Trigger warnings: none.Guest reporter Avia/Tsu here, updating with a couple of news posts with
waywind's permission.
To Dream, Perchance To Soar is the first published novel by Ashlyn Nafina, known to the otherkin community as
ccfeathers. Ashlyn has been writing since childhood, creating a number of stories for her friends inside the community, and this was not her first long story, but, it is her first that had been written and edited for publishing, with the hope that it will reach the otherkin community as well as others who might identify with the metaphor of the story.
Set in an alternate France, the story stars Parisian girl Aile Molyneaux, who has always known she was not complete without wings. When a strange aurora opens in the sky above her home city, and alien visitors, nicknamed
les volants ("the flying ones") by the local people, arrive bringing tales of another world, all she can think about is the possibility that magic is really real... and that means she might too be able to become one of
les volants.
But transformation is just the beginning of her story, because
les volants, known as Ka'aulele in their own musical and magical language, see transformation as more than just a one-time thing. It shapes you and changes you in spiritual ways. And though Aile does not realise it, her desire to transform placed her in the center of a much bigger quest for change... maybe, related to the reason the Ka'aulele are there at all.
The story is deliberately designed to be sympathetic to the feelings of otherkin, while being at the same time an enjoyable spiritual adventure story for young adults and older.
To Dream, Perchance to Soar, nicknamed by its author as "Soar", is 412 pages long and $14.99 in print, available from Lulu (see Sources). An ebook version should be available in about one week from the author's website (see Sources).
Sources