Otherborn by Anna Silver

Book Nerd Spotlight and Excerpt

Anna Silver knew she wanted to be an author from the age of eight years old. Growing up with a passion for words, books, and storytelling, she eventually landed at St. Edward’s University in Austin where she studied English Writing & Rhetoric. Simultaneously, she has nurtured a deep connection with and ardent hunger for all things spiritual or mystical her entire life, including dreams, myth, magick, and the creative experience.

Currently she resides in the greater Houston area with her family, pets, and overactive imagination. In addition to writing, she is a primarily self-taught artist. Her work, which includes oil paintings, assemblage sculptures, and fairy houses, has been featured in the Houston gallery Las Manos Magicas. She has written web copy for private clients and freelanced for the Hill Country Current in Texas. Her write-up on a past-life regression was chosen to be featured in best-selling author Brian Weiss’ new book, Miracles Happen. OTHERBORN is her first published novel.

Social Media

Website

  

---

EXCERPT

“Hey London! Wait up!” the familiar voice called out.

She turned to see Rye running up behind her, drumsticks in hand, his crop of ruddy hair pointing in several directions at once. He was the only person she knew whose eyes were the exact color of his hair, something she noted with more affection than she liked to admit. “Where the hell have you been?” she asked him.

“Packing up my shit. And everyone else’s. You didn’t even come inside to get your guitar.”

“Pauly said we could leave our stuff there tonight.”

“Yeah. He’s pretty freaked about what happened. Said to give it a few days before we come back. I think he’s worried about you.”

London gave an ambiguous shrug. She didn’t want to think about how this might reinforce Pauly’s concerns for her.

“Did you play the song for him yet?” Rye asked her eagerly.

“Nah,” London lied, afraid to disappoint Rye. She was as protective of him in her own way as Zen was of Avery. “No chance.”

“It’s a good song though, isn’t it? You think he’ll like it, don’t you?” Rye was always overanalyzing stuff, thinking things to death. It made her crazy.

“I guess,” she said curtly, hoping to discourage him off the subject.

“We put a punk spin on it. I think the Dogma crowd will love it.”

Dogma was the name of Pauly’s grubby hole in the wall with poor lighting, bad acoustics, and a ragtag patronage. But his reputation for authentic pre-Crisis discs and live music meant more to a lot of people than expensive seat covers or a state-of-the-

art bar. Pauly knew a good thing when he saw it. He’d been loaning them discs, letting them practice tracks since they formed the band just over a year ago, after the dreams began. Drawing a bigger crowd to Dogma, and more rations for the cover charge, was the least London could do to repay his years of kindness.

“Maybe,” London sighed. “Maybe not.” She didn’t feel like reminding Rye that some people feared New the way little kids feared the boogieman. Seemed silly until she’d actually created something New herself and had Pauly’s paranoia blow up in her face. It had come so easy, they kept forgetting it was supposed to be impossible. Then again, so was dreaming.

Rye picked up on her reluctance to discuss it. “You goin’ to class tomorrow?” he asked, changing tactics.

“I don’t know.” London shrugged. “Seems kinda pointless.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I never even talked to the kid till he approached us at lunch last week. And now—boom. Dead.”

“Me neither. Pretty jacked up, huh? Makes me feel like some kind of curse.”

“It’s not like it’s ever happened before. We’re all okay,” Rye comforted her. “Even after we started hanging with you…and dreaming.”

London rubbed at her eyes. “Let’s just hope this isn’t the start of a new trend.”

Rye was pensive. “If it is, Avery will be next. She’s the newest. Except Degan, of course.”

London stopped Rye with a hard punch to his shoulder. “Don’t say that, Rye. Don’t you ever say that! Degan wasn’t one of us. He wasn’t Otherborn.”

“Okay, relax. I know he wasn’t officially in our little circle yet. But come on, London, you have to admit it. He was Otherborn. He was one of us.”

“We don’t know that for sure.” London decided to finally light the dangling cigarette, which had migrated from her mouth to behind her ear then back to her mouth during the course of their conversation. Degan’s murder was making her edgy. “We never really talked to him. We didn’t get the chance.”

“We knew enough,” Rye said. “He told us enough last week.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” London exhaled a cloud of smoke and picked at her pouty bottom lip. “I’m just saying this doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of us.”

“Do you really believe that?” Rye pressed her as they began walking again, their building coming into view.

“No one even knows about us, Rye. Not about the dreams,” London reasoned. She hated the way he overanalyzed everything.

Rye paused in front of their building, taking a drag off London’s cig. “Degan did,” he said, blowing the smoke back in her face.

---

London and her teenage friends live in a reprocessed world.

Confined within Capital City’s concrete walls, London has done the impossible and the illegal. She’s created something New- a song. But her mentor, club owner Pauly, is not impressed. Since the historic Energy Crisis forced everyone behind walls generations ago, the Tycoons have ensured there is truly nothing new allowed under the sun. Pauly warns London to keep her song to herself, if she knows what’s good for her.

What he doesn’t know is that London is keeping an even bigger secret: she dreams. And she’s not alone. London’s band-mates and friends have begun dreaming as well, seeing themselves in “night pictures” as beings from another world. As Otherborn, they must piece together the story of their astral avatars, the Others, in order to save their world from a dreamless, hopeless future.

When Pauly is murdered and an Otherborn goes missing, London realizes someone is hunting them down. Escaping along the Outroads, they brave the deserted Houselands with only their dreams to guide them. Can they find their friend before the assassin finds them? Will being Otherborn save their lives, or destroy them?