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Overview: Claudie Arseneault is an easily-enthused aromantic and asexual writer with a never-ending cycle of obsessions but an enduring love for all things cephalopod and fantasy (together or not!). She writes stories that centre platonic relationships and loves large casts and single-city settings, the most notable of which are the City of Spires series and Baker Thief (2018).
Genre: Fiction > Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Book #1 – Awakenings
Innkeep, hunter, blacksmith, nurse—Horace has apprenticed for every clan in the domed city of Trenaze, and they’ve all rejected em. Too hare-brained. Too talkative. Too slow. Ever the optimist, e has joined Trenaze’s guards to be mentored. Horace has high hopes to earn eir place during eir trial at the Great Market. That is, until the glowing shards haunting the world break through the city’s protective dome, fused together in a single, monstrous amalgam of Fragments.
Armed with a sword, a shield, and far too little training, Horace doubts eir ability to defend the market-goers. But eir last stand is interrupted by a mysterious elven figure who can dissipate the Fragments with a single, strange sentence: your story is my story.
From the moment it is uttered, Horace knows the sentences holds true for em, too—and when the elf collapses in the middle of the market, e carries them to safety, to recover away from the panicked crowd and inevitable questions from eir fellow guards. It could cost em eir apprenticeship—eir last chance to find eir place in eir home city—but Horace cannot resist the pull of this mystery elf and the call of a new friend.
Aliyah has but one desire: to leave Trenaze’s safe boundaries and find the forest that haunts their dreams. After an afternoon of board games in their quiet, sharp-witted company, Horace is ready to follow, confronting Fragments and other dangers of the road to understand what happened that day, hear Aliyah’s laugh again and finally feel like e belongs.
Book #2 – Flooded Secrets
Fate and friendship brought Horace, Rumi, and Aliyah together in Rumi’s Wandering Wagon of Wonderful Wares, a sentient self-propelling wagon. They seek the forest haunting Aliyah’s dream, hoping for answers about their past and their unique abilities—but for that, they need to traverse a world haunted by Fragments, dangerous shards that can possess travellers.
With the Fragments in the wilderness, banditry was the last danger Horace had expected on the road—but not even that could stop Keza Nesmit. Swift and deadly with a staff, Keza drops on the Wagon crew, claiming most of their provisions before vanishing back into the Tesrima Ridge. As if to compound their bad luck, the tunnel that serves as the only pass through the mountain is flooded and impassable.
Keza reappears, and she’s willing to show them the source of the flooding, a waterway blocked by Fragments, in the hopes that they can unblock it—and just like with the stolen food, she won’t answer any questions about her motives, no matter how friendly. Abrasive, confident, and eager to bicker, Keza makes for a thorny companion, but they’ll need to work together to free the pass and continue their travel.
As they unravel the Fragments’ blockage, so, too, do they chip away at Keza’s walls. But the cost of breaking both is far higher than anticipated, and Horace is about to learn that some secrets are better left untouched.
Book #3 – The Sea Spirit Festival
Fate and friendship brought Horace, Rumi, Keza, and Aliyah together in Rumi’s sentient self-propelling wagon. They seek the forest haunting Aliyah’s dream, hoping for answers about the elf’s past and unique abilities—but first, they need to traverse a world haunted by Fragments, dangerous shards that can possess travellers.
Their journey has brought them to Alleaze, a coastal city from which they hope to book passage across the ocean. But Alleaze’s regular life has stopped, giving way to the excitement of the Sea Spirit Festival, a weeks-long event. Forcefully grounded, the Wagon crew is more than happy to partake in the local festivities, brimming with games, seaside delicacies, and legends about the Bay.
But the Festival is more than one big celebration: it is a crucial time during which the Bay’s Spirit guides its residents to their new life path and chooses a Storm Catcher, a divine hero meant to revitalize the Spirit’s strength.
When the Festival winds down and no Storm Catcher has been chosen, panic washes over Alleaze and the Wagon crew finds itself embroiled in the subsequent chaos. In order to help Alleaze find its local hero and be allowed to sail out, they will need to confront the truth behind the legend of the Sea Spirit—and survive it.
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