City of Trials

by Shelly Jarvis

Lady Mad Max meets LGBTQ+ Hunger Games! With Nova’s inevitable outcast from the Raiders drawing near, she’ll do anything to earn a permanent place among her nomadic found family. When she sees a stranger alone in the grasslands, she knows this is her chance to capture an outsider and offer him as a tribute in an attempt to gain acceptance. But when they refuse her gift, Nova has to leave the safety of the Raiders and return the stranger to the gods’ domain by crossing the ruined earth in a final bid to gain her family’s favor and save herself from banishment. Fortunately, she won’t have to travel alone. In addition to the captured stranger who is cursed by the gods, she leads a motley band of Raiders who have volunteered to accompany her in an effort to remove the stranger’s threat from their people. Together they make their way to the City of Trials, where the world of humans and the home of the gods collide. Along the way, Nova finds her heart warring between two sides of who she could half is with Thoa the Bonecutter, the brooding warrior who seeks to protect her, the Raiders, and all she’s known since they rescued her as a child. The other half embraces this stranger, Krew of the starfolk, his desire to see her free, and a chance for a strange new life she can hardly imagine. Putting herself on the line for them both, she finds herself in a deathmatch, facing things the only way she knows dealing death to all who endanger the fragile life she’s creating for herself. In a city built on the blood of the strong, only the fiercest survive, especially when the gods turn out to be something far from what she’d envisioned and vastly more dangerous—other humans.

270 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2022

About the author

Shelly Jarvis began working on speculative fiction thanks to a writing assignment in Mrs. Bettijane Burger's eleventh grade English class, but her passion for writing developed at seven years old when she wrote a Halloween tale about a witch and a ghost who became best friends.

An avid science fiction and fantasy reader, she spends a portion of each day dwelling in other worlds.

Shelly's biggest influences are Madeleine L'Engle, JRR Tolkien, Timothy Zahn, George RR Martin, & Patrick Rothfuss.

Shelly enjoys spending time with her wacky spouse, her wonderful nephews, and her rescue pups, Gimli, Butters, Fergus, and Pickles. ​She currently resides near Charleston, West Virginia, in the wild and wonderful mountains that have her heart.

Reviews

[Damien Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love science fiction that just drops you into a world with no pretext, no explanation, no backstory and tells you “read it and figure it out!” Which is exactly what Shelly Jarvis did with City of Trials. This book reads like The Knife of Never Letting Go and Mortal Engines in the best way possible. The characters all have something they want, something that makes you relate to every action they make. The style is smooth, I didn’t feel like had hit a single hiccup on the story or language. Shelly Jarvis is a writer who knows how to create an epic world and fill it with a story worthy of its scale. K thx.

[Tanya Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A diverse post civilization world, prejudice, injustice, love, betrayal, triumph, loss, this book jerks you through more emotions than you can identify!

I love the portrayal of diverse specialities and genders. It’s a beautiful openness

A great strong lead, love triangle, mysterious forces beyond your control. A great story, can’t wait to continue on the sequel.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fell into this world hard and fast. Usually, when books throw this many characters at me, it takes a while for me to place them all in my head. But these characters were all so uniquely *them* that they were instantly memorable. Really excited to move on to book two!