Painted Flock
Description
Clémence Voyer's one and only priority is Alain, ols five-year-old brother. Ol had been ready to kill countless witches to keep him safe. With Montrant Industries' crimes exposed, Clémence is freed from their clutches and under witness protection, granting ol a rare opportunity to give the boy a sense of normalcy and indulge his bird obsession.
The city of Val-de-mer is left with one obvious problem, however: over a thousand witches trapped in exocores need to be transferred safely into new bodies, and ols involvement in the creation of exocores is not so easily forgotten?not by the lovely Emmanuelle Duclos, the scientist in charge of devising the exocore transfer, not by the witch community ol betrayed, and not by Montrant Industries, who needs ol dead to protect itself.
Mired in the middle of the exocore restoration project, Clémence is forced to face the people ol harmed. Ol will need to learn to trust again determine what it means to be accountable if ol wants to move forward and finally give Alain the idyllic life he deserves.
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Painted Flock is the second fantasy novel in a series meant to reframe romance tropes within non-romantic relationship and centering aromantic characters. Those who enjoy quiet healing, tricky redemptions, and unusual families should enjoy this story.
More details
Person
Claudie Arseneault is an easily-enthused aromantic and asexual writer with a never-ending cycle of obsessions but an enduring love for all things cephalopod and fantasy (together or not!). She writes stories that centre platonic relationships and loves large casts and single-city settings, the most notable of which are the City of Spires series (2017-2023) and Baker Thief (2018).
In addition to her own fiction, Claudie has co-edited Common Bonds (2021), an anthology of aromantic speculative short stories. She is a founding member of The Kraken Collective, an alliance of self-publishing SFF authors, and the creator of the Aromantic and Asexual Characters Database.
