Moiya Gooden

What happens when the world you live in is turned upside down – and the only way forward is up?

Sotanna is a woman who lives in an underground encampment known as a Colony. There, alongside her best friend Joan and many others, Sotanna works as a mechanic. She is the best her colony has.

Struggling to come to face with the absolutism of her life, Sotanna longs for something different. Life in an underground colony doesn’t suit the free spirit that lives within her, but the world above isn’t safe to move about freely either. Life makes a way for Sotanna to venture outside her world, but at what cost? Civilian life, war, and her people’s ultimate demise comes crashing through the ceiling when massive air raids are sent rippling through her colony, leaving half her people dead and the rest terrorized with fear of the destruction they know is set to come.

With the memory of the devastation that was set upon her people, Sotanna takes the lead in doing something about it. The mission is to infiltrate the notorious Maar Commander’s mansion and acquire the blueprints for his machines. It seems like an easy enough task until Sotanna ventures too far into the goal of gaining his trust, and she comes to find her own being tested.

Now forced to fight, Sotanna must honor the oath she gave to her people when she set off on the mission to save them, all while carrying the consequences of the path she paved with the Commander when she pledged her love to him.

Sotanna must make harrowing decisions. All that comes down in the end rests in her hands. Will she do it? Can she stop this war? Or will everything result to zero in the end?

“Along the Skies” is a steampunk dystopian romance novel about a woman named Sotanna who enters into an unlikely relationship with a Commander after he threatens war on her people. Coming in October 2024.

Link to read Chapter One in bio.

“Narrow Corners: A Collection of Short Stories" is a collection of seven works of fiction. The stories included are:

📚Abalone: a coming of age story about a young bi-racial woman named Judith who is navigating life in the 1960s south.

📚 Reda: a re-telling of the well-known classic "Little Red Riding Hood", only this story holds a bit of a suburban twist.

📚 Cindy: another re-telling of the classic story "Cinderella" that follows our main character as she sets her sights on winning the heart of a wealthy business man's son after his family decides to build a new mall in town.

📚 The Time Between Us: a story about a scientist who finds herself trapped in the past after her efforts to build a time machine go terribly wrong.

📚 Time, Down, and Wary: a story about a woman who keeps receiving mysterious phone calls from a stranger who details to her everything her unborn child is doing inside her.

📚The Insect Kingdom: a story about a young ladybug named Milo who rises to the occasion of saving all the insects in the park after the Insect Queen dies and a new one fails to arise before the changing of the seasons.

📚 Coven: an excerpt from a novel I am working on about a young witch named Gwendolyn who is faced with a terrible past after her mother forces her to return to her family's coven in order to partake in a sacred ritual.

Link in bio.