Blurbs:
Irina Proffer leaves mundane
small-town life behind when she experiences visions inspired by a strange deck
of tarot cards. To get answers, she travels from her northern British Columbia
home to the province’s coastal capital. She quickly discovers a world of fringe
genetic science and supernatural mystery.
Working for Innoviro Industries,
Irina is drawn in by a powerful first love and compelling, yet dangerous
questions about the nature of the company’s business. Meeting other 'variants'
brings Irina closer and closer to the dark truth about her origins. She finds
herself at the heart of two overlapping love triangles as she scrambles to
escape her employer's grip. Before she leaves the city, Irina realizes she has
merely scratched the surface of a frightening conspiracy on a global scale.
The
Compendium
Irina and her renegade variant
friends are scrambling to pick up the trail of their former employer, Ivan, and
his globally catastrophic scheme. After strategically sharing their story with
the media, the group heads south from Vancouver to Seattle hoping to recruit
more experienced—and lethal—variants to their cause.
Their attention develops a laser
focus on an engineered disaster mere days ahead of them. Ivan is using what
staff and resources remain of Innoviro Industries to set off a violent
earthquake in San Francisco. While they fight to stop the earthquake, Irina
pushes the love of her life Jonah as far away as she can, trying to keep his
unstable genetic degradation in check.
Irina’s friends think they’ve
seen the worst that Innoviro could bring forth by the time they reach a secret
facility in the Mojave Desert. As they near the property, the group uncovers a
horror none of them had ever imagined.
Terra
Nova
The end of humanity and an
unrecognizable future Earth are now days away. After their first glimpse of the
Terra Nova virus, Irina and her variant friends know their former employer’s
plans are almost at hand. Their failed attempt to publicize Ivan and Innoviro
Industries’ horrific activities has left them utterly reliant on their own wits
and weapons.
After surviving a catastrophic
earthquake in San Francisco and destroying a secret viral testing facility,
Irina’s crew has traveled by a variant portal to London. On the other side of
the world, they begin tracking when and where Terra Nova will be unleashed on
the world. They know stopping Terra Nova is only the beginning of unraveling
Ivan’s plans to reinvent the planet, but if they can’t stop this virus, there
will be no one left to save.
Excerpt from In Irina’s Cards:
Author’s
Note: This section is taken from Ch. 4. Irina is still coming to terms with the
fact that ‘variant’ really means mutant with a noticeable gift or ability. We
get a chance to see Irina having a vision. And we get a first glimpse at the
variations in three other core characters.
I followed Jonah through the
wrought iron gate and looked up at the oak tree on the lawn next to the patio.
Tiny fresh leaves and new buds covered the gnarled old tree. It was also home
to dozens and dozens of sneakers, canvas shoes, skate shoes, oxfords –
basically any kind of shoe with laces to tie together.
The air felt warm enough to
linger, so I walked over to the tree and looked upward. I smiled. I reached up
to one of the lower branches and touched one of the shoes. The yard and the
tree melted away. I saw the face of a girl with faintly bluish skin and
platinum hair. She turned and I saw two leather-like wings flex and relax. Her
shirt had been cut to make room for her wings which stretched out past the
frayed edges of the fabric. She was standing in a sewer or catacomb.
Faces milled around the winged
girl. It wasn’t quite like a party, maybe more like a camp. An older lady
standing next to the winged girl reached down to the ground. She pinched the
concrete and plucked something, maybe a stone, off the surface. The stone
wriggled. It was a camouflaged beetle, exactly like the one I’d seen on my
first day in the city. She lifted the beetle to her mouth and I reeled back.
The yard outside Cymbals
surrounded me again in a blink. Jonah stared at me. I noticed my arm had stayed
raised beneath the shoes and withdrew it.
“Are you all right?”
I heard fear in his voice.
“Rubin mentioned that you were
psychic, but I never knew what it actually looked like. I mean, I’ve never
witnessed anyone ‘see’ something if that makes sense.”
“Oh, I … what does it look like?
It’s still pretty new for me. I’ve always been alone when that happens, but I
hadn’t even wondered what somebody watching me gets to see.”
“You looked sort of, gone. And
then your eyes rolled back for a moment. I thought you were having a seizure.”
