Between the Mountain and the Sea

R. Morgan

Feb 2021 · The Fourth Gorgon

About this eBook

Olendara — a tropical port city of warring gods and cultures, jungles and canals, faith and obsession.

Before their mother got sick, twins Iyo and Issa couldn’t wait for the end of their apprenticeship. Iyo dreamed of joining the secretive fighters guild and killing the invaders whose harsh rule reduces their lives to mere survival. Issa craved the peace of diving for the waterstones that heal and purify in the hands of the priests. Alone in the sea, no one can sneer at her invader heritage. 

When they steal a divine waterstone in a desperate gamble to cure their mother, they shut themselves out of any future they could have imagined. Instead they enter a world of gods, visions and betrayal. Now their lives, everyone they love and the very existence of their city may be at risk of destruction.

women-authored fantasy, women's friendships, female friendships, female main character, multiple POVs, non-European setting, tropical setting, colonialism, imperialism, culture clash, culture shock, LGBTQ fantasy, nonbinary characters, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialism 

About the author

R. Morgan has prepared all her life to be a writer, though she didn't know it. Like that time she volunteered to protect sea turtles on a beach in Costa Rica and wound up with half her body in the nest at 3 am with a blue plastic bag under the turtle's butt to catch her eggs to relocate them so poachers couldn't find them. Or living in Bangkok, Thailand, which is where she is now for her day job. (She's from the USA, but she has also lived in Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.)Mostly she has worked as a technical editor and a Spanish to English translator in the US, Mexico City, Lima, Moscow and Surabaya, but she has also worked as a dog walker (sometimes taking 11 dogs to the park at once, but usually only two or three), on bilingual websites in Bogotá and Montevideo, and in district court (criminal) and family court in the US as an advocate. She has been asked to interpret from Portuguese even though she doesn't speak Portuguese (it was an emergency) and gotten up at 4 am to edit a meeting report and ended her day at the Bolshoi Theater watching Russian ballet. Her favorite things are long rambling walks, preferably under trees, but a city will do, the smell of rain and a good book. Her favorite poetry anthology is Americans' Favorite Poems, edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz, and don't even ask her to pick a favorite book. She has too many.