Louisa Locke is a founder of the collaborative (open source and multi-author) world of the Paradisi Chronicles. Within this world, she has written the Caelestis Series Trilogy (Between Mountain and Sea, Under Two Moons, Through Ddaera's Touch) and co-authored with her daughter, Rey Wright, the first novella in the Canistro Series, The Stars are Red Tonight,
Under the pen name M. Louisa Locke, she is also the author of the USA Today best-selling cozy Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, which features Annie Fuller, a young boardinghouse keeper, and Nate Dawson, a local San Francisco lawyer, as they investigate crimes in the foggy gas-lit world of San Francisco. Locke is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, NINC, the Historical Novel Society, and is a founder of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative. More about her work can be found at http://mlouisalocke.com/
Between Mountain and Sea: Paradisi Chronicles
Mei Lin Yu should have been looking forward to the next stage in her life. As a descendant of one of the Founding Families who led the exodus from a dying Earth and now rule New Eden, Mei's choices are endless. But she has never felt part of the Yu Family or the world of technological marvels and genetic perfection the Founders created.
All that will change the summer she spends at Mynyddamore, the home her ancestor Mabel Yu built in western Caelestis. Here, living among the Ddaerans, the original inhabitants of New Eden, Mei will discover secrets about Mabel Yu that her family want to keep buried and a truth about herself that will forever change her own destiny.
"This book lives in the same neighborhood as Le Guin and Butler, science fiction through the lens of both the individual and the family. Mei Lin is coming of age on the planet her family helped found nearly 200 years ago. Botched eye surgery sends her to the mountain that her line of the family had settled. She discovers another world, different from the high tech city she left. Here she finds self and family in the footsteps of the strong women who came before her."
– 5 Star Amazon Review"The author reminds me of Anne McCaffrey not only because the plot involves telepathy, including telepathy with humans as well as telepathy with animals, but because the plot moves right along. Louisa Locke has become my favorite scifi writer."
– 5 Star Amazon Review"The world-building and characters are wonderful. Mei Lin's growing awareness of her true heritage alone is beautifully executed. I'm excited to read the rest of this series and other books by other authors but set in the same world and following a few of the other families."
– 5 Star Amazon ReviewChapter Two
Mabel Yu's Diary
Three Months to Launch, Earth 2092 AD
Now that we're so close to launch time, my parents have moved on board the SS Nightingale, the Yu's ship, because there is so much for them to do to get ready. Our quarters on the space station have been given over to some new arrivals. This means I have to stay with my Auntie Lie, who doesn't seem to have any job besides making my life miserable. She is so fussy. I don't want to use up my tablet's memory telling it silly things like how my second cousin Walter snitched to Auntie that I was the one who knocked over her ugly vase, so I think I will go through the photographs I am storing and write something. To help me remember.
I will pretend that I am dictating letters to my friend Jaxon. Even though he's two years younger than me, he's more like family than my cousins. I call him little brother—with the emphasis on "little" since he's about thirty centimeters shorter than me! He hates that. But he's a lot more grown up than most of the kids my age. Has to be. His parents were both killed in the explosion on the Novux Sky lifter four years ago. Luckily, his only family is an aunt who also works for Reach Corp, so he wasn't kicked off the station.
He's got ginger red hair and green eyes, which makes him a lot more interesting looking than all of us black-haired and brown-eyed members of the Yu family. He says his hair and eyes come from an Irish great-grandmother. I'm not entirely sure where Ireland is. All those northern European countries just blend together.
He lives with his aunt, but she's not even on the station half the time since she is helping finish off the Kuttner's ship. You might say that is true for most of us now. I never see either of my parents for more than a couple of hours every ten days. And then, I can tell they are so tired I don't want to bother them with anything.
My mom says it will be different when we get to New Eden. But Jaxon won't be there then, either, because he and his aunt are coming to New Eden on the SS Challenge. It's the oldest ship in the fleet—over thirty years old—and it needs to be rebuilt so it can make it safely through the long journey. My parents say the trip will take as much as two years, even with the short cut the wormhole provides.
Mei Lin Yu
May 22, 165 AA, New Eden
"Come here, child, and let me look at you."
The woman standing in front of Mei was tall and loose-limbed, with coarse white hair that had escaped a braid and levitated around her face, emphasizing her skin, which had the appearance of aged parchment. The only concession to the fact that she was over a hundred years old was the elaborately carved cane topped by a bright red tassel that she held lightly in one hand.
So this was her great-grandmother, Betsy Kuttner, the woman who, according to family lore, had married Mei's great-grandfather Michael Yu against her own parents' wishes. The woman whose eyes, which were the color of new grass, explained why Mei's own eyes weren't brown.
