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This page links to my crossover young adult fiction and new adult fiction. I've also written adult fiction – often in the same series as my YA fiction and NA fiction! – so this page will help readers to find my YA and NA stories.
About me: Dusk Peterson writes adventurous stories of young adult fiction and new adult fiction that are science fiction, fantasy, and alternate history, centered on characters who are bound together by friendship or romance. Dusk Peterson's fiction has been honored seven times in the Rainbow Awards, including winning the Fantasy and Alternate Universe/Reality categories. A resident of Maryland, Mx. Peterson lives with an apprentice and several thousand books.
E-BOOKS
The Three Lands is a fantasy series on friendship, romantic friendship, romance, and betrayal in times of war and peace. The series is inspired by conflicts between nations during the final years of the Roman Empire.
Few events are more thrilling in a young man's life than a blood feud between two villages. Or so Adrian thought.
Torn between affection toward his traditional-minded father and worship of his peace-loving, heretical priest, Adrian finds himself caught between two incompatible visions of his duty to the gods. Then the Jackal God sends Adrian a message that will disrupt his world and send him fleeing to a new and perilous life.
He has taken a blood vow to the Jackal God to bring freedom to his land by killing Koretia's greatest enemy. But what will he do when the enemy becomes his friend?
Thrust into exile and pain, young Andrew has no choice but to accept
the friendship of the very person he had vowed to kill. When he returns
with his friend to his homeland fifteen years later, though, he finds himself
in a land of conflicting loyalties . . . where a vengeful god awaits him.
He was a loyal servant of the god. But even loyal servants have their limits.
When Griffith is cast into the role of leading a deadly blood feud against a rival village, he must decide how strong his faith is in the religion that decrees such feuds must occur. Griffith has always been a prankster . . . but can he trick his way out of this dilemma?
Adrian knew that friendship was a fundamental custom of all mankind. Or so he thought, until his closest friend discovered a mysterious journal.
What can you give a slave who, by law, can own nothing? That is the question faced by Peter, the teenage heir to the throne of an empire. Despite his father's desire that the imperial heir maintain a formal distance from servants, Peter finds himself drawn in friendship to the younger boy who serves as his slave.
But a shocking revelation on the eve of the New Year forces Peter to confront his own motives for keeping the slave close by. And that in turn will help him understand the deeper meaning of the gift-giving festival.
Free-men are the backbone of Emor: the men who run and protect the empire. But when a young servant finds himself unexpectedly vaulted into manhood, he must decide how he will use his power, and who will pay the price of his decision.
His father is a dull farmer. His mother is a dull farmer's wife. He seems destined for a similarly dull life.
But then a stranger appears in their village, and suddenly the talk is of soldiers and spies and secrets and gods. Will he be able to break free of his father's legacy and make a bold dash to a life of his own?
Young Toughs features award-winning alternate history stories about the friendship, romance, and struggles of youths from the nineteenth century through to the future.
¶ Honors: Two honors in the Rainbow Awards 2017-2019: Honorable Mention. 3rd Place, Best LGBTA Anthology / Collection.
¶ Contents: Survival School | Sweeping Day | Emancipation | Far Enough Away | New Day | Queue | AI.
=== VOLUME CONTENTS ===
Survival School. "This is the right place for you, boy. They'll school you here to be a right-standing man, one who can keep control over his actions, like any good man should. You just got to keep yourself open to learn and to grow."
How far can trust grow, when you're in a place you despise?
Arrested for a crime he doesn't regret, Bat ends up handcuffed to a group of fellow city boys and sent on a long journey into the countryside. He know that he is being transported to a prison for delinquent servant boys, but what form will his imprisonment take?
Tattooed with the rank-mark of servant, Bat must learn how to keep from losing his temper with the men who carry the keys to his freedom. But in the unbelievable world where he has been deposited, in which a genial master orders strict punishments and a servant acts like a master, will Bat be able to locate the door to his release? Which of his fellow prisoners can he trust to help him?
