Kelley Swilley Ceccato was sick and tired of reading sci-fi and fantasy books that treated women and girls as second fiddles. Under the pen name Nan Monroe, Ceccato, a writer/performer with the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, decided to write a young adult fantasy novel specifically for girls.
Published by Gilded Dragonfly Books, the 300-page Atterwald tells the story of shape-shifting were-folk and if tribal ties and destiny can co-exist.
Is Tribe destiny? The shape-shifting were-folk called hal’ryth’kei believe so. By their lights, young Nicht Naught Nothing, born to the Rat Tribe, is bound to become a ruthless marauder. But Nichtel, moved by whispers on the wind that only she can hear, dreams of a different kind of life and runs away from her people. Adopted by a family of the Mouse Tribe, she finds a measure of stability,but still she feels out of place and hopes for the chance to do some great good.
This chance may come when she falls into the hands of Baltasar, a cold-hearted mouse-wizard who believes she can cure his invalid son Meinrad. If she succeeds, Baltasar tells her, all his treasures — save one — are hers for the asking. Equipped with a fertile imagination and a violin with which she weaves a magic yet unheard of, she dedicates herself to the task. Yet as she is drawn more and more deeply into Meinrad’s life and his world, she finds the one thing she wants most is the thing Baltasar would withhold from her: Her patient’s love.
Atterwald is available for Amazon Kindle for just $4.99!