Into the Citadel

Hello, Prospective Readers: I'm James and I hope you'll be signing up to review my book, Into the Citadel. It's Book I of a newly-published dystopian trilogy and includes the first chapter of Book II. This double ending leads you to a bittersweet yet hopeful inflection point that is satisfying on its own while giving a "to be continued" vibe. All efforts will be made to present Books II and III to those of you who sign up for Book I. The story features protagonists who are young (teens-twenties) but not childish; they must after all have or gain the capacity to change the world they live in, so they typically have maturity beyond their years. No sex is portrayed between the young but there's plenty among the grownups, as well as violence—never gratuitous but always in service of the plot. I hope you'll find the mix enjoyable. Here's the back-cover blurb:

THE REBELLION WAS ALIVE, AND IT LIVED IN THEM.

More than a century after an apocalypse-seeking cult brings down civilization—and itself—the priesthood of a new religion rules, commanding unquestioning obedience to its privileged members and violently persecuting seekers of knowledge, who keep secret libraries, plot rebellion, and fall in love against the rules.

Village-born sixteen-year-olds Ronnie and Jenna are at the moment of first separation, Jenna to be confined to the Blessing House in the walled Citadel until she is with priestchild and Ronnie to flee pogrom with the heretic Freethinker Circle. When he announces he’ll go back for her, his father advises him to adopt camouflage and hide “ever closer to power,” but is prevented by sudden attack from imparting a family secret.

Ripped apart by war, high walls, Jenna’s inclusion in a mission to a reviving China, and a tragic misunderstanding that sends them into the arms of others, they pine, their fate and that of their kind now intertwined with the secret—a secret that could change everything.