Sagacious Books
Bu is twelve and near-sighted, an unwanted daughter sent to a music audition. If she fails, she’s on her own. Elderly Granny Zim, who knows that soon she must retire as head of the music academy, is fascinated by YinYin, a student who might not be human. YinYin and Bu become friends. Life is settling down when warships show up on the horizon. It’s the imperials, here to demand tribute. They take Bu, YinYin, and Granny Zim to a new, uncertain life in the troubled empire, where their only skill is their music. But Granny Zim knows that music is a knife without a hilt. Tribute , first in a series set in the world of The Phoenix Feather series, takes the reader on an adventure from the human world to the realm of the transcendent, via friendship, love, and questions about power, responsibility, and what it means to be human.
Set in the tumultuous, magic-filled history of the Phoenix Feather quartet… How did scholarly, modest Lan Renti, lowest ranking of the troubled imperial clan, rise to become the Sage Empress, first woman ruler in the long history of the Empire of a Thousand Isles? Aware of how the official records embellish (or sidestep) the truth, she’s determined to set the record straight. In this first volume, she begins with her life in the imperial palace until the catastrophic injustice that flung her as a young teen into the dangerous world of the Warring Princes to seek her missing brother. Secret identities, a talking sword, and a friendship that might become something more, land her outside the law as a gallant wanderer. Only, what happens when “the law” becomes increasingly unjust? Ren grapples with that question as her first mission, supposedly simple, becomes fraught with wide-ranging consequences…
Set in the tumultuous, magic-filled history of Tribute and the Phoenix Feather quartet… The second half of the story of sixteen-year-old Lan Renti’s rise to the phoenix throne begins literally in the air, as she returns to her ship of wanderers, crying hard after leaving the brother she sought for four years. But her brother sees her as a young girl needing protection—a traditional role. Ren begins a wandering life from one end of the Empire of a Thousand Isles to the other as she seeks to rescue her parents, unfairly imprisoned. It seems the only way to do that is to refashion the empire that has been riven by warring princes—in spite of vigorous objection by said princes. She is accompanied by Sagacious Blade, the talking sword, and a growing group of companions—leading to the discovery of romance. The conflict between tradition and revolution, the threat of chaos and the yearning for order, is embodied in Ren, who struggles to bring to a traditional world the chance to be heard for those long kept silent. From the fires of war the phoenix is reborn … and this is her story.
The final book in the Phoenix Feather and Sagacious series, Sagacious Blade brings the story full circle. It would be difficult to find two boys more unlike. Friendly, animal-loving Ki Mek, youngest of a sprawling family of gallant wanderers, was born with Essence talent—much to the dismay of the Kis, who only believe in the skills of their blades. Je Tai, the scholarly, reclusive only son of a subsidiary branch of the lofty Ji family, is on his way back to the school where he is studying divination. The two are swept overboard in a terrible storm, and end up made slaves by the western empire, age-old enemies of the Thousand Islands Empire. They escape into adventures martial and magical until they and those they love are swept up in a war spanning two empires. With the aid of Sagacious Blade, both will learn the costs of power…