Here is an excerpt from my latest novel, Trinity’s Redemption. It is the start of Chapter Two, “Birth and Rebirth” and in some way is meant to repudiate the hackneyed and overused ‘show not tell.’ I prefer ‘interesting, not boring.’ Apparently, they stopped teaching that in writing school.
In any case, here goes.
My first memory is of the most beautiful place on Earth. It was June 2116. I was two and standing with Poppa too near to the edge of a mountain precipice. We were in Vågan, Norway, a spectacular stretch of land in Nordland, which itself is a thin strip of earth in the center of the country. Vågan is actually on a coastal island, and lovely, and so of course Poppa had purchased a large chunk of it as a nature preserve. It was frozen over nine months of the year, but in summers, it was spectacular. I remember Mom’s standing behind us, trying not to look worried with the wind blowing her soft dark hair in wild frills around her lovely face. The sun was warm, but the wind was biting, and Mom hated the cold more than anything.
The view before me was of the mountains of Lofoten, craggy ice-covered rocks jutting out of the crystal Norwegian Sea as though God had placed them there just to show off. Our viewpoint had us looking between grass-covered and bare-rock outcroppings, with the valley floor, the sea, and a village of colorful buildings laying beyond and beneath us. I was so taken by the view that I nearly wet myself with excitement. Still, it was my mother’s face—a combination of terror and rapture—that truly captured my awe.
She was the most beautiful thing on Earth, I was certain, not those silly old rocks. Poppa let go of my hand for a moment, being absent-minded, as he often was, and fortuitously, I ran not to the edge but to Mom, whose gasp and then smile caused me to forget the view altogether. I don’t remember much after that except that Poppa’s inattention led my mom to lay into him and begin the first of many dramatic arguments I witnessed during my childhood. I have tried to, in turn, forget and then recall them via hypnosis, to no avail. They sit there at the dark edges of my memory, refusing to either leave or come into the light.
Assholes.
After that, the next thing I remember is sitting in the plush seat of one of the Institute’s private jets, flying to a new planet called America, where Mom said she and I would be living “for a while.” I distinctly recall not wanting to live in ‘Merica, but Mom wouldn’t listen. I loved Norway; I loved being Norwegian. Nynorsk was the natural way people spoke, even Mom’s heavily accented version. English was an odd, pseudo-Germanic tongue and the sound of it grated my nerves and made my ears itch. I was broken-hearted, because I didn’t want to leave Poppa or Jasper, his trusted valet.
Trinity’s Redemption is both prequel and sequel to Hard As Roxx, spanning the years before Trint Sandahl met Roxanne Grail of the latter novel and resuming the story post Roxx, culminating with her becoming Chan and taking up residence in the Aligned Worlds. Trinity’s Redemption serves as Book 7 in the series, with Hard As Roxx serving as an addendum to it, along with The Stream Series.
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