Hiya guys, today we have Sandra Bard popping in with her upcoming release Finding His Feet, we have a fantastic guest post and a brilliant excerpt, so enjoy the post and then wait in anticipation for this fantastic story’s release (my review will be posted on release day… amazing story!) <3 ~Pixie~ 

Finding His Feet

Sandra Bard

Kaden Pace, a soldier injured while on a mission, hides the extent of his damage by wearing his high-tech armor, desperate to prove his worth to his administrators and make himself useful in order to hold on to his independence. But during a simple assignment to escort two cadets across the country to retrieve the armor of a dead warrior, things start to fall apart.

They meet Shun, a young man with a secret, who steals the armor they were supposed to recover. Chasing Shun brings them to an abandoned beach town, where they encounter even more trouble. Stranded in the deserted city, Kaden finds himself relying more and more on Shun, the person he’d come to capture, while fighting off an invasion from the neighboring country.

But even when he returns to his camp, Kaden’s problems are not over. Now he has to find a way to save Shun, whom he’s growing to care for, and keep his team alive as they make one last-ditch attempt to get back the armor Shun stole. Armor that is now in enemy hands, on an island in the middle of the sea, at ground zero where it all began.

Sandra Bard!

Thank you for inviting me. I am happy to be on a site, where some of my previous stories have been reviewed with such understanding and depth.  Finding his Feet, my new book, is my second book with Dreamspinner, is all about people coming to know each other and themselves better.

When I was first given the list of blog appearances, I was instructed to tell the readers a little about the inspiration behind the book and anything else that might interest them.  I thought it over, made a list, went over it and crossed off a few things, added more to list, again and finally, just gave up.

There is so much to tell but if I did that, I’d come across like the person on one wants to sit next to at parties because they only talk about themselves. So, let me talk about myself…  and how this book came around. Or more than that, let me write about trying to finish this story while on the move.

I wrote Finding his Feet in segments, in between different jobs, travelling through three countries and trying to balance a full time employment with travelling around the country for education workshops and classes. In between everything, I think the most frustrating for me was the problems that come from trying to write in public places and on public transport. I swear, every time I opened my work processor and did my super effective two finger typing on the touch screen, someone would be trying to read over my shoulder.  Try writing a racy scene knowing the kid next to you is peeking at the screen! This was worse of trains because the seats were closer together and I couldn’t get up and move away as I usually do in airport terminals.

But this is also where the inspiration for the story came from.

Kaden, my main character, a cynical, battle weary solider and he meets Shun, the more optimistic civilian, on a train. The seating arrangement on the trains where they talk and flirt, and learn new things… well, guess where that came from. 

The landscapes, the heat and the sun and the brownness, well, I experienced it all.

(my sister and I, trying to get away from the sun)

 

And as Kaden and Shun get past everything, including the betrayal, to work together for a common goal, the setting was Compen Beach Town. I took liberties, the railways track in my home country run alone the coast but once, looking out, I saw a washed out house and it gave me the idea for the town.

I experienced the sand and the wind and the ocean smell as I wrote about it. The town took shape on real geographical features, and I even drew a rough sketch of a map, which never made it to the book.

 

There were some features I left out since it felt unrealistic, but sometimes I wished I could include. This lighthouse, hundreds of years old, is one of them.

As for the people, I met them all. In the author note for Finding his Feet, I spoke of the inspiring stories that people told me, that I used as inspiration to write in the book.

But what I didn’t mention was the people who annoyed me, the airport security who held me back at the passport and wouldn’t let my sister get on the plane, or the woman who was rude to me in the workshop, the child who sat too close to me in the waiting room of the train… I included them in my book. They’re all there, in different forms, perhaps a look or a gesture, sometimes it’s a part of a dialogue but they’re there.

In the end, the book is a Journey, about self discovery and recovery, of finding his feet and fitting in and it is also a story of a real place, real people and incidents through the eyes of the author.

Excerpt

Second class meant a carriage with a seat for each person, but only first class had seat numbers and prebooking. People could sit where they wanted to in any of the six-seater carriages. The train was crowded; their station was a little out of the way, but a place for people to pass through on their way to better destinations. Movement between compartments was only allowed when the train wasn’t moving, and as usual there was a rush to find a place to sit.

Bradley picked a carriage at random and opened the door, happy to discover it was relatively empty. There were three people inside: a man, a woman, and a small girl. They all got to their feet the moment they noticed the armored warriors and started to move out.

“No need,” Bradley said quickly. “We just need to sit—”

Kaden could have told her not to bother. The people respected them far too much to sit with them. As the family moved out, the woman caught Wayland’s armor-encased hand and bowed. “Thank you.”