I looked around the yard and
fortunately we were alone. Still, I didn’t want to keep talking about this
stuff where we could be overheard. More importantly, what was Rubin doing
sharing my personal information while giving me his best poker face?
“Let’s go inside. I’m hungry.” I
didn’t much feel like sitting down to a social night anymore.
Cole waved from a table on the
other side of the building. Sitting next to him, a girl with purple dreadlocks
looked up from her purse and smiled.
The restaurant was full and the
combined conversations created a loud chatter. Dim candlelight, a few glass
chandeliers, and an antique-looking piano in the corner set a romantic atmosphere
that sparked another twinge of embarrassment. On the other hand, the abstract
and industrial mixed media wall décor had me looking around for art and film
students. Aside from a few biker bars, the edgiest hangout I knew of in Prince
George was an indie coffee shop – and it had only been open for a few years
when I left.
We made our way around and
between tables. Everyone in the restaurant looked like an artist or an
intellectual. I felt like an ugly duckling in my plain, boring clothes, but I was
glad for the first time since starting my new job that not all of the blue dye
had gone from my hair. Jonah reached the table and pulled out a chair for me.
We sat down and Cole scowled.
“Dude, what’s up with the
timeline fail? We’ve been here for like, half an hour,” said Cole.
“Ignore his attitude. I’m Faith,”
the girl said as she extended her hand to me and grinned happily. The
flickering light glinted off a stud in her nose and a ring in her eyebrow. She
wore dark makeup on her eyes and mouth. She had the same coffee brown eyes as
Cole. I couldn’t tell if it was her features or the eyeliner and lipstick, but
she looked striking in a bold, exotic way. As we shook hands, her gaze shifted
over to Jonah.
We looked at our menus in awkward
silence, waiting for a server, sipping our water. I sighed and put down my
menu. I could feel Cole’s eyes on me as I watched Faith stare at Jonah, the
only person still looking at his menu. I gave in and glanced back at Cole
briefly with a small smile. This was all heading in the wrong direction. The
time for tact expired along with my patience.
“So I take it we’re all mutants
here,” I said casually.
Jonah sprayed water onto his menu
and coughed. Cole looked at me urgently. Faith’s mouth made a small ‘O’ under
her confused frown.
“Seriously, I came here, to
Victoria, because I started having visions of this place and I wanted answers.
All I’ve gotten is cryptic nonsense. Other than meeting you people, I’ve
learned next to nothing. Rubin is all vague double-talk. It’s getting old. I
want to know what you all know.”
Jonah looked at me and took a
breath as if to say something. He decided against it and looked around our
corner of the restaurant. Nobody paid any attention to us. He placed his hand
over the droplets of water on his laminated menu. The water coalesced into
puddles under his palm. As he concentrated on the small pool, it lifted off the
menu and spread into a donut shape. The circle broke and the stream became a
spiral, getting thinner and thinner until it evaporated into steam, absorbed
into Jonah’s hand.
Faith’s frown turned into a smile
as she looked at Jonah. She picked up one of the unlit candles on our table and
pinched the wick between her thumb and forefinger. As she released it a flame
sprang to life.
“Well, I’m not breaking this
table, that’s for damn sure,” said Cole.
“That’s okay. I saw your
street-fight with that bouncer when I first got to town,” I said.
Cole rolled his eyes, but I
couldn’t worry about his temper. I wanted to keep talking about Innoviro and
Ivan. “So, now that we’re making progress, albeit moving into some surreal
comic book world, tell me what’s the deal with Innoviro. What the hell does
this company really do?” I felt my adrenaline rise.
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Author Bio and Links:
Located on BC’s beautiful West
Coast, I make my home at the intersection of a lush rainforest and an urban
underbelly. I love writing about places and spaces with rich history and
visually fascinating elements as a backdrop for the surreal and
spectacular.
In addition to my undergraduate
degree in writing and literature, my background also includes corporate communications
and design. I am a current member of the Federation of BC Writers and SF
Canada.
When not writing, I have a habit
of breaking stuff and making stuff – in that order – under the guise of my Etsy
alter-ego Sleepless Storyteller. I share my eclectic home and lifestyle with
my husband and two children.
Work experience and professional
background at ca.linkedin.com.
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Day, June 30, 10:25 pm 
