FLAME, THE THIRD AND FINAL SKY CHASERS NOVEL, IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Here is what the e-verse is saying:

From a Kirkus starred review: "...a climax that is tense and viscerally frightening...Detailed and gripping, with a thorough and satisfying resolution."

MajiBookshelf: "Me not being a fan of books set in space, this series totally blew me away! I'm so happy that I was able to read it, and would totally recommend it to all sci-fi readers out there! I will be looking forward to future books by Amy Kathleen Ryan!"


Fresh Fiction: "Fans of Orson Scott Card and Suzanne Collins will appreciate the depth of Amy Kathleen Ryan's world and how it reveals society at its weakest and strongest points."
Snarky Bird: "This trilogy offers a great mix of dynamic characters, politics and well, spaceships." 

Me on Books: "Flame is a tense and dangerous conclusion to a series about survival, faith, power and hope."

For anyone who thinks gay people should be "reformed."

(Reposting this in solidarity with the gay couples in Utah who have just had their right to marry violated by the government.)

Imagine a world where almost everyone is gay. It’s fully accepted that women ought to fall in love and marry other women, and men should marry other men. Every movie and TV show depicts gay couples and families. In the park, everywhere you look, there are gay couples strolling hand in hand, lying on a blanket looking at the clouds, or just laughing together, having a good time. No one bothers them, because in this world, everyone assumes that everyone else is gay.

Since being gay is ‘normal,’ gay people have all the power in this society. Every school board member, state legislator, and congress-person is gay. Even the President of the United States is gay. In fact, there has never been an openly straight president in our entire nation’s history.

Now imagine that you’re one of few straight people in this world, and you've finally met the squeeze of your dreams. If you’re a girl, you’ve found that super cute guy with blue eyes and dimples. If you’re a guy, you’ve found that gorgeous girl with the shiny hair you’ve been looking for all your life. For the first time, you’ve met a person who feels right, who makes you happy and excited and peaceful all at once. There’s a problem, though. When you walk down the street together, you get dirty looks from passing gay couples who think that you’re disgusting. You can’t even hold hands when you go to the movies because roaming bands of gay guys might come and beat you up. You have to somehow tell your moms that you’re straight, and when you do, they cry, and maybe even kick you out of the house. In fact, now that everyone knows you’re straight, they act weird around you, embarrassed. Many of them stop being your friend.

After a year or two of this treatment, maybe you decide that being with your perfect squeeze isn’t worth all this grief and rejection. You decide that being straight is only in your head, and that if you try really hard, you can make yourself be attracted to same-sex people. So you give up your perfect squeeze, and you try to “pass” for gay. If you’re a guy, you find a decent looking dude, and you pretend you can’t get enough of touching him. If you’re a girl, you find a nice chick with good skin and you make out in the hallways at school. Because that’s what everyone wants you to do.

Could you do it? Could you make yourself be attracted to someone in order to satisfy a social order you don’t fit into? Could you suddenly decide that you’ve had enough of being straight, that you’re gay now, and you’re going to be happy with that? 

 When I met my husband, I thought he was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I loved the way he rubbed my back after making me laugh. I loved kissing him, and holding his hand, and snuggling with him. I didn’t have to force it. I wanted to do all these things because, on a very basic, biological, even cellular level, I was attracted to him. I didn’t decide to be attracted. I wasn’t attracted to him because I thought other people would approve. The attraction came first, before everything else, and I had absolutely no power over it.

            Ask anybody about their squeeze, they’d be likely to tell you the same thing. There was just something about her. I felt drawn to him immediately. There’s no reason they’re attracted to the people they want. They just are. Instinctive, biological attraction is a universal human experience. We want who we want. We can’t help it.

            If attraction is powerful and ungovernable, then Love is a force of nature akin to a hurricane. Love cannot be contained. When two people recognize their soul mate in each other, the world lights up around them. Colors are bolder and the air is cleaner. The future is suddenly not so scary, because they have each other, and they know they always will. They’re so sure of this, in fact, that they want to stand up in front of everyone they know and declare that from this day forward, they will be unquestioningly devoted to each other. For the rest of their lives, they will act as one, because from now on, they are part of a family.

            Because that’s what marriage is. Marriage is two people deciding to make a new family, even if it’s just a family of two.

            I would never, ever want to deprive anyone of that experience. I could never say to another human being: “I can know the joy of declaring my love for my soul mate and committing myself to him forever, but you never can.” Who could dream of taking that away from another human being?

Anyone who thinks that heterosexuality can be "chosen" is either lacking in basic human empathy, or is a self-loathing closeted homosexual themselves. Either way, it's no way to be.

Don't like same sex marriage? Marry the opposite sex, mind your own business, and let other people choose their own lovers. Okay? It's time to grow up already, America.

See this article about a recent ruling on Oklahoma:http://bit.do/gvjo

Quote from ruling judge:

“Exclusion of just one class of citizens from receiving a marriage license based upon the perceived ‘threat’ they pose to the marital institution is, at bottom, an arbitrary exclusion based upon the majority’s disapproval of the defined class. It is also insulting to same-sex couples, who are human beings capable of forming loving, committed, enduring relationships.”