Zephyr of the Ashes by Dawn Leslie Lenz is available on Kindle for just 99 cents.
Description:
The sun's intense draw lures out all the people of the world, while agoraphobic Chava Logan hunkers down inside her San Francisco apartment in terror. Slowly, more and more people succumb to the allure of the sun.
The Sun Pandemic is a global phenomenon that no one seems to understand or be able to fight. Alone in her apartment, Chava struggles against this unknown force. Can her neurotic behaviors actually save her life? A short story from our Orbits sci-fi/fantasy line.
From the Reviewers:
“Dawn Leslie Lenz’s character Chava Logan in “Zephyr of Ashes” is one of the more interesting, complex and endearing that I’ve encountered in any genre, let alone science fiction/fantasy. Her frailties, which include agoraphobia, its accompanying panic attacks and a certain innate shyness, actually buoy her survival capabilities as she experiences a horrific, inexplicable pandemic where people everywhere sacrifice themselves to the sun’s rays and spontaneously combust. The setting, San Francisco, lovely and familiar, is transmogrified into an unimaginable ruins of ashes, remnants of the unfathomable frenzy that has gripped the world, all the lovely streets and famous sites cloaked in death.
"Chava, though, does what agoraphobes do best: She hides in her efficiency apartment, her cat her only companion, and, avoiding the sun, makes a single evening foray to a neighborhood store to sustain the two of them. But supplies will someday run out. Are there any other survivors? What will she do when she must move on? Can anything, anybody rescue her? Like the people who have buckled to the irresistible lure of the sun in this rare world, a reader yields to Lenz’ mastery, word after word, page after page.
"There are so many ways to interpret this rich, fascinating work, which features a memorable, imaginative landscape, a deep psychological portrait, an unprecedented dilemma and, surprisingly, given these parameters, humor. You will never be able to watch narcissists on the beach or in the backyard again in quite the same way. And you’ll know that Mom’s advice was right: Don’t stay out too long in the sun, dear!"
--Tony Fitzpatrick, Author of Signals from the Heartland
"As we speak, the world is warming and experiencing its own corporeal collapse. It’s insightful to imagine the conditions that could prevail when unknown mysterious and realities such as a sun pandemic impose its wishes on the world. In “Zephyr of Ashes” Dawn Lenz attaches the unknown with the known, adds mystery to the already mysterious, and yes she prevails in illuminating and entertaining us with a very compelling story—as you would expect from an author of her caliber. Chava Logan, a mystery within a mystery, disabled because of panic attacks, has for five years been able to resist the temptation of the sun—deadlier and less subtle than any case of carcinoma—that has lured the world and reduced mankind to a group of doomed sunbathers. But it is Chava Logan and her feline companion, Vesper, who report to us, their most basic needs in a time when the world has changed leaving a zephyr of ashes. Bravo, Dawn Leslie Lenz!"
--Rick Bolner, Writer, CPA
"Chava, though, does what agoraphobes do best: She hides in her efficiency apartment, her cat her only companion, and, avoiding the sun, makes a single evening foray to a neighborhood store to sustain the two of them. But supplies will someday run out. Are there any other survivors? What will she do when she must move on? Can anything, anybody rescue her? Like the people who have buckled to the irresistible lure of the sun in this rare world, a reader yields to Lenz’ mastery, word after word, page after page.
"There are so many ways to interpret this rich, fascinating work, which features a memorable, imaginative landscape, a deep psychological portrait, an unprecedented dilemma and, surprisingly, given these parameters, humor. You will never be able to watch narcissists on the beach or in the backyard again in quite the same way. And you’ll know that Mom’s advice was right: Don’t stay out too long in the sun, dear!"
--Tony Fitzpatrick, Author of Signals from the Heartland
"As we speak, the world is warming and experiencing its own corporeal collapse. It’s insightful to imagine the conditions that could prevail when unknown mysterious and realities such as a sun pandemic impose its wishes on the world. In “Zephyr of Ashes” Dawn Lenz attaches the unknown with the known, adds mystery to the already mysterious, and yes she prevails in illuminating and entertaining us with a very compelling story—as you would expect from an author of her caliber. Chava Logan, a mystery within a mystery, disabled because of panic attacks, has for five years been able to resist the temptation of the sun—deadlier and less subtle than any case of carcinoma—that has lured the world and reduced mankind to a group of doomed sunbathers. But it is Chava Logan and her feline companion, Vesper, who report to us, their most basic needs in a time when the world has changed leaving a zephyr of ashes. Bravo, Dawn Leslie Lenz!"
--Rick Bolner, Writer, CPA
About the Author:
Dawn Leslie Lenz is a fiction writer and freelance editor. She is a Contributing Editor for River Styx literary magazine. Her work has appeared in books, journals, online, and elsewhere including The Green Tricycle, The Rambler, and Mirror, Mirror: Reflections on the Way We Look, among others. She is seeking representation for her first novel, Winged Victory. A Master of Fine Arts graduate of the Creative Writing program at the University of New Orleans, she has an undergraduate degree in English from Missouri State University. Dawn Leslie lives in St. Louis with her husband. She is currently hard at work on her next novel.
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