Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Prized by Caragh O'Brien

Prized by Caragh O'Brien

Gaia Stone, carrying her baby sister in her arms, leaves the only home she knows to search for a better life.  Weeks later, Gaia and Maya are found by a rider from Sylum, near death in the Wasteland.  They are taken to Sylum, a society ruled by a minority of women who outnumber the men, three to one.  Upon arriving Gaia is forced to give up Maya permanently and made to submit to the strict lifestyle of Sylum where kissing is a crime punishable by a week in prison.  No one ever leaves Sylum and those who do, die trying. 

Gaia meets a master of wills in the Matrarc, female ruler of Sylum.  The Matrarc, is a blind mother of seven, who cares deeply for her people and will not see her rules broken and since Gaia lives life by her own rules, these two butt heads.   The Matrarc seeks to break Gaia's power in a strategic battle of wills.

This dystopian trilogy is unique because the first two books place the reader in two entirely different societies.  This first society in Birthmarked, is The Enclave near the unlake Superior and the second society in Prized is Sylum, across the wasteland near the dead forest.  The two societies are vastly different while only 100 kilometers apart.  One society is controlled by men, technology and the lack of water and where infertility rates are high, the other society is ruled by women, with little technology, a abundance of water and addictive qualities.

Prized is a contest of wills, a game of survival of the fittest where no man really wins and women reign as queens.  Sylum is a matriarchal society where names, traditions and property pass to the next generation through the mother.  Gaia will fight, with the help of the men she loves and admires, to change laws and help men get the right to vote.  Prized endures as a story worthy of your time and imagination. 

Prized will take you on a creative, imaginative journey to another time and place where members of two societies meet and change.  To enter into a alternative world through a good book is a entertaining way to spend your day.

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