Burn Rate

BOOK 1: BURN RATE
Heirs of the Broken Sky: A Novella of Dust and Glass

115 DEGREES IN THE SHADE. ZERO CLEAN WATER. AND A HIGH-SKY PRINCE GOING DOWN IN FLAMES.

In 3000 AD, the Los Angeles Basin is a sun-baked concrete graveyard. Nineteen-year-old Maya Cruz survives day-to-day as a solar mechanic in the lawless Sun-Sinks, doing whatever it takes to keep her crew supplied with clean water. She doesn't care about the elite Spire-Grid floating high above the smog-until a luxury sky-skimmer plummets into the concrete riverbed.

Julian Vance was born into the ultra-wealthy high-sky elite. As the sole heir to the Vance Water Syndicate, his future was guaranteed-until his own family sabotaged his skimmer, declaring him dead before he even hit the ground.

Pulled from the burning wreckage by Maya, Julian is no longer an aristocrat; he's a high-value ransom ticket worth a million gallons of water. But when elite black-ops mercenaries descend into the lower city under orders to make sure Julian stays dead, Maya and the fallen prince are forced into a brutal game of survival across the boiling urban desert.

To expose the corporate conspiracy threatening to shut off the Basin's water permanently, Maya must teach Julian the raw, unyielding grit needed to endure the wasteland-while Julian must smuggle Maya into the high-society galas of the upper city. Forced together by circumstance and bound by a rising spark they can't afford to ignite, they quickly realize that surviving the Sun-Sinks is only half the battle.

The real war begins when you start fighting back.

PERFECT FOR FANS OF:

• Enemies-to-lovers & forced proximity dynamics

• High-stakes dystopian heist fiction (The Hunger Games meets Cyberpunk)

• The "fake-dating at a high-society gala" trope

• Sharp, survivalist heroines & soft-on-the-inside privileged heroes

"A fast-paced, high-octane dystopian binge that will keep you up way past your bedtime!"