[EXCERPT!] [BEING PUBLISHED!] [Highest Rank: #4 in Mystery/Thriller] [Featured Story - Fall 2017] Student reporter Penelope needs to prove herself. She chases a story tip on a secret organization of teenage urban explorers called The Broken. With the assistance of a young paranormal investigator, she begins to uncover the group's darkest secrets. However, the members have other plans for Penelope and her new "freak" friend. The reporter becomes part of her story, and she will have to fight for her own life and the lives of her friends as she learns what it means to be one of the broken. Book I of The Broken Trilogy. Featured Story: August 2017 Top Rank: #4 for mystery/thriller Royalty Awards 2017, first place for mystery/thriller Blooming Awards 2017, first place for mystery/thriller Wing Awards 2017, first place for mystery/thriller Dream Awards, first runner-up for mystery/thriller Dreamcatcher Awards 2017, second place for mystery/thriller Rose Gold Awards finalist for best first kiss #nbr Spotlight Chapter, Round 85

Zaria was a princess-not by blood but by capture. She was abducted in her teens from the western Slavic tribes and kept as a virgin by the powerful warring king, Sharvur. Cruel and strategically gifted, his Scythian armies controlled all the territories in the shadows of the Altai Mountains to the east, some twenty-six hundred years before our time. Told by the oldest shaman in his land, that as long as Zaria remained pure of body and did not succumb to the lust which permeated Sharvur's court, his kingdom would remain invincible. But like the fanciful tattoos which Zaria had added each year to her supple body, her curiosity and desires increased, threatening to bring down the empire. In 1993 a team of Russian archaeologists discovered a rich burial tomb on the bleak steppes bordering Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Frozen and remarkably preserved in the permafrost, they uncovered the mysterious body of a woman they would call the "Siberian Princess." Her body was yet that of a young female, but she had the most compelling tattoos ever discovered in ancient history. This is her story. How she loved and how she died. [The two-part saga, "The Tattooed Princess" and "The Tattooed Princess: Book Two--Escape to the West" is additionally available in e-book format through Amazon Kindle Books. Find other completed works by Califia Montalvo on her Amazon profile page here: https://www.amazon.com/author/califia.montalvo ]