All Things Rise

by Missouri Vaun

Overview

Cole rescues Ava, a pilot from the Cloud City of Easton who crash-lands near her farm, setting in motion events that will alter the course of her life. It’s a hundred years after peak oil and the rich have risen above the Earth, inhabiting great Cloud Cities, while those left behind live a rural existence, off the grid. After suffering a vicious attack, Cole is transported to the Cloud City of Easton for emergency surgery. While recuperating and adrift in the unfamiliar social landscape of Easton, Cole begins a journey of discovery. When she meets Audrey, a beautiful doctor, the attraction they share is penetrating and possibly life altering. Explosions, staged by a ruthless underground movement, nearly bring Easton to the brink of collapse. The crisis that rocks the city forces Cole and Audrey to weigh what truly holds meaning and what each is willing to sacrifice for love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626393462
Publisher:	Bold Strokes Books
Publication date:	05/12/2015
Series:	Return to Earth
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Missouri Vaun grew up in rural southern Mississippi, where she spent lazy summers conjuring characters and imagining the worlds they might inhabit. It might be a little-known fact that Mississippi breeds eccentrics, and eccentrics make for good storytelling. Missouri spent twelve years finding her voice as a working journalist in places as disparate as Chicago and Jackson, Mississippi, all along filing away characters and concepts until they seemed to rise up, fully formed. Her stories are heartfelt, earthy, and speak of loyalty and our responsibility to others. She and her wife will celebrate their sixth anniversary this summer.

Editorial Reviews

04/13/2015
In this clumsy debut, set in a devastated and stratified future, the wealthiest live in cloud cities, the poor scrounge for resources on the ground, and everyone is strangely unconcerned about repopulating the world. Airship pilot Ava, literally flying away from awkward sexual tension with doctor Audrey, crashes her airship and is saved by boyish, delightful Cole, who welcomes Ava into her lesbian aunts’ home for real, unsynthesized food and surprising human warmth. Then a hungry marauder stabs Cole, forcing Ava to fly her to the cloud city of Easton for emergency medical care (provided by Audrey) and recovery in the midst of Ava’s gossipy and all-women social environment. When Cole and Audrey fall suddenly and deeply in love, they must navigate the awkwardness with Ava while deciding whether their relationship can survive their class differences. A subplot about revolution makes little sense, and though the book aims for emotional intensity, it fails to provide believable tension in either the individual social interactions or in the greater social conflicts between groundlings and city dwellers. Vaun wastes the potential of her postapocalyptic setting with a bland story of love at first sight. (June)

Publishers Weekly