A Bitter Currency

Tama Kai harvests the world’s most valuable commodity – fresh water. But the totalitarian government controls it all, keeping her and her island home in crushing poverty.

The only way to have enough food to eat, is for a family member to work in the distant capital city. For Tama’s family, that person has been her brother. When she learns of her brother’s execution, she is too focused on imminent starvation to shed a tear. Desperate to support her family, she leaves her home for the capital city in search of a lucrative job. Instead she’s given a social score – the number that represents what sort of citizen one is – that dips lower and lower each day, limiting her employment options and making her a social pariah.

Consumed in equal parts by hunger and loneliness, she begins selling water illegally, passing the water she’s filtered in her dingy room as pure. This draws the attention of a water smuggling ring that gives her two options: stop selling immediately, or start working for them.

Soon, she discovers that her recruitment was orchestrated and she now walks a fine line between avoiding the government’s notice and maintaining her usefulness to the smugglers, just as her brother had. Among the smugglers, she finds that she gains not only money and companionship, but also power – and she is frightened by how much she likes the latter.

This is novel is completed at 99,000 words. Chelsea is actively seeking representation.

Work In-Progress

Grounding (Working Title)

She is John’s wife. She is Sam, Marcus, Cooper, and Everret’s mother. And she was something else once too, but now she is only pent up electricity.

She has put away pieces of herself – just until they’re settled, just until the children are older, just until what exactly? After an international move, she tells herself that everything will be alright if she can only get their apartment in order. But the more she puts off her own desires and needs, the more seems to go wrong – the oven electrocutes her, the AC sparks a fire, the brand new dryer tears apart their clothes – until she can no longer deny that she is the one causing these surges and mishaps.

Now she must learn to manage these strange new happenings before she harms her marriage, children, or the shining new espresso machine.