MYTHSPEAKER

A middle grade debut and adventure fantasy in which a boy joins forces with other Native kids to pull off a grand heist, infiltrating a colonizer's new city to retrieve a stolen World Turtle egg that must be returned to its mother before she falls from the sky in grieftaking the whole continent with her.

Kyta is the Mythspeaker's son, the boy whose destiny, foretold by a living myth no other human has seen in centuries, is bound with the fate of his world. It's a heavy burden for any kid, and most days, when he's not running around in search of new creatures to converse with (he can speak any language he hears) or pestering his only real friend (an ancient forest spirit called Old Moon Eyes), it's all he can think about. But after what feels like a lifetime of waiting for something, anything to happen, the last thing Kyta expected was for the World Turtle egg revered and protected by his people to go missing, the guards taken down by a terrifying beast with golden eyes and razor-sharp claws. Lord Endellion is a collector. His menagerie is full of creatures from this new world his king sent him to. All heavily guarded by beasts from his own (hungry ogres who will pick their teeth with a person's bones and vicious hounds the size of a jewel horse) and all under his strict control, courtesy of the strange smoke he wields to bend their minds to his will. But when Endellion learns of the existence of a giant egg containing a creature so rare and magnificent it carries a continent on its back, he knows it's the kind of find that could finally set him freethe kind of find that would make him a ruler of a vast, untouched kingdom of his own. Inspired by the story of Takyita, a coyote who stole the secret of fire from Lightning, Kyta and a ragtag group of kids, each with their own score to settle, set off on a quest to steal the egg back from Endellionbecause if the world as they know it is about to come crashing down, then they get to decide their own destiny. Or at least, what remains of it. MYTHSPEAKER is a standalone with series potential. Heartfelt and humorous, it's a perfect read for fans of the fun and adventure in books like Seekers of the Wild Realm by Alexandra Ott or Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A.F. Steadman and the mythologies found on the Riordan Presents list. Christopher Roubique grew up in rural Wisconsin and filled his time?and his heart?with the joy of fantasy and science fiction. His own books leap from that same joy, folding in his Cajun & Indigenous heritage, passion for mental health, and plenty of fantastical creatures. He still lives in Wisconsin and has squeezed his wife and daughter beside all those stories in his heart, too.