Sign of the Rooq

Sign of the Rooq Mock Cover

Jack Agera looks like an alley cat with prominent ribs and his hackles raised. A teleporting assassin plans to use Jack as bait to trap and kill a sentient flying train known as the Demetrian. Whether or not Jack cooperates, he’ll die. Jack vows to kill the assassin or go down fighting.

But the assassin has an uncanny knack for manipulating Jack, and his weapon of choice is a dagger that hungers for certain kinds of blood.

All Jack’s got to work with is a shiv carved with a rooq bird, a latent affinity for mending wounds in the fabric of the world, and a flock of friends who travel parkour-style over the rooftops of Amenheim City.

Jack and his friends manage to escape from the assassin once, team up with the Demetrian, and flee into the hidden dimensions of the world. But they can’t run for long. Jack’s only chance to save everyone is to steal the assassin’s dagger and cure its bloodlust.

It’s an impossible task, one he can only accomplish by unraveling mysteries hidden in memory and and the carving on his shiv.

SIGN OF THE ROOQ is a 90,000-word YA fantasy novel. It combines the urban landscape and “found family” of Leigh Bardugo’s SIX OF CROWS with an interplay between magic and wounds a la UPROOTED by Naomi Novik.

Where is it in the publishing process?

I’m completing polishing edits and preparing to query agents.

The story, characters, and writing are all excellent!

Jodie R.