When Kasandra Strid was thirteen, she started writing a story in her native German about a fantasy world and a quest. Three years ago, she self-published Prince of The Universe: Book 1 of The Shadow of the Stars in English and in reading it, I found the story to be a delightful tale with colorful, dramatic characters in an imaginative and exciting place and time.
I had the good fortune to do a quick read-through of the first few chapters of a revised edition of this book, and see the growth of the author as well as a better mastering of the English language that made the first edition just a tad troublesome.
Kas is a good storyteller, weaving the drama around a young prince and a strange boy named Kalif who mysteriously is found in the ruins of a city. There is magic, there is drama, there is wonderful imagery in this story, marketed for age levels 9-12, and I hope to see this fantasy novel republished as just the start of a series coming from the mind of a woman who seems to well understand the imaginations of young readers.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology