All Oceans Aglow
A Young Adult fantasy collaboration between Leslie Ann and her husband, writer Aaron Mason, this unique series can be described as Watership Down meets Clan of the Cave Bear meets Romeo and Juliet, melded with every familiar coming-of -age story ever told.
Hailey is a recently widowed mother struggling with a mildly rebellious teenaged daughter and her own grief. Young Ayanna is angry at the universe for taking her father away and wants only to be left alone. To cope with her loss, she withdraws into the fantasy world of comic books and novels. Summer break for Ayanna means spending several weeks at her grandparents' isolated homestead somewhere on the Pacific Northwest coast. While there, a chance encounter with an extraordinary creature on a wrecked fishing boat embroils her in an interspecies war over access to a magical ecosystem that endows the coastal animals with sapience.
Meanwhile, Hailey has an extraordinary encounter of her own, one that begins a journey to a strange realm where communion with a sleeping oceanic deity changes her forever. Together, mother and daughter eventually join forces with intelligent animal allies to save the magical ecosystem from destruction by a rapacious predator known as That Which Devours.
Sleek and Gloss are in love, but the barriers that separate them seem insurmountable. He's a Lontra, a river otter and she's a Lutris, a sea otter. Both are the children of kings, and their two nations are bitter enemies. If their secret love affair is discovered, it will mean deadly consequences for each of them. Sleek is determined to defy the taboo imposed upon them by their respective societies, but Gloss' father has threatened to kill her disabled brother, his own son, whom Gloss loves with all her heart, if she defies him. So, she breaks off the affair, leaving Sleek, and herself, devastated. She has no other choice but to bend to tradition and give up her independence for the restricted life of a Lutris female.
Grief-stricken, Sleek attempts to carry on with his life. One day, a chance encounter with a young Penury--the Lontra word for human--on a derelict fishing boat launches the river otter prince on a path to where the unimaginable happens; two Penury females become allies to the sapient animal community, joining forces with them to defeat That Which Devours, and allow magic to return to the ocean.
All Oceans Aglow begins with the book Littoral Magic, which is currently undergoing a final polish in preparation for a professional edit. Leslie Ann and Aaron are aiming for a 2018 summer release, in time for the World Science Fiction Convention in San José, Ca.
Hailey is a recently widowed mother struggling with a mildly rebellious teenaged daughter and her own grief. Young Ayanna is angry at the universe for taking her father away and wants only to be left alone. To cope with her loss, she withdraws into the fantasy world of comic books and novels. Summer break for Ayanna means spending several weeks at her grandparents' isolated homestead somewhere on the Pacific Northwest coast. While there, a chance encounter with an extraordinary creature on a wrecked fishing boat embroils her in an interspecies war over access to a magical ecosystem that endows the coastal animals with sapience.
Meanwhile, Hailey has an extraordinary encounter of her own, one that begins a journey to a strange realm where communion with a sleeping oceanic deity changes her forever. Together, mother and daughter eventually join forces with intelligent animal allies to save the magical ecosystem from destruction by a rapacious predator known as That Which Devours.
Sleek and Gloss are in love, but the barriers that separate them seem insurmountable. He's a Lontra, a river otter and she's a Lutris, a sea otter. Both are the children of kings, and their two nations are bitter enemies. If their secret love affair is discovered, it will mean deadly consequences for each of them. Sleek is determined to defy the taboo imposed upon them by their respective societies, but Gloss' father has threatened to kill her disabled brother, his own son, whom Gloss loves with all her heart, if she defies him. So, she breaks off the affair, leaving Sleek, and herself, devastated. She has no other choice but to bend to tradition and give up her independence for the restricted life of a Lutris female.
Grief-stricken, Sleek attempts to carry on with his life. One day, a chance encounter with a young Penury--the Lontra word for human--on a derelict fishing boat launches the river otter prince on a path to where the unimaginable happens; two Penury females become allies to the sapient animal community, joining forces with them to defeat That Which Devours, and allow magic to return to the ocean.
All Oceans Aglow begins with the book Littoral Magic, which is currently undergoing a final polish in preparation for a professional edit. Leslie Ann and Aaron are aiming for a 2018 summer release, in time for the World Science Fiction Convention in San José, Ca.