A smart and pacy dystopian thriller trilogy, in the vein of Divergent, with an original mythology that draws on the power of African ancestor legends.
THE THOUSAND STEPS
(Book 1 in the Elevation Trilogy)
by Helen Brain
Human & Rousseau/NB Publishers South Africa, May 2022 | Catalyst Press USA, January 2020
On the brink of execution, 16 year old Ebba den Eeden is unexpectedly “elevated” from the bunker deep in South Africa’s Table Mountain where she has lived all her life, believing—as do all the other teenagers who toil daily to make their food and power the bunker—that the world « Above » is uninhabitable due to a nuclear holocaust. Instead, she is heiress to a massive fortune―one that everyone wants to control. While dealing with the machinations of the High Priest, his handsome son Hal, and the rules and regulations of a society and religion she doesn’t understand, she must also try to save her three friends, still stuck in the bunker and facing execution any day.
Helen Brain was born in Australia in 1960 and raised in Durban, South Africa. After school, she studied music at the University of Cape Town. Before settling to a life writing and teaching writing online, she was a freelance journalist and editor, a screenprinter and crafter, and taught English, music, and Ancient Greek. A mother to three sons and grandmother to one grandson, Brain lives in Muizenberg, South Africa with her husband.
Struggling with single parenting and treated as bit of a joke, Cisco isn’t really in the Christmas spirit like everyone else. A fact that’s made worse by the tendrils of the pirate’s powers creeping back into our world and people beginning to die in bizarre ways. With the help of a talking fox, an enchanted forest, a long-lost friend haunting his dreams, and some 80s video game consoles turned into weapons, Cisco must now convince his friends to once again help him save the day. Yet they quickly discover that being a ghostbusting hero is so much easier when you don’t have schools runs, parent evenings, and nativity plays to attend. And even in the middle of a supernatural battle, you always need to bring snacks and wipes…
Two years ago, Csorwe and Shuthmili risked the anger of the wizard Belthandros Sethennai to gain their freedom. Now, they make their living exploring relic worlds of the ancient serpent empire of Echentyr. They think they’re prepared for anything – but when one of their expeditions releases an Echentyri soldier who has slept undisturbed since the fall of her homeland, they are thrown back into a conflict that has lain dormant for thousands of years. Shuthmili will give anything to protect the woman and the life that she loves, but as events spiral out of control, she is torn between clinging to her humanity and embracing her eldritch power. Meanwhile, Tal Charossa returns to Tlaanthothe to find that Sethennai has gone missing. Tal wants nothing to do with his old boss and former lover, so when a magical catastrophe befalls the city, Tal tries to run rather than face his past – but he soon learns that something even worse may lurk in the future. Throughout the worlds of the Echo Maze, fragments of an undead
Welcome to Ebonwilde. 
Josslyn Drake, former First Daughter of Ironport, doesn’t know much about magic. She only knows that it’s dangerous, rare, and completely illegal. So when she’s infected by a mysterious piece of magic confiscated from Lord Banyon, one of the most infamous criminals alive, Joss’s life turns upside down. She begins to have visions, not of the future, but of the past—Banyon’s past. All Joss wants is for things to go back to normal, but the cost for doing magic is death, and there’s nobody she can trust to help her. So when wanted criminal and blackheart Jericho Nox offers her a deal, a way to extract the magic and give it to him instead, she’s forced to accept.