The Reject : The Senser Series

The World: Mineria is divided into the privileged Intecs and the poorer Stupers.

The Magic System: Each Minerian is born with a heartstone of a particular color. This heartstone enhances a particular sense. Red enhances touch. Green rules the tongue, enhancing taste and the ability to communicate with all creatures. Blue enhances hearing. Pink enhances smell. Violet enhances sight and when trained, a Violet can see and speak to ghosts. Minerians with these abilities are Sensers.

The Law: An Intec born into a family of medical professionals must qualify as a medical professional, wed a fellow medical professional and breed two more medical professionals. Deviation from this law will result in Exile or Death, without exception.

The Conflict: Roarke Boudakyne, a kind Green, and son of a renowned neurosurgeon wants to be a chef. This desire costs him everything.

Synopsis: When his secret cooking sessions with Calliou, the house cook, are discovered, Roarke is sent to boarding school early. Calliou is put to death. Before Calliou ends his life, he reveals a family secret that changes Roarke’s world.

At the school, Roarke and his friend, Kai, a Violet, soon discovers that the school’s suicide rate is a lie. Students are being murdered and a killer is looking for something. But, can they get to the killer before the killer gets to them? Roarke learns more about his family’s dark secrets, but what does it have to do with the killer?

When Kai is murdered, a devastated Roarke is falsely accused. Banished to Exile Island, and sold as a slave, Roarke fights to find his way back to the academy, to prove his innocence and stop Kai’s killer before they strike again.

But first, he must survive brutal beatings and deadly animal races. Most of all, he must hold on to his humanity and his sanity- both of which are slipping away fast.

Roarke pushes his Senser ability to the brink. He knows the path he has chosen will kill him, but some dreams are worth dying for, aren’t they?

Themes:
- Found family
- Societal expectations and parental expectations vs. individual desire