This is not a 404 error – it’s episode 404 of The Functional Nerds podcast and our guest this week is Callie Bates – author of the the Waking Land trilogy: The Waking Land, The Memory of Fire, and the latest book: The Soul of Power…

About Callie Bates: Callie Bates is the author of the fantasy novels The Waking Land, The Memory of Fire, and The Soul of Power (forthcoming). She is also a harpist and certified harp therapist, sometimes artist, and nature nerd. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s traipsing through new places and exploring the great outdoors–or in search of the perfect cup of tea. She lives in the Midwest.

About The Soul of Power: Sophy Dunbarron—the illegitimate daughter of a king that never was—has always felt like an impostor. Separated from her birth mother, raised by parents mourning the loss of their true daughter, and unacknowledged by her father, Sophy only desires one thing: a place and a family to call her own. But fate has other ideas. Caught up in Elanna Valtai’s revolution, Sophy has become the reigning monarch of a once-divided country—a role she has been groomed her whole life to fill.

But as she quickly discovers, wearing a crown is quite a different thing from actually keeping a crown. With an influx of magic-bearing refugees pouring across the border, resources already thinned by war are stretched to the breaking point. Half the nobility in her court want her deposed, and the other half question her every decision. And every third person seems to be spontaneously manifesting magical powers.

When Elanna is captured and taken to Paladis, Sophy’s last ally seems to have vanished. Now it is up to her alone to navigate a political maze that becomes more complex and thorny by the day. And worse, Sophy is hiding a huge secret—one that could destroy her tenuous hold on the crown forever.

This week’s picks:

* Callie: The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

* John: Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live by Peter Orner

* Patrick: The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher Paperback by Andrzej Sapkowski

Links:

* Callie Bates on Twitter

* John Anealio on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

* Patrick’s Book: Into the Fire (available everywhere)

© 2019 Patrick Hester and John Anealio

This podcast contains original music by John Anealio.