Blog Layout

"The Skies Below" -- Book Spotlight

Lisa Pelissier • Jan 04, 2024

Help me welcome author Lisa Pelissier as she shares about her latest release.



Tass. Igracio. Afa. Xylo.


Four individuals that have been living on the fringes of Gannoir, a world where up is down and down is up. Eleven-year-old Tass was relinquished by her parents when it became apparent that she was one of the Mayim, the water caste. Igracio, age 15, was casted Mayim late in life and sent to the Calix against his will. Neither headstrong Tass, nor gentle Igracio could have predicted the forces that would intervene to change the course of their lives.


Bitter and brittle Afa has lost her daughter, 22-year-old Mailu, just as elderly soil-miner Xylo has lost his son, Case. Case and Mailu were sent on a secret mission for the Elders two years earlier. Now word has come that a third member of their team has been killed and it's up to Xylo and Afa to find out what happened.


The two threads of the story come together in a way that could change Gannoir forever.


About Lisa:

Lisa Pelissier lives in Oregon where she is a homeschool mother of four and self-published author of five middle-grade fiction novels, as well as two early-readers' chapter books and a YA fantasy novel. Lisa owns SneakerBlossom Books, offering Christian, classical homeschool study guides and curriculum. She also works as a freelance copy editor, copywriter, and virtual assistant. She blogs at EleventhWillow.com, a site she and two friends started for Christians parenting the mentally ill. In her spare time Lisa enjoys making art, playing the piano, and fretting about things over which she has no control.


Connect online:

Website: https://www.sneakerblossom.com/ 
Email: sneakerblossom (at) yahoo.com
Blog: https://www.eleventhwillow.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.pelissier.author 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaedkela/ 
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/edkela/ 
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lisa-Pelissier/author/B08794GCR1


Buy Link

https://www.amazon.com/Skies-Below-Lisa-Pelissier/dp/B0BGNMDKKS


Book Spotlight

For The Skies Below, book 1 of the series, The Illumination of the Siann Dha, I began world-building with inspiration gleaned from C. S. Lewis’s Discarded Image, a scholarly look at the world through medieval eyes. In particular, their view of the cosmos fascinates me. For the medieval, Earth is base and common—the lowest place in the universe. The universe was composed of nested spheres, with a planet, or the moon or sun, moving within each. The stars occupied the highest sphere, and beyond that were the angels and God.


Because of their views about the cosmos, their universe was a finite, closed system. Looking up didn’t mean observing things millions and millions of miles away, but catching a glimmer of boundaries of the universe. It was a safe feeling, as opposed to the modern notion that we are insignificant ants crawling on the outside of something, exposed to what is nearly infinite and unknown.

I imagined a world that, like the medieval cosmos, was enclosed. The center of the world of Gannoir is sun-like, and rotates daily, a third of its light having been obliterated by the gogyvehr, the equivalent to the Bible’s Fall of Man. Thus day and night exist, even inside their closed world. The outer sphere of Gannoir is ice so cold it is outside the three common states of matter, pulsing with an atomic unity that is so in sync it’s visible as purple flame. This outer sphere also rotates, providing a flow of electricity and magnetism that allow the burning sun at the center and the icy rind to coexist without destroying one another. The sphere within the icy rind is a liquid and caustic sea.


The people of Gannoir are casted fire, water, and land, with water being the lowest caste and a certain sect of fire, the highest. Eleven-year-old Tass was abandoned by her family when they learned she was water casted. She lives at the training school for the Mayim, the water people, and she is bitter and angry. She finds her first friend in fifteen-year-old Igracio, a new student. He teaches her to read. She teaches him the practical skills of the Mayim. The other thread of the story follows middle-aged Afa and Xylo as they search for their young-adult children who were sent on a mission for the elders years before. The two threads of the story converge in the newly discovered civilization of Garradh Gannoir, as those trying to destroy the world can only be stopped by the four outsiders, who have to let go of their own missions and come together for a greater cause.


This is a dark tale of love, anger, abandonment, regret, and sacrifice. It explores the concepts of sin and redemption, discrimination, and the meaning of love. Book 2 and Book 3 have already been written and are going through the editing processes in the hope of publication in 2024. 

Share by: