Editor’s Introduction

As I was editing the novel openings featured in this round of Embark, several common themes began to emerge: soldiers, siblings, lost fathers. It’s important to know that each of these ten openings, as with every contribution to Embark, was chosen on its own merits, independent of any of the others. Yet, nevertheless, unifying threads emerged—accompanied by a few delightful outliers. All ten openings surprised and intrigued me, as I’m sure they will you!

Soldiers are the central focus in THE HAMMER, by Robert B. Miner. A veteran himself, Miner plunges readers into the difficult, dangerous life of American soldiers in Iraq in 2010, when the aims and methods of the U.S. Army’s work there had become murky at best, and when individual soldiers struggled to find a balance between wariness and compassion for the local people, whom they were simultaneously helping and policing. With Second Lieutenant Brook, Miner offers a sympathetic, nuanced protagonist, striving to do the right thing in an Iraqi desert town.

Deno Trakas, in ONLY WHO IS LEFT, also focuses on war and its effects on both soldiers and local people, this time in Turkey in the 1920s, during the brutal Greco-Turkish War. Costa, a Greek man who has grown up as one of thousands of Greek residents in Turkey, has no interest in joining either side. But as he flees to coastal Smyrna, one of countless refugees, he finds that neutrality is impossible, and that enemies lurk at every turn—along with unexpected friends. Trakas skillfully evokes the daily life of a distant era, while also capturing the timeless plight of innocents in a war zone.

Aislyn Fair, in WINGDUST, also tells the story of innocents trapped by a violent system, this time in the midst of seeming peace, with one group secretly oppressing another. This fantasy novel begins charmingly, with a young man named Breck, son of a woodworker raised by the now extinct Fay, receiving an exciting job offer. Soon, however, we see the dark undercurrent of their society: the half-Fay live on, exploited in prison-farms for their magical wingdust—and among the half-Fay prisoners, unknown to Breck, are his own half-siblings, who will soon create a deep division in his loyalties.

In the riveting HIDEAWAY, Monica Goertzen Hertlein presents us with long-separated siblings in another kind of imagined place: a colony on a distant planet, settled by Canadians, where her protagonist, Mary, is living hand-to-mouth in a crowded, climate-controlled spaceport. When her life is upended by a police raid, with eviction looming, Mary impulsively steals valuable cargo from the officers’ vehicle, then decides to seek out the only person who still feels like family—her surrogate brother, living on an unshielded farm on the frontier. Fleeing pursuit, she ventures into a troubled landscape and finds hope.

Though Barbara Bridger’s novel, THIS TIME COULD MEAN GOODBYE, ultimately follows a woman similarly seeking a long-lost sibling, it begins very differently—first with a terrifying scene of a man being beaten on a wharf and left to die, then with a lonely detective working late, in the provincial British city of Stoke-on-Trent. Narrating in a humorous voice that immediately pulls the reader into her world, private investigator Charlie Kaye describes the evening when two envelopes were pushed under her office door, presenting her with a mystery that soon becomes alarmingly personal.

For journalist Caroline Wallace, the narrator of D. W. Moore’s novel THE LAST THING SHE EXPECTED, her investigations are too late: her sister has already died in horrible circumstances—the victim, along with her baby son, of a gas explosion in her own home. Mourning these deaths and certain that her abusive father, who runs the fracking business dominating their Pennsylvania town, was involved, Caroline decides to uncover the truth behind the accident. Moore, examining both abuse within families and the effects of big industries on small towns, tells a vivid, disturbing, and suspenseful tale.

Anne McPherson Arthurs’ novel, ON THE WAY TO SOMEWHERE ELSE, also revolves around two sisters. In this tale it’s the father who has died, leaving them in their rundown farmhouse with a mother crippled by grief. The novel is told through the eyes of Lexie, the younger sister, who watches her beloved older sibling escape from their narrow life, leaving Lexie to stay behind and forge her own lonely path. With poignant, atmospheric prose that illuminates her rural setting, Arthurs captures both the magic of youthful companionship and the painful isolation of growing up.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE RAINBOW, by S. P. Singh, likewise begins with a father who died early. Anurag Garg, living comfortably with his mother, is shocked when he realizes that their opulent house couldn’t have been built with his father’s modest salary. Shamed by the fear that he is living on embezzled money, Anurag decides to seek out the truth in the northeast, where his father worked and later died. But the region is filled with insurgents fighting for independence from India, and Singh thrillingly evokes the conflict that opens Anurag’s eyes and takes him far from his sheltered roots.

In CINDER ISLAND, by Vincent Mannings, the protagonist also feels a deep love for her parents, but in this case it is equaled by her powerful love for a place: the desolate Antarctic island where she was born. Mannings opens with a striking and ominous description of volcanic action on this snowbound site, then deftly shifts our attention to the similarly explosive human motives for traveling there: commercial gain, scientific research, and—for Anna Eldberg, the geologist leading the expedition—a deep sense of coming home, and a determination to protect her birthplace.

THE GHOST KARAMAZOV, by David Norling, offers perhaps the most appropriate theme for Embark, in that it centers on a book: a ghost book, to be precise, one advertised but supposedly never printed. When this priceless volume mysteriously appears in the protagonist’s book shop, he buys it for a song and then tries to discover its origins. Immersing readers into the fascinating realm of rare books and publishing mysteries, Norling vibrantly portrays characters whose lives are shaped not just by literature but by physical books and their unpredictable journeys through time.

Varied in setting, style, themes, and characters, all of these openings nonetheless share the power of intriguing readers and, within a few brief pages, creating fully-fledged illusions of life—whether in past events, in our possible future, or in worlds conjured by the imagination. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

— Ursula DeYoung, Founding Editor

Table of Contents

ON THE WAY TO SOMEWHERE ELSE – Anne McPherson Arthurs
THIS TIME COULD MEAN GOODBYE – Barbara Bridger
WINGDUST – Aislyn Fair
HIDEAWAY – Monica Goertzen Hertlein
CINDER ISLAND – Vincent Mannings
THE HAMMER – Robert B. Miner
THE LAST THING SHE EXPECTED – D. W. Moore
THE GHOST KARAMAZOV – David Norling
IN THE SHADOW OF THE RAINBOW – S. P. Singh
ONLY WHO IS LEFT – Deno Trakas