Today I’m so excited to reveal the cover for my pal Rori Shay‘s debut novel, THE ELECTED.
Rori and I met about a year ago when we realized we lived in the same neighborhood. She was agented and still chasing after that elusive first publishing contract, I was published and between agents, and we both had little girls almost precisely the same age. Playdate city! The kids took to the slides while we talked publishing for, like, hours. Now we occasionally ditch the kiddos with our understanding husbands and hit up a local bar for our marathon publishing-talk session. Because, priorities.
The Elected is a future-set dystopian novel, but the characters are what those kids are calling “new adult” these days. In this terrifying, war-torn world, a young woman, marked by birth to be a leader, is forced to pretend to be a boy.
As you might imagine, I’m all over that. And here’s the cover:
In the year 2185, Aloy must masquerade as a boy to claim her country’s presidential role and save her people.
Aloy’s father is the current Elected, the leader of the country, just as her grandfather and great-grandfather were before. Her older brother should fulfill the role, but he disappeared eighteen years ago. Without an Elected, East Country would fall into civil war. With no one else to take his place, Aloy’s parents cut her hair and told her that she could never be a girl again. To assume the role, she must conceal her gender at all costs. If discovered, she risks execution.
In two weeks, Aloy will turn eighteen and take her father’s place. She hopes to govern as he did, but she is inheriting a different country. The long concealed Technology Faction is boldly stepping out of the shadows and, as turmoil grows within East Country, cryptic threats arrive from beyond their borders. After generations of isolation, Aloy knows nothing about their only neighbor, Mid Country. And, East Country doesn’t have the resources to defend itself.
As she struggles to lead, Aloy maintains her cover by marrying a woman, Vienne, but battles with feelings for Griffin, the boy who knows her secret – the boy who is somehow connected to East Country’s upheaval. When assassination attempts add to the turmoil, Aloy doesn’t know whom to trust.
Aloy knows leadership requires sacrifice. She just didn’t expect that the sacrifice might be her life.
Teaser Excerpt: One blonde curl is wrapped lusciously around my pointer finger. I gaze down at it and then force my eyes upward to drink in the image of my face. Long blonde hair trails past my shoulders and onto my back. In the cracked mirror, my eyes squint, trying to capture this one fleeting picture of myself as a girl.
This is what I could look like if I weren’t forced to masquerade as a boy.
Add it on Goodreads.
Visit her website.
Check her out on Twitter: @rorishaywrites
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