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The Gauntlet Runner

Liminal Sky: Tharassas Cycle Book 2

by J. Scott Coatsworth

A guard and a thief. What could go wrong?

Aik has fallen hopelessly in love with his best friend. But Raven's a thief, which makes things … complicated. Oh, and Raven has just been kidnapped by a dragon.

Now Aik is off on a quest of his own, to hunt down the foul beast and make them give back his … friend? Lover? Soulmate? The whole not-knowing thing just makes everything harder.

Meanwhile, the world of Tharassas is falling apart, besieged by earthquakes, floods, and strange creatures no one has ever seen before. Aik's ex, Silya has gone back to Gullton to try to save her people as the Hencha Queen, and Aik's stuck in a caravan with her mother and a damnable magical gauntlet that won't let him be. He has to find Raven, before it’s too late.

Things were messy before … but now they're much, much worse.

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Published:
Publisher: Other Worlds Ink
Cover Artists:
Kelley York

Genres:
Fantasy, Fantasy - LGBTQ+, Fantasy - Young Adult, Sci Fi, Sci Fi - Alien Races, Sci Fi - Aliens, Sci Fi - Artificial Intelligence, Sci Fi - Colonization, Sci Fi - Distant Planet, Sci Fi - First Contact, Sci Fi - Frontier, Sci Fi - Galactic Empire, Sci Fi - Hopepunk, Sci Fi - LGBTQ+, Sci Fi - Lost Worlds, Sci Fi - New Adult, Sci Fi - Science Fantasy, Sci Fi - Terraforming, Sci Fi - Young Adult

Tags:
author - american, format - book, format - hardcover, format - kindle, format - novel, format - novel <100K, format - paperback, format - sequel, format - series, identity - bisexual, identity - gay, potential trigger - abduction-captivity, what - topic - magic, what - topic - multicultural, what - topic - politics, where - non-Earth planet, who - occupation - guard, who - occupation - law enforcement, who - occupation - priest, who - occupation - thief, who - type - alien, who - type - altered human, who - type - badass heroine, who - type - dragons, who - type - magical humans

Tropes: Abandoned Place, Alien Artifacts, Alien Eggs, Alien Invasion, Ancient Weapon, Antihero, Band of Misfits, Benevolent Aliens, Body Modifications, Born Hero, Cross-Species Friendships, Dragonriders, Enemy to Ally, Evolving Powers, Fallen Hero, Found Family, Killer Aliens, Lost Civilization, Magic Talisman, Powerful Artifact, Prophesy, Quest, Redemption Arc, Reluctant Hero, Roguish Thief, Sentient AI
Word Count: 96,000
Setting: Other World
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Continuous / Same Characters
Tropes: Abandoned Place, Alien Artifacts, Alien Eggs, Alien Invasion, Ancient Weapon, Antihero, Band of Misfits, Benevolent Aliens, Body Modifications, Born Hero, Cross-Species Friendships, Dragonriders, Enemy to Ally, Evolving Powers, Fallen Hero, Found Family, Killer Aliens, Lost Civilization, Magic Talisman, Powerful Artifact, Prophesy, Quest, Redemption Arc, Reluctant Hero, Roguish Thief, Sentient AI
Word Count: 96,000
Setting: Other World
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Continuous / Same Characters
Excerpt:

About the Author

Scott lives with his husband of 25 years in a leafy Sacramento, California suburb, in a little yellow house with a brick fireplace and a couple pink flamingoes out front. He has always inhabited the space between the here and now and the what could be. Indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine, he devoured her library. But as he grew up and read the golden age classics and more modern works as well, he began to wonder where all the people like him were.

After he came out at twenty three, he decided that it was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at Waldenbooks. If there weren’t many gay characters in his favorite genres, he would reimagine them himself, populating them with a diverse universe of characters. He would subvert them and remake them to his own ends. And if he was lucky enough, someone else would want to read the things he wrote.

His friends say Scott’s brain works a little differently – he sees relationships between things that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week. Although he was born an introvert, he learned to reach outside himself and connect with others like him.

Scott writes stories that subvert expectations, that seek to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something new and unexpected. He also runs both Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that bring people like them together to promote and celebrate fiction that reflects their own reality.

His writing, whether romance or genre fiction (or a little bit of both) brings a queer energy to his stories, infusing them with love, beauty and power and making them soar. He imagines a world that could be, and in the process, maybe changes the world that is, just a little.

He was recognized as one of the top new gay authors in the 2017 Rainbow Awards, and his debut novel “Skythane” received two awards and an honorable mention.

He runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, and is a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

You can find him at Goodreads here, on Amazon here, on QueeRomance Ink here, and on Facebook here.