Title: The Fledgling’s Inferno
Author: Tamar Anolic
Genre: Military science fiction
Book Blurb:
You don’t know what power you have inside of you.
Eighteen-year-old Katie McMann enrolls in Norwich University’s Corps of Cadets to follow a family tradition of service. Everything becomes complicated when her training exercises reveal she has a special power: she can fly. To her shock, Katie becomes the first woman to be diagnosed with the rare MH1 gene, a recessive trait that runs in military families and has recently been scientifically proven after more than a century of being urban legend. Former Marine and current Citadel cadet Francis William Montgomery IV also has the gene and special powers of his own- he can shoot fire with his hands and is immune to bullets. But Montgomery is aligned with the Pentagon’s secretive Military Genetics Control Board, led by the harsh Colonel Henry Gibson and aided by the sinister Norwich professor Tristan Hayes. All three men want to engineer the MH1 gene so that it only manifests in worthy recipients- and Katie is not in the plan. Under the tutelage of Norwich’s Cadet Colonel, Edward Coltrane, Katie must learn to harness her powers in time for the fight of her life.
Excerpt:
Katie bit her lip as she got in line behind several other new recruits. She watched as the first recruits made their way across the rope, hand over hand thirty feet in the air. There were about fifteen recruits in front of her, and she became increasingly cold and tired as she waited for each of them to finish. Two slow recruits struggled to get across, and Katie hoped that the longer they took, the more likely it would be that the older cadets would cancel the exercise entirely.
Before Katie was ready, it was her turn to go. She climbed the first tree as high as she could and leapt up onto the rope. The recruit in front of her had now made it to the halfway point between the trees. For a second, Katie watched him sway as he struggled to maintain his position. Then she put one hand in front of the other, moving forward as fast as she could. She glanced down. Electricity ran up and down her legs as her eyes comprehended the full thirty feet between her and the ground. For a second, Katie felt like she was falling, and it took all of her self-control not to scream. She gripped the rope tighter and prayed.
When she looked back at the recruit in front of her, he had stopped moving and was just hanging there, his hands clutching the rope. “Move, idiot!” Katie yelled before she could stop herself. “You can’t just stop in the middle!”
But the recruit remained where he was. Furious, Katie began moving forward again, putting one hand in front of the other in an attempt to get him to move. She had only gotten a few feet when she saw what had made him stop: the other end of the rope, which had been tied so tightly to the other tree, had now come loose. The knot slipped and the rope began sliding towards the ground.
Katie yelled in fear. Her voice reached her ears as if she were in a long tunnel. Then the rope slipped faster. Katie’s stomach dropped, and her heart raced. The recruit in front of her began to fall, screaming as he plunged to the ground. Katie began to fall too. Her stomach lurched, but she felt like she was moving in slow motion.
Katie’s fingers dropped the useless rope as she cursed having gotten herself into this situation. You could have gone to Champlain College or UVM, she thought. But no…
She looked at the ground, expecting it to race towards her. Then, before she knew what she was doing, she lifted her arms. Katie took a deep breath and felt the wind beneath her feet and arms. Everything around her slowed down. Time slowed down. Katie looked around her and saw everything floating past her instead of racing. The wind moved past her ears in a quiet breeze, as if it had all the time in the world. Katie flew to the ground and landed on her feet as easily as if she were stepping off a flight of stairs.
It took her a moment to realize that she was on the ground again. When she came to her senses, Katie pressed her boots onto the ground once, then twice, before she felt the campus’ velvet grass beneath her feet. Only then did she know she was safe, and relief flowed through her body like water.
Suddenly, Katie’s ears began to work again. All at once, the roar of hundreds of cadets, all talking at the same time, cascaded through the air. Specific words reached Katie’s ears as the cadets swarmed around her. “What just happened?” someone asked.
Then other cadets began yelling: “How did you do that?” “She can fly!”
Katie shook her head, stunned. Her whole body felt rooted to the ground now, and it was hard for her even to move her head back and forth.
Coltrane pushed his way through the cadets and planted himself right in front of Katie. The cadets around them moved a healthy distance away, but every single one of them was watching the impending confrontation.
Coltrane glared at Katie.
She took a step back.
Coltrane took a step forward. Now he was directly in Katie’s face again. “McMann, what the hell just happened?” he yelled.
Buy Links:
Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/3WmZIoR
What makes your featured book a must-read?
This book has a unique premise and setting. As one reviewer put it, “The Fledgling's Inferno is an exciting and enjoyable book. The story is robust, with many turns and twists. The main character is strong and confident.”
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Author Biography:
Tamar’s first novel is The Last Battle, about a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. She has also written extensively about the Romanovs: her recent novel, Tales of the Romanov Empire, has won numerous awards, and her alternate history series (Triumph of a Tsar, Through the Fire and The Imperial Spy) took first place in the Chanticleer International Book Awards for Series. Tamar’s short story collection, The Lonely Spirit, is an Indie Brag Medallion winner and won first place in the Chanticleer International Book Awards for Short Story Collections and Novellas. Many of her individual short stories have been published in literary journals.
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