Mei bowed respectfully, first to her great-grandmother, then to the old Ddaeran woman sitting next to her.
This called forth a chuckle from her great-grandmother, who said, "Oh my, you have been properly brought up, haven't you? I would like to introduce you to Tesni's grandmother, the woman who runs Mynyddamore and who is my oldest friend. Like me, in the mists of time she had a formal name, but here she is simply known as Mamgu, which means grandmother, as I am called Hen Nain, great-grandmother."
Tesni's grandmother smiled broadly, revealing the crooked and missing teeth that declared her a Ddaeran even more obviously than her watery green eyes. Unlike Mei's great-grandmother, she was hunched over, the muscles and tendons that should have held her upright no longer doing their jobs. Mei was reminded strongly of her Ddaeran nurse Glynis, who stoically suffered the effects of aging that most members of the Founding Families refused to tolerate.
"So, my dear," said Hen Nain, "I am sorry that you had such a scare with your eyesight…I can't imagine how frightening it must have been. But I am delighted all is well and that you have come to spend time with us at Mynyddamore. Now, sit down and have something to eat."
******
The breakfast was a thick, hot porridge, chewy with nuts and a tart dried fruit, accompanied by an odd-tasting milk that Tesni said was fresh from a meddalwyn. She explained that not just the wool they used for weaving but the cheese they ate and the milk they drank came from this herding animal.
The community hall, which occupied most of the entire two-story central building, was huge, with rows and rows of wooden tables and benches. One end of the room was being used as a nursery for small children, while a couple of older men sat at a table playing a game that Mei didn't recognize, and nearby a number of women worked on a communal quilt. She was again struck by how quiet everyone was. The children didn't even make much noise, although they were cheerfully playing some sort of game.
Light came from rows of windows near the ceiling, but each table also had some sort of lamp that Tesni said ran on fish oil, which seemed strange in a world where most small appliances ran on batteries that lasted years before needing to be recharged.
Much to her relief, what was missing from the room was any sort of electrical light, which she always found irritating. But what about when the sun went down? Everyone knew that Ddaerans had unusually good night vision, but how would she cope on those nights when neither of New Eden's two moons was visible?
She dismissed this worry and instead concentrated on eating, suddenly finding herself ravenous after a week of perfectly balanced but bland hospital food. While she ate, she was entertained by her great-grandmother, who insisted Mei call her Hen Nain. She recounted the story of Albert's visit to Mynyddamore, when her brother got into trouble by trying to ride one of the meddalwyns.
"The poor dear didn't give us any milk for a month, she was so traumatized. But I believe your brother was equally traumatized when the llynog assigned to that herd pulled him off the meddalwyn and held him down until one of the adults could come straighten everything out. Your brother kept yelling that the lion was trying to eat him! If I remember, the llynog was quite offended." Hen Nain laughed merrily.
Mei, her face remaining neutral, took a long sip of the milk. Inside, however, she was hugging herself with glee. Now she had something embarrassing to throw in Albert's face the next time he made one of his wisecracks about her. She then glanced over at her great-grandmother, wondering if this was one of those "little lessons" that adults seemed to feel they had to give—the kind that were couched in some story about someone else's wrong-doing but were clearly designed to warn you not to behave in the same fashion.
But her great-grandmother was just staring into space in some sort of reverie. She said, "You know, your father spent every summer of his childhood here, rambling around the foothills of the Mynyddeiras with me. You would think he would have warned his son about the importance of not messing with a meddalwyn. But John hadn't been back since he was eleven and was shipped off—as all good little Yus are—to the New Hong Kong Academy. Maybe he just forgot."
My father at Mynyddamore? This was all news to Mei.
But then, she didn't remember either parent ever talking to her about their own childhoods—except to tell her how hard they had both studied, with the implication that she wasn't doing enough. Once she left for boarding school, their instructions to apply herself more to her studies now included their expectation that, along with high grades, she would also make the social connections that would help her excel in a career in science, business, or as a very third best, government. She'd tried to explain to her parents how she was viewed by the other students, but they'd just accused her of being over-sensitive.
The gwynddoeth Eurig, who had been sitting quietly next to her on Tesni's shoulder, leaned over and patted her on the cheek. Mei looked up, startled, and saw that the three women were looking at her with concern.
Her great-grandmother said, "Tesni, why don't you take Mei up and introduce her to her grandparents? I am sure they are anxious to meet their only granddaughter."
She then smiled and said, "You do realize, Mei, that you are the only direct female descendant of Mabel Yu, the woman who designed and built Mynyddamore? Naturally, we all have great hopes for you."