And will he survive long enough to find out?
Sweeping Day. "When she was hired as a maid, no one told her that she'd hold the future of the Dozen Landsteads in her bosom."
It's sweeping day again, and her task seems straightforward: clean the dirt in her master's study and leave.
But Sally's master is no ordinary master, and Sally's sweeping could be the trigger for war. Finding herself in a dangerous trap, Sally must draw upon the wisdom of her allies in the servants' kitchen before disaster strikes.
Emancipation. "They always held their breaths when the soldiers passed by, but so far, no battles had been held anywhere near Doughoregan Manor or any of its quarters. And sometimes a posse set out with the hounds, to hunt down the quarry."
Civil war is tearing apart the land. Again.
For centuries, the Kingdom Vovim to the northwest and the Queendom of Yclau to the southeast have fought each other for the border territory of Mip. Sometimes the Vovimians are lords of the land. Sometimes the people of Yclau are.
The only Mippites whose lives don't change are the slaves. Young Sling knows that his own life's work has already been determined: he is to be a house slave, serving his master's son. But secret meetings in hidden places with his master's son make Sling uncertain of what will happen next.
When news arrives of a proclamation that will allow Sling to leave his hated master, Sling faces a difficult choice: whether to flee to safety or to stay and face the dangers of an unknown future.
"Emancipation" is loosely inspired by events at a border-state manor during and after the American Civil War.
Far Enough Away. "He came down the mountain one early summer afternoon, toward the end of what had not yet been dubbed the Hydrogen War. He was just in time to catch the climax of the war."
He knew he wasn't normal. Now he must save others who have been left behind.
For two years, since his parents left for the west coast of the continent, Phillip Schafer has lived in a mountain home, as far as he can get from society. But when the loss of his beloved companion forces him out of his refuge, he finds that the world is on the cusp of change. And he may be one of the few people left who is able to outrace that change.
Accompanied by two unusual allies, Phillip must escape from his nation before disaster strikes. But with no jet-car, he must somehow reach the skyport before the last rocket blasts off. . . .
New Day. "Having a servant-boy accompany them on this trip was annoying, Kit thought. But there was no way around it; Honey's parents would never have allowed Honey to visit Yclau without her young bodyguard."
Kit has reached her apprenticeship birthday and is on a path to inherit power. But what sort of power will she wield?
Queue. "Depositing money in the bank was always the worst problem."
What should a young servant do when his employer may fire him at any moment, his employer's beautiful daughter is absorbed with her high school textbook ("How to be Firm with Servants"), and he's blocked from carrying out a simple task by a snooty cyborg?
AI. "Tripp leaned back against the leather. Leather reminded him of Jack, roughly masculine. That wasn't quite Tripp either. 'Al, what material are you?' he asked finally, closing his eyes. There was a pause before Al said, 'Ferrite, mainly.'"
Tripp has two friends in high school: a rebel without a cause, and a girl fighting the social restraints upon her. But only one human being has any real hope of understanding Tripp, and he isn't human at all.
He was his master's piece: the model for his master's sculptures. But his master was different.
As Pip longs for the unobtainable, his master finds that he is beginning to have doubts about a long-standing custom in his nation. Yet how can he risk giving up what he values most?
¶ Honors (as part of the collection Risk): Four honors in the Rainbow Awards 2016: Honorable Mention. Finalist. Winner, Best LGBT Alternative Universe/Reality. 3rd Place, Best LGBT Book.
His entire life has been a secret. Now he must rip open the secret.
Hannibal S. Mercer has lived all his life in an isolated island home with his loving parents and two servants. Hannibal never receives the opportunity to meet anyone else. The older servant doesn't speak to Hannibal. The younger servant might or might not be an ally in time of trouble.
