Melanie Fielding and her brother Andrew Landreth-Stephens may not have always agreed on much over the years. But when it comes to their children, and the potential threat presented to them by the mysterious device called the Gizmo, Melanie and Andrew are in firm agreement. The Gizmo is toxic. They will not expose their teenaged children to the device’s manipulations.
However. This choice means that neither Melanie nor Andrew are allowed access within the inner circles of the Corporate Courts, which manage and control the Gizmo—and the Courts, led by their mother Diana, scheme to bring their children under Gizmo’s control.
Meanwhile, the Gizmo is stirring. It just takes one big mistake by Andrew’s son Rick—and an error by Melanie’s daughter Bess—to upset a delicate balance of fifteen years. Can Bess, working with her dead Netwalker great-grandmother Sarah and her cousin Rick, manage to thwart the aims of Gizmo, Diana, and the Corporate Courts?
What will be the price they pay for resisting Gizmo?
Joyce Reynolds-Ward has been called “the best writer I’ve never heard of” by one reviewer. She has published over 32 books that include themes of high-stakes family, corporate, and political conflict, digital sapience, personal agency, realistic strong women, and (whenever possible) horses, frequently in Pacific Northwest settings.
She is the author of six speculative fiction series: The Netwalk Sequence, Goddess's Honor, The Martiniere Legacy Quartet, The People of the Martiniere Legacy, The Martiniere Multiverse, and The Cost of Power as well as standalones Vision of Alliance, Federation Cowboy, Beating the Apocalypse, Klone's Stronghold: Reeni and Alien Savvy.
Joyce is a Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Semifinalist, a Writers of the Future SemiFinalist, and an Anthology Builder Finalist. She is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, co-chair of SFWA’s Independent Author Committee, and a member of Soroptimists International.