about the book
For years the only life teenager Tom Raines has known is the life of a drifter, going from casino to casino with his unlucky father. Luckily, Tom is a genius at virtual reality games, and has been playing for money—not in the casinos, he’s too young for that yet—but in the games in the hotel lobbies. He has gotten really, really good, and if not for him, his father would be living without a roof over his head.
So far Tom has been invisible in the real world; his only trace the user names he leaves in the computer games after he wins. But no longer. Someone high up has been watching him, and now that someone has contacted him with an incredible offer.
Tom is going to the Pentagonal Spire, the headquarters for the US’s cyber-warfare operations. Now Tom has a computer chip in his brain and is a member of the Intrasolar Forces, which secretly is fighting World War III in space with spacecraft controlled by Tom and other technology wizards like himself.
Now his life matters. He may even have a girlfriend in one of the other IF members. But this is no longer virtual reality. This is Reality, and his decisions and actions have consequences…
about the author
Shelley J. Kincaid (S.J.) was born in Alabama, raised in California, went to high school in New Hampshire, and lived near a graveyard in Scotland, which she says was haunted. It was because of that graveyard Shelley decided she wanted to be a writer.
She began working on what she called The Best Book I’ll Ever Write early on. It was the first book she wanted to write, and she spent so much time on her characters and on the plot that she was sure that it would be published. It never was. She wrote other books and tried to get them published in order to user her status as an already-published author to get The Best Book I’ll Ever Write published.
No one would take it.
It wasn’t until she wrote her seventh book, after six full-length unpublishable books, that she looked back with all her new authoress experience, and finally saw in The Best Book I’ll Ever Write what her editors saw—that is, nothing. It wasn’t the best book she would ever write at all!
Now, Insignia, is on the shelves instead!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Hello Ello Blog
Also by S.J. Kincaid:
Catalyst (Insignia, Book 3). Katherine Tegen Books. 2014.
Vortex (Insignia, Book 2). Katherine Tegen Books. 2013.
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