Now trouble has arrived. When hostile strangers invade Hannibal's world, he must uncover the truth his parents have been hiding from him. And then he must make a choice that will determine the course of his life.
¶ Honors (as part of the collection Risk): Four honors in the Rainbow Awards 2016: Honorable Mention. Finalist. Winner, Best LGBT Alternative Universe/Reality. 3rd Place, Best LGBT Book.
Simmons has been waiting all his life for the day when he would come of age and pledge his service to a liege-master. But at the last minute, all his plans go awry; he is left in the awful position of having to find a liege-master quickly. Desperation may force Simmons to pick the worst of liege-masters.
Working at his uncle's waterfront store on a bay island, Simmons seeks a way out of his dilemma. Then another young man walks through the door, one whose problems may be even worse than Simmons's. . . .
¶ Honors (as part of the collection Risk): Four honors in the Rainbow Awards 2016: Honorable Mention. Finalist. Winner, Best LGBT Alternative Universe/Reality. 3rd Place, Best LGBT Book.
Bat is in trouble. Again.
The only way out of the trap this time is to take a leap into the future, into a world of wonders that his mind can scarcely grasp.
But trouble awaits him at the border to his refuge. How Bat handles that trouble will determine his own future . . . and the future of what he is leaving behind.
The odds are against them.
From the introduction: "This series omnibus covers a range of disabilities: cognitive impairment, speech disorders, mobility impairment, anxiety, emotional disturbance, visual impairment, and what I can only term as magic impairment. Yet when I wrote these stories, my thoughts were not on disability but on love: friendship and romance. I wrote about people like myself: people who stood outside the main boundaries of society, people who longed for companionship, people who sought something even higher than companionship. Those are the young people on these pages."
=== VOLUME CONTENTS ===
Right or Right. "He looked at Linnet, smiling as sweetly as though she had offered to buy the man's shop. 'Tell me,' said the shopkeeper, 'what caused you to leave your barony?'"
Linnet is trouble. Everyone agrees about that. Driven from her native barony, she arrives at Goldhollow in hopes of beginning a new life, only to discover that she cannot escape her past.
As Linnet is drawn into memories of a dark young man she once knew, she must deal in the present with a boy who is headed toward danger, as well as a child-like baron who may force her to betray her past.
Crossing the Cliff. "I tell you all this, Erastus, so that you will understand. I owe a debt to my master, and a debt like that cannot go unpaid."
After ten years as apprentice to a Peacesteward, the one thing Erastus is sure of is that he's ill-prepared to become a master. Unfortunately, he's about to discover just how ill-prepared he is.
When he and his master stray into forbidden territory, Erastus is thrust alone into a community that is on the brink of war. His only hope for bringing peace is to ally himself with a young boy . . . a boy who has stolen what Erastus values most.
Night Shadow. "That will be your death."
A prince who could see beyond his borders but not see the people around him. . . . An enemy who would take any measure to get what he wanted. . . . And now a stranger has brought news to the prince of an approaching danger.
Young though he is, Farsight has inherited a powerful gift from his father that allows him to protect his realm. But when a conniving king in a neighboring country sets his sights on Farsight's mountain of gold, the prince will need help to protect himself against an assassin's knife. Will a newfound companion-in-arms be enough to save Farsight, once the Night Shadow crosses the border?
Wizard of the Sun. "The room before me was empty – but I was still bound."
When Tyne's father makes plans to rid himself of his dull-witted son, Tyne climbs the wizards' mountain, hoping to find there an answer to his troubles. The power he receives there brings him joy beyond measure. Gradually, however, he comes to realize that the land of his people lies in danger. Tyne sets out to fight the danger, though he realizes that in doing so, he risks losing the power he has gained and returning to the lonely life he led as a boy.
You're welcome to create fanworks about my stories. If you do, please say I wrote the story that your fanwork is based on. Also, please link back to either ya.duskpeterson.com or duskpeterson.com. My fan works disclaimer.
