Length of Novel:

118,570 words

Keywords and Market Focus:

Science fiction, space, adventure, intrigue, space ships, psyonics; will appeal to adults and young adults interested in science fiction/adventure

Genre:

Science Fiction

Synopsis: 

Nikita Protania has won a place for herself in the Trader Family of the spaceship, Regia Anglorum.  She is an essence of power moving through the families on the Regia.  She is being groomed in Shuttle Section and training a student.  She trains in astrogation.  She helped Nichol launch her debut album and as a result facilitated the start of a new ship Services Division.  She pushed the ship and the Family Trader Cooperative in a new direction, and she gained a place on her parent’s clandestine psy team.  Great success is just around the corner for her--then everything falls apart…

Alex, the inventor, and Nikita’s friend, decides he wants to be more than a friend.  He threatens to no longer supply Nichol with album chips and that means the end of Nichol’s career.  Nikita gets a new problem student, Candy, in Shuttle Section.  Candy has great potential, but won’t listen to Nikita…if Candy fails, Nikita fails.  The Family Trader Vessel, Shadowed Vale, is missing and the Regia makes a detour to alert the Family Trader Cooperative.  At the Cooperative headquarters, Nikita’s birth father sees her and wants to take her from Den and Natana.

The travails of growing up Nikita Protania are filled with increasing success and unending anguish.  If the events were not so important or critical to the Regia Anglorum, the Trader Family Cooperative, and the Confederation of Human Space, then Nikita could just relax.  If Nikita’s ideas weren’t so important in aiding Alex to invent marketable new psy devices, she wouldn’t be tied to him.   

The loss of the Shadowed Vale was just the beginning.  Every year standard since, a Family Trader Vessel has not returned from a trading run.  Nikita’s parents, Den and Natana, think they know why, but they don’t expect anyone will believe them.  Still, life doesn’t stop for the Family Traders and in due course Den and Natana have children.  For Nikita, new sisters and brothers mean new problems, especially her sister, Mara.

When six year old Mara stows away with Nikita and Alex during their lecture tour to Nior, Mara gets more than she bargained for.  Nikita and Alex are kidnapped—Mara just happened to be there too.  Now, they are captives of those who hijacked the Family Trading Vessels.  The kidnappers want Nikita and Alex to build psy human control devices for them.

Nikita is injured as a result of the kidnapping and Mara and Alex must keep her alive and help her recover.  Somehow, Nikita’s closed heart begins to thaw to Alex, but she knew that a long time ago—she just wouldn’t admit it. 

The three of them: two young adults and a six year old must determine how to escape the clutches of their kidnappers and free the six Family Trader Vessels under their control.

Author's reviewer’s quotes:

Nikita has issues—will she ever get over them.  Alex wants to get close to Nikita, but she isn’t so sure, and she has issues.  As Mara advises, “Love her, stand beside her, but never, never, ever get in her way…”

Nikita meets her waterloo in her little sister, Mara, and the persistent Alex Porson.  It just takes Nikita a little while to realize how much she loves Alex and how dependent he is on her.  Too bad their small world is about to come to an end.

Nikita becomes a full member of Den and Natana’s psy team—they are now ready to face the Athenian Charter.  Unfortunately, Nikita, her sister, Mara, and her friend, Alex, have been captured by the Athenian Charter.

Short descriptive teasers:

Ghost: Shadowed Vale continues the adventures of Den, Natana, and their adopted daughter, Nikita, on the ship Regia Anglorum as they continue to fight the Athenian Charter, and now Family Trader Vessels are missing.

The Shadowed Vale is missing, and every year another Family Trader Vessel fails to return from its trading runs; Nikita and Mara Protania and Alex Porson are missing too and their captors are the Athenian Chapter.    

Den and Natana train Nikita in psy operations—they are a psy team ready to face a new world that is full of changes for the Family Traders; Alex Porson is instrumental in the changes to electronics based on psyonics, and all the ideas come from Nikita.

Further Information:

Ghost: Shadowed Vale is the fourth novel in the Ghost Ship Chronicles.