. Surely, all of the men with their view on women couldn’t be wrong, especially since men of 1405 were allowed higher education and women were not, therefore they were considered to be smarter. A large collection of intelligent men could not be wrong, Pisan believed. It is only later when Pisan meets the three Ladies (Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, Lady Justice)  that she rationalizes their views as wrong, citing details as to why men believe women to be inherently stupid and immoral (men are jealous, men are blind). One of the Lady’s puts things into perspective for Pisan through use of comparison. Men believe Eve, the first woman, was evil and she poisoned the whole of women for every generation to come. If men believe women to be inherently evil, why is it they also believe education will corrupt women? How can women be corrupted further if they are born corrupt? Lady Reason sums it up for Pisan, “Here  you can clearly see that not all opinions of men are based on reason and that these men are wrong” (para. 2).

Other parts of Pisan’s story tell of inventions and advantages by women, and other causes of misogyny.

While Pisan’s allegories strive to understand equality for women, there is still a patronizing tone to them throughout, almost an echo of the patriarchy still holding Pisan (and all women) back. She spoke of equality and education for women, but at the same time, the tone of her writing suggested she could never imagine a woman not being defined as a “lady” and a man not be defined as a “gentleman”. In Pisan’s equal world, woman probably would be educated but under male-supervision, and she could probably not have imagined women carrying out roles men traditionally held, such as going to war, being doctors, lawyers, and scientists. Again, in 1405, women had very little rights, and it is arguable that Pisan’s story was realistic in its outlook.