Sovereign

April Daniels

Jul 2017 · Nemesis Book 2 · Diversion Books

About this ebook

The powerful transgender teenage superhero returns in this action-packed sequel to Dreadnought.

Only nine months after her debut as the superhero Dreadnought, Danny Tozer is already a scarred veteran. Protecting a city the size of New Port is a team-sized job and she’s doing it alone. Between her newfound celebrity and her demanding cape duties, Dreadnought is stretched thin, and it’s only going to get worse.

When she crosses a newly discovered billionaire supervillain, Dreadnought comes under attack from all quarters. From her troubled family life to her disintegrating friendship with Calamity, there’s no lever too cruel for this villain to use against her.

She might be hard to kill, but there's more than one way to destroy a hero. Before the war is over, Dreadnought will be forced to confront parts of herself she never wanted to acknowledge.

And behind it all, an old enemy waits in the wings, ready to unleash a plot that will scar the world forever.

“Daniels doesn’t just perfectly “queer the capes,” she delivers a book that’s tightly packed with brilliantly rendered fights, nail-biting scenes of peril, emotional authenticity, and a perfect first kiss.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An extremely compelling narrative…An uplifting kind of book.”—Tor.com

“Danny is so real that even when she is flying around in space throwing punches at a bazillion miles per hour, she is 100% believable.”—Locus

“A well-crafted story, filled with charming characters and nerve-wracking narratives that keep the reader enthralled.”—Lambda Literary

Ratings and reviews

I was gripped from beginning to end, the characters not just relatable but painfully so. Each blow was a blow to myself, and each moment of triumph my own. The fear was particularly potent wrapping my stomach in knots, and when it finally unwound the feeling of relief was like re-entering the atmosphere in a burning glow

I think this is my favorite book now. There is too much to love about this to even list, from Danielle's down-to-earth observations about superhuman combat and battle lust, to the way in which everything has enough wieght that all tense scenes hit exactly where they mean to, to the trans representation, to the characters, I could go on and on! Thank you for this. Seriously, thank you.

Read this book, yo. It's got cool superheroes, a cool story, relatable protagonists and hateable antagonists. It might help you understand gender identification...or not, but that's cool. There is plenty to like in this book, will be looking forward to the next one...you might want to read the first book before you read this one though.

About the author

April Daniels was born in a military hospital just before it was shut down for chronic malpractice—in hindsight, that should have been an omen. After various tribulations in childhood and the frankly disconcerting discovery that she was a girl, she graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in literature, and then promptly lost her job during the 2008 stock crash and recession. After she recovered from homelessness, she completed her first manuscript by scribbling a few sentences at a time between calls while working in the customer support department for a well-known video game console. She has a number of hobbies, most of which are boring and predictable. As nostalgia for the 1990s comes into its full bloom, she has become ever more convinced that she was born two or three years too late and missed all the good stuff the first time around. Having recently become a pagan, April is currently enduring the karmic backlash for all the times she was smug about her atheism.Early in her writing practice, April set her narrative defaults to “lots of lesbians” and never looked back.