Rachel Rossano lives with her husband and three children in the northeastern part of the United States. Homeschooled through high school, she began writing her early teens. She didn't become serious about pursuing a career as an author until after she had graduated from college and happily married. Then the children came.
Now she spends her days being a wife, mother, teacher, and household manager. Her evenings and free moments are devoted to her other loves, writing and book cover design. Drawing on a lifelong fascination with reading and history, she spends hours creating historical feeling fantasy worlds and populating them with characters who live and breathe on the page.
In a world where seventh born sons are valued for their strength and power, she is born a daughter.
Zezilia Ilar is the disappointment. Born after six brothers, she was supposed to be the son to restore her family's prestige. She intends to remedy her shortcomings by being a dutiful daughter, marrying well and producing children, preferably a set of seven sons. But when someone offers her an alternative, she begins to dream of more.
In a society that worships a goddess, he follows the Almighty.
Hadrian Aleron, as a seventh son of a seventh son, stands to take up the second highest position in government, Sept Son. His main qualification for office is his birth. Despite preparing for this role from childhood, he does not desire what is to come. As a follower of the Almighty, he knows he will be the target of many, and his faith might eventually lead to death.
Snippet:
For the first three hours of our trip, Master Silas slept. He climbed in, settled on the floor at his wife's feet, put a square of fabric over his face and fell asleep. I was astonished that he could repose so deeply with the bouncing and jostling of the wagon, but he snored away.
His wife apparently thought nothing of this strange behavior and proceeded to tell me about her daughters. Galatea, Eloine, and Candra were interesting girls if I were to judge them only on their mother's opinion.
Galatea, the eldest, was about my age, fair and sweet, though taken to posturing and striking poses. Despite this I was repeatedly assured that we would be the best of friends. Eloine, it seemed, took after her father's tendencies toward studying. She spent most of her time with a nose in a book. Candra was the most interesting to me of the three.
Her mother introduced her by saying, "She is a garden child. I have never known a little one to spend so much time among bushes and plants. I can hardly get her to come in for meals. And the grass stains…" She lifted her hands in mock horror. "I have given up on keeping that child clean. I don't know what Errol was thinking asking Ilias for his willow farm to stay at."
"I was thinking of you, my dear," Errol commented from beneath his square of cloth.
"However do you mean?"
Master Silas removed the fabric square and looked up at his wife. "Don't you remember the trouble that we had with training Ilias? You kept complaining that the house was too small."
"You kept insisting that everything be completely silent while he practiced concentrating, a bit difficult with small ones crawling, toddling, and capering about."
"Exactly, my love." Easing himself up into a sitting position with the help of the bench, Master Silas smiled at his wife. "Now we shall have enough room. The house has five bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, parlor, workroom, and acres of land. Plenty of room for you to run the household, Gatatea to posture, Eloine to read, Candra to disappear into nature, and Zezilia and I to work. We would not be able to do all that on our small estate in the north. Besides, I want Zezilia as far south as I can get her. I don't want to take the chance of her father changing his mind."
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