A few weeks ago, author Anna Silver visited my blog to explain how her young adult series Otherborn compares to other dystopian novels.  Anna combines fantasy, science fiction, and dystopian elements to create a truly original world in the Otherborn series. (Actually, it’s two worlds!)   I’m excited to announce that the second book in the series, Astral Tide, releases TODAY, February 28, 2014.

To give you a refresher on the Otherborn series, here’s a look into the story:

London and her friends are fugitives in a reprocessed world where anything New is illegal. But as Otherborn, they’re different. They can dream and create, which hasn’t gone unnoticed. After fleeing CapitalCity with an assassin on their heels, the Otherborn found nothing went according to plan. Now, they are down by two and on the run in the Outroads, but the Tycoons keep mysteriously gaining on them. And seven months later, London is no closer to her promise to go back for Rye, if there is anything left to go back for. But Zen is teaching London that there may be more to her heart than the pieces she left behind, and London can’t help but feel guilty about not looking back since they fled New Eden. Should she hold on to hope that Rye is more than just a memory, or embrace a new life and love with Zen?

Anna has shared an excerpt of AstralTide with us today.  In this scene, London has returned to the Astral plane in a dream as her Other. As her powers to use the Astral grow, she struggles to come to terms with how it is changing her and blurring the lines between her waking self, London, and her dream self, Si’dah.

Around her, the green blades of grass began to run together, melting into a watery landscape to reflect her mood. The Astral was sulking like a scolded pet. If she didn’t watch it, she’d sink straight through to the Lowplane and have to wade her way through the marshes. These were setbacks she didn’t need.

In the time they’d recovered their memories and taken up training with Hantu-Degan, she’d become so intertwined with the Astral itself that she impacted it often when she didn’t want to. Hantu called it “warping”. It was a show of power, but also a display of how little control she had. What she needed to learn was how to help London pull the Astral into their world and shape it to fit their needs. Not how to warp the Astral planes like wet paint.

 “I see something is on your mind.” Her teacher’s kind voice floated to her.

Si’dah looked up to see Hantu at her side. She never noticed his approach. He was good at that. “How can you tell?” she asked facetiously. This was London’s dour humor coming out in her.

Hantu smiled. “You are so much like one another now. It’s funny to think you were ever apart from her.”

Si’dah squinted into the distance where great walls of rock were springing up on the horizon, a spontaneous mountain range. “It gets harder to keep myself separate,” she said, and the mountains plummeted back into the ground of the Midplane, a cloud of dust rising in their stead.

Hantu was untroubled by this. “So don’t. Surrender to her, Si’dah. You are one now. Accept it.”

Si’dah sighed and looked at Hantu. His proud lines were forever changed by the Other’s presence. He no longer looked like the Hantu she knew, nor the Degan London had known, but an eerie combination of both. “As you have?”

“Yes,” he said. “You know that’s what’s holding you back. You must open yourself fully to London as she must open herself fully to you. For all your power here, for all your learning, you cannot bring that into her world until you drop the barriers you keep erecting.”

“I don’t want to lose myself…again.” It was the truth. Waking up to remember after sixteen years of forgetting was too hard on both of them. If she let go, would she slip away again? Disappear?

“You won’t,” Hantu assured her. “You can’t lose yourself in London because you are London. Just as you can’t lose yourself in the Astral, because you are the Astral. It is the fabric you are stitched from, understand?”She didn’t understand, but she was trying. She looked down to see her once stick-straight hair bunch into rippling waves. Si’dah gasped and they relaxed— some. Soon she would be like Hantu-Degan, a seamless blend of London and herself. Who knew where one began and the other ended?

 Want to read more?  Look for Astral Tide here:

• Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20572253-astral-tide
• Book trailer on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbehpsKV4zA
• Paperback listing on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/149599919X
• Ebook listing on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Astral-Tide-Otherborn-Anna-Silver-ebook/dp/B00INC8J32/

• Ebook listing on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/411645

• Ebook listing on Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/astral-tide

Also, enter the Rafflecopter giveaway for some cool prizes from Anna!

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Anna Silver is an author and artist living in the greater Houston area with her family, pets, and overactive imagination. She studied English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University. Otherborn, her first published novel, has been featured on two of Amazon’s “Bestsellers” lists. She is represented by Rebecca Podos and Nicole LaBombard of Rees Literary Agency.