Luminosity (The Sun Dragon #5) by Annabelle Jay
Harmony Ink Press
Cover Artist: Stef Masciandaro

Buy Links: Harmony Ink Press | Amazon

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to host Annabelle Jay here today on her tour for Luminosity, the last in The Sun Dragon series.  Welcome, Annabelle.

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Daddy Issues in Luminosity: Book Five in the Sun Dragon Series

by Annabelle Jay

A lot of young adults have complicated relationships with their parents, especially when one of them has been gone for years. For Luke, a transgender teenager obsessed with astronomy and theories about magical worlds, her complicated relationship gets a whole lot more complicated when she finds out that her absent father is actually an incubus.

Luke’s father attacks at the worst time: during a study session with a girl that Luke has a crush on. Little does Luke know that Egret is half Igreefee, a group of magical people with environmental powers, and that her people have dealt with Incubi like Luke’s father before. After a narrow escape, Egret explains why Luke’s dad is so bent on finding her: Luke is the universe’s last Artist, a person with the ability to draw things into existence. 

As if things couldn’t get any worse, it turns out that incubi want their offspring in order to eat them and gain power. The blood of one’s offspring is the strongest of all, which puts Luke in grave danger. In the scene below, Egret must get her to the infamous Merlin’s house and under his protection without Luke’s father capturing her. However, as Luke is soon to discover, sometimes parental motivations are more complicated than they seem.

***

With a carved wooden stick in one hand and Egret’s bird feathers in the other, I sailed away from the Igreefee camp as suddenly as I’d entered it. Even though I’d only spent a few hours there, the forest dwelling had already begun to feel like home—especially because the Igreefee weren’t afraid to tell me the truth, something my own mother seemed incapable of.

“So… Grace…,” I said to start a conversation after what felt like an hour of silence had passed. “She seems nice.”

You’re a terrible liar. She’s an annoying know-it-all, but you have to admit, she’s hot.

I couldn’t argue with that.

How about you? Egret asked. Did you have a special someone or two back at your old school?

“Never.”

I didn’t mention Lacey; I wasn’t even sure she counted. Lacey had loved me, and she’d told me as much, but the Luke that Lacey loved was not the one I wanted to be. Sure, there had been a few awkward moments between us when dancing at junior prom had led to something more or a spin the bottle game that had gotten out of control, but to me, those didn’t count. I’d felt like an actor in a play, a Romeo kissing his Juliet, but after the curtain closed, I wanted to take off the costume and be myself again.

That’s a shame. Those pretty blue eyes and that long blond hair deserve some appreciation. Wait, you are into girls, aren’t you?

“Quite interested.”

Before she could question me further, a pair of red eyes appeared in the clouds on our right—and then another, and another.

“Incubi are everywhere!” I yelled, as though Egret couldn’t see them with her own eyes. “What should we do?”

Use the staff, she instructed. Just press the engraved circle in the middle and aim.

I found the circle and pressed. A beam of green light flashed like a camera, and then the incubus closest to us flew backward several feet.

Good. We’re only about ten minutes from Merlin’s house, so just keep pressing that button whenever they get close. The sorcerer will have his own protection spell in place.

I did as she commanded. Most of the incubi realized what was going on and retreated, but one incubus in particular kept coming back. Like a wild dog, he bared his white teeth and flew at us, and the staff was the only thing able to hold him back each time. The incubus tried to lunge around the circle of light, and even to swim through its force.

“You don’t think…?”

Your father? Could be, by the way your blood is making him crazy, or perhaps an uncle? I guess I can see the family resemblance. Now hold on!

Egret plunged downward toward a small city on another floating piece of rock and then, by swooping left, adjusted her course to a small pinprick of light on the outskirts.

Almost there.

She strained to move faster and faster, while the incubi threw their bodies down at us like hail by tucking their legs into their torsos. The most persistent incubus somehow got through the light and onto Egret’s wing, and no amount of shaking could release his grip.

Get him off! she yelled, or he’ll stop us from entering Merlin’s house.

I poked the incubus with the staff, then hit him with it. Stubbornly, he clung to a fistful of feathers and pulled, sending us into a barrel roll that turned my stomach. Finally, using the other side of the staff, I aimed directly for his red eyes.

Bingo.

 Blurb

As the epic saga of the Sun Dragon series draws to a close, transgender teenager Luke must face her destiny to decide the fate of her world. Not only is Luke a girl born into the wrong body, she is the universe’s last Artist: a person with the ability to draw things into existence. When she comes face-to-face with an incubus who might be her father, she learns it falls to her—along with allies from the wizard’s Council and the dragon clan leaders—to prevent the incubi from destroying the world. If that isn’t enough, she needs to find a way out of a relationship with her girlfriend that she never intended, go after the Igreefee royal she really wants to be with, and decide if the time is right to transition physically into the girl she’s always been inside.

The journey that began with Allanah’s first Sun Dragon is coming to its thrilling conclusion. The dragons, wizards, sorceresses, and birds you’ve come to know and love will reunite for their biggest battle yet—one that will decide their destiny at last.

About the Author

If there’s one thing author Annabelle Jay believes with all her heart, it’s that there is no such thing as too many dragons in a book. As fantasy writer with few other hobbies—does being bribed to run with her partner or dancing awkwardly in the kitchen count?—she spends every day following her imagination wherever it leads her.

A hippie born in the wrong decade, Annabelle has a peace sign tattoo and a penchant for hugging trees. Occasionally she takes breaks from her novels to play with her pets: Jon Snow, the albino rabbit who is constantly trying to escape; Stevie, the crested gecko that climbs glass with the hairs on its toes; and Luigi, the green tree python that lives at the foot of her bed despite her best efforts to talk her partner out of the idea.

During her day job as a professor of English, Annabelle is often assumed to be a fellow student playing a prank on the class—that is, until she hands out the syllabus. When people stop mistaking her for a recent high school graduate, she will probably be very sad.

Author’s Website: www.annabellejay.com

Twitter: @AnnabelleAuthor

Instagram: @AnnabelleAuthor

Publisher’s book page: https://www.harmonyinkpress.com/books/luminosity-by-annabelle-jay-529-b

Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14191901.Annabelle_Jay

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Annabelle-Jay-376249719245415