The Gem and the Star

About the Book

The Gem and the Star is a futuristic, romantic adventure.  It is the tale of Cwen and Otas, a being from another planet.  Cwen was raised in isolation by her Aunt Amma and taught the ways of martial arts and combat with a sword by Vlad.  Cwen has no knowledge of her true identity, or of her parents.

Cwen has the Gift, a host of extrasensory capabilities, but she doesn't know how to control them.  One night she becomes angry with her aunt for not giving her revelations about who she really is.  Cwen runs away, carrying a Ka-bar, because Vlad had taught her never to go out unarmed.

Fascinated by the sights and sounds of being outside the stuffy mansion, Cwen is careless.  She is attacked by three beings that look like earthlings, but are in fact beings from another galaxy.  Their purpose is to kidnap Cwen for their evil leader, Maccus.

Trying to survive, Cwen kills one of these beings, called Trexrans.  Before she can escape, her flight is halted by the blast of a Ultraviolet Laser.  She is captured and beaten by one of the remaining two.  Although her other powers of the Gift have not been actualized, Cwen is capable of reading the minds of her captors.  She becomes aware of her doom if she doesn't escape.  Before the Trexrans can take her away, Vlad teleports to the alley where Cwen is being held and rescues her.

Back at the mansion, her Aunt Amma tells her that she is being hunted by a beast from another galaxy.  Meaning Maccus, who is powerful with the Gift and wants Cwen as his Queen to create a master race of super beings with extrasensory capabilities.  The only choice is to send Cwen far away from this threat.  Aunt Amma and Vlad send Cwen far into the future, to the year 4010, where the inhabitants live like the folks of the middle ages following an upheaval of the Earth in the year 2010.

Cwen soon learns why she has been trained for combat with a sword.  The first thing that happens to her is that she is attacked in the woods by four thieves.  Cwen manages to kill three of them.  Before she can kill the fourth, she is stopped by a woman astride a dapple-gray horse.

The woman lets the thief escape.  The woman is accompanied by twelve women warriors.  In this time-frame women engage in combat just as the males do. With swords, daggers, and bows and arrows.

The woman tells Cwen her name is Sevea and she is the leader of the twelve mounted warriors.  They take Cwen to Castle Acwellen, where she soon finds out this woman is her mother.

Fatigue from time travel prevents Cwen from asking her mother all of the questions raging in her head.  She goes to sleep for the night.

But that night is not without surprises.  Cwen looses her virginity to a huge male, called Otas, who is powerful with Gift and the Overlord of a race a beings called Liambrians.  Afterwards, Otas informs Cwen he is her husband.  Before this new knowledge can sink in, Otas uses the Gift to put Cwen to sleep.

The next morning, rage rushes through Cwen.  Sevea tries to quell that anger by telling Cwen she isn't an Earthling.  She is Liambrian as well.

The Liambrians are in exile on Earth, trying to hide from the Trexrans and Maccus.  His plan to use the Liambrians to create a master race must be avoided at all cost...

About the Author

Linda Kilgren is a former Chief Radiologic Technologist, who gave up her position in management in favor of a regular staff technologist to pursue a writing career. She writes in her off hours from the hospital and is currently working on a new novel. She lives in San Francisco with her cat, Sassy.