Wayland looked floored for a second before she smiled. Kaden had had moments like that in his youth, awed that these people—adults—were thanking him. That his actions mattered and that he was doing something worthwhile. Kaden wondered if he should tell Wayland not to get too used to it; armored warriors who got used to praise became unimaginable assholes. Then they died.

They sat easily in the empty carriage despite their full armor, the girls sitting across from him. He supposed he should start thinking of them as cadets or future fellow warriors, but they were so young and eager and untainted by death and war and—

Just as the carriage door was about to slide shut, there was the sound of running feet and a flurry of clothes and dusty boots. The newcomer was about the same height as Bradley, with close-cropped hair and deep blue eyes—the young man from the platform. He’d pushed back the cap, or it’d fallen off in his rush to get into the train. The shadow was gone from his face, and in addition to his eyes, it was obvious by the fairness of his skin that he had Harian blood in him. It wasn’t uncommon. There had been a time when Haria and Joscal had been one big country and people had intermarried. Kaden’s own mother had confessed to a Harian relative, though he’d never seen any physical evidence of that genetic “stain”—at least not while she was alive, and definitely not in himself. Kaden supposed there were crossbreeds around; after all, it wasn’t as if they could all pack up and leave for another country. But most Joscalians found it hard to tolerate even a hint of Harian ancestry given their hatred for Harians in general. Those of mixed heritage kept a low profile in society, trying hard not to be noticed.

The newcomer looked around at the carriage and grinned infectiously at them. “Hello, hope you don’t….” He really looked at them as he turned around after sliding the door shut, at the armor peeking from under their robes, and froze. As soon as the boy stopped smiling and focused his attention on them, Kaden realized the “boy” had old eyes, eyes that had seen a lot of hardship and action, more suited for a veteran soldier than a carefree cadet. “Armored warriors, oh….” He started to pull the door open as the whistle blew and the train jerked forward.

“There’s no need to go.” Kaden spoke softly, more to annoy Bradley than because he wanted the company. “There’s plenty of room.”

“No, I….” The “boy” stopped and looked at them. “I don’t think so—” He pulled out his cap and started to put it on as he turned to go. “I think I can make it to the next carriage if I hurry.”

“You should stay,” Wayland offered, and Kaden bit back a grin as Bradley grumbled under her breath. “It’s dangerous to jump between railcars even if you open the door.”

“I saw you on the platform,” Wayland spoke suddenly. “You were reading a data pad on the bench by the newsstand.”

The boy didn’t look too comfortable about the mention of owning foreign tools. “I got it from a wholesale importer, one of the old models.” Kaden didn’t bother telling him they didn’t arrest people for buying off the black market. The things on sale in the normal shops were shit anyway.

“What took you so long to get on the train?” Kaden suddenly asked, more to keep the boy from leaving the carriage than anything else. He winced internally even as he spoke because the question came out abrupt and intrusive.

      The newcomer faltered for a second and then shrugged. “I had to figure out which carriage to get into.”

“My sister is fifteen and if you touch her, I will break your fucking arm,” Bradley said in her normal tone, which was unfriendly going on freezing, and the boy stepped back looking genuinely alarmed. He probably believed in the media image of armored warriors that showed them as savior angels who couldn’t even swear to save their lives.

“I’ll sit with your father,” he said as the train pulled out. He stumbled and fell heavily onto Kaden, who was seated comfortably, legs spread.

Kaden hadn’t expected the boy to give in to their invitation and sit in their carriage—the train must be really crowded. Or perhaps the boy was really, really interested in sitting with them. He scanned the newcomer quickly: nondescript clothes that didn’t hide the shape of his body, no explosives strapped to his chest. There was a chance he was carrying some explosive in his backpack, but he lacked the zealot gleam of a suicide bomber, and years of experience had taught Kaden something about people. The boy might have another purpose for sitting with them, but he didn’t look as if he wanted to kill them. Anyway, it was safer to keep him with three armored warriors than have him sit with the civilians.

The boy managed to sit half on Kaden’s lap, arms and legs everywhere. Kaden snapped his legs together, and the boy fell to the side with a curse, making Wayland giggle.

“I’m not their father,” Kaden said defensively as he tried to act unoffended.

About Sandra

Sandra Bard started writing when she was quite young because there was always a story inside her head, but never thought of writing for an audience until recently. She only decided to try her hand at writing for the sake of being published after a series of events left her with some free time and in between jobs.  Now she has three jobs but writing is still her most favorite thing to do. Sandra grew up travelling the world from Africa to Asia and, though she now lectures full time at a university, dreams of having a job that wouldn’t tie her down to one place. She enjoys reading books, watching anime and, occasionally, visiting a fan-fiction site. She also dabbles in tai chi and yoga in the hope they would keep her flexible and help lose weight. She lives with her pets (fish, cats, and dogs) and has been a volunteer for an organization that takes care of stray dogs (there are many, where she lives) for over ten years.

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