Description:
Book club favorite and acclaimed author of No Better Time and The Secret Women makes her first foray into the mythical fantasy genre with this epic tale of legacy, power, sacrifice, and family bonds that is a call to action wrapped in elemental magic.
Aeola St. James is no ordinary CEO. While navigating boardroom politics and the chaos of motherhood, she harbors a secret: she is Keeper of the Winds, an elemental being who can read the landscape and harness the wind. The planet is warming faster than it should and Aeola senses catastrophe.
To ward off disaster, Aeola must gather "Daughters of the Wind" from every epoch and corner of the globe, including her own daughters whom she has hidden for their protection: Buran, mammoth hunter in Ice Age North America, Burga, her Eurasian counterpart, a skilled falconer, Siree, midwife to the Kushite royal house, Zonda of the Cloud People, masters of the Andean peaks, and Mistral, mercurial and fierce, survivor of a medieval witch hunt.
As Aeola time-travels the globe, an enemy waits. Tech billionaire Wills Holloway has devised a plan to monetize climate correction by launching a missile into the stratosphere, seeding it with a cooling compound. His corporate intelligence reveals that Aeola's company has a mechanism that will facilitate the dispersal of his creation and he initiates a hostile takeover. But Wills has no idea that the "mechanism" he seeks to acquire is Aeola herself.
As the climate clock ticks, Aeola uses her gifts to outsmart the uber-introverted Holloway and persuade him to partner with her and the Daughters to give the blue planet a fighting chance.
Brief description:
Sheila Williams is the author of eight novels, including Things Past Telling, The Secret Women, and Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, which was adapted for the Netflix film Juanita. In addition to her published works, she is the librettist for Fierce the opera, with music by Dr. William O. Menefield. Sheila lives in northern Kentucky.
Review Quotes:
"Poetically written and deeply contemplative, Daughters of the Wind introduces a cast composed of wonderfully intricate characters. A moving look at motherhood, duty, and love pierced through with magic as elemental and enchanting as the many winds it connects across time and space. Readers will cherish every minute they spend with Aeola and her daughters, sons, and true loves, who, together, fight to save the world in the many lands and eras they're scattered across. A breathtaking whirlwind of an adventure." -- Lynn Buchanan, author of the acclaimed novel The Dollmakers
"Daughters of the Wind sweeps us up in a page-turning, time-traveling odyssey. Sheila Williams demonstrates her inventiveness and impressive range as she tells a tale of a contemporary corporate executive with knives at her back, who is in fact the Keeper of the Wind. Artfully assembled, the story is also about mothers, daughters, their powers, their relationships, and spectacularly, about the earth itself. Superbly imagined, immensely readable.
-- Diane McKinney-Whetstone, author of eight novels including the best-selling Tumbling, and Family Spirit
"Daughters of the Wind
A whirlwind ride.
Sheila Williams' story blends myth, fantasy, and modern stakes in this sweeping novel. It demands readers sit down and pay attention to the intricate worldbuilding as much as the real-world problems that inspired them. This is a slow burn that focuses on legacy, collective duty, and stepping up for a world in desperate need of saving. Perfect for lovers of elemental magic and sisterhood." -- Savannah Stephens, author of the critically acclaimed novel Witch Queen Rising