Colin Lindsay

Raven's Wings is the first book in the Goddess's Scythe, a young adult epic fantasy trilogy. The main character, Kala, a rebellious fifteen-year-old girl, bristles at her restrictive life in her isolated village, whose only connection to the outside world is through mysterious unpiloted airships that ferry goods from communities upwind and demand goods in return, and sometimes an unwilling youth. Kala's only escape is to hunt in the perilous woods that surround her village. Kala has a talent for killing, but it won't protect her from what she fears most - being sent away from everything and everyone she's ever loved in an airship. If you have to send someone away, you send a misfit, and Kala is at the top of the Council's list. Kala's life is upended when Skye, a charismatic boy, arrives in an airship and teases a life outside her village. They flirt, but he disappears as quickly as he arrived, exhorting her to follow him. She is thrust into the brutal and unforgiving wider world and finds herself under the control of a petty crime lord who wants to profit from her skills as his own personal assassin. A shadowy Church, dedicated to the Goddess of Death, also wants Kala, believing her to be to the prophesied weapon of the Goddess. Kala just wants to regain her freedom and her humanity, find Skye, and a way home, but all of those things seem outside her reach.