Black Bead: Book One of the Black Bead Chronicles

Winner of IBPA's 2016 Benjamin Franklin digital award, Indie Reader Approved, and recipient of Library Journal's 2016 SELF-e Selection seal. Cheobawn has been an outcast for her entire life, having been marked with the Black Bead on her Choosing Day, a symbol of Bad Luck and shame. Her beautiful half-sister Megan is the only person she can count on. So when Megan is finally of age and is chosen to be a part of a foraging mission outside their home dome, she demands her little sister come too. Cheobawn knows this is her chance to prove herself.

The girls join a pack of boys who are hungry for adventure, and anxious to get out of the protective dome which shields their utopian colony from the dangerous beasts that inhabit their lush, forested world — a forgotten planet on the edge of the galaxy. Their job is to act as psychic “Ears” to guide their pack of trained hunter-fighters. But something sinister stalks them and each member of the pack must draw on their unique strengths and a lifetime of training if they want to survive to see another day.

In this first novella in her visionary new series The Black Bead Chronicles, author J.D. Lakey invites young adults, teens and sci-fi and fantasy fans of all ages to journey along with Cheobawn, Megan, Tam, Connor, and Alain as they learn to become a pack and use their wits and their Luck to survive in this coming-of-age adventure.