Cate
Culpepper
The Tristaine Series
Tristaine, the last tribe of Amazon Nation, was created in 1980, when Cate first started writing about the clan she hoped to find someday. The dystopian setting of the novels, however, evolved many years later, out of this country's response to 9/11. The heart of the series is the relationship between Jesstin, an Amazon, and Brenna, a City Medic.
These four books were written for a small and select group of readers -- women who know what it means to search for a wise queen, a just cause, and a loving clan.
Book One
Tristaine: The Clinic
Brenna has achieved the most prestigious assignment a City medic could hope for -- the Clinic's top-secret Military Research Unit. That her new duties include monitoring the health of tortured political prisoners shouldn't faze Brenna -- such concerns have long been dismissed by an oppressive City Government. But Brenna finds herself deeply conflicted by her first patient, Jesstin, a woman-warrior reputed to be descended from ancient Amazons. As Jess's interrogations grow increasingly brutal Brenna fears for her survival, and struggles with her own deepening bond with her patient. Through Jess, she learns of another way of life in the Amazon village of Tristaine, where freedom and passion are prized more highly than political power. Before long, Brenna's heart leads her into a fight for her life.
Book Two:
Battle for Tristaine
Five beleaguered, fugitive Amazons camp in a high mountain meadow, healing from the wounds inflicted by a posse of City soldiers. Word reaches Jesstin and Brenna of a grave danger threatening the Amazon village of Tristaine. While Brenna struggles to find her place in the clan and the love between her and Jess grows, a crucial betrayal brings the City soldiers down upon the village. Brenna's emerging psychic gifts aid Jess and her warriors in a final bloody confrontation against the forces bent on destroying the Amazon way of life.
(Winner of a Golden Crown Literary Society Award for Speculative Fiction)
Book Three:
Tristaine Rises
On the run from the City soldiers, the Amazons of Tristaine seek refuge deep in the mountains, where an even greater danger awaits. In their new mountain stronghold, a battle rages for the lives and souls of the Amazons of Tristaine. While Jess and her warriors fight a ghostly army, their weakened leader, Shann, must find a way to defeat a powerful demon queen. Shann’s only hope is to reveal long-held secrets that will change Brenna's and Jess’s lives forever. The Thesmephoria moon rises over the last bloody confrontation between two great Amazon tribes—the living and the dead—and when the sun dawns, only one queen will rule the village.
Book Four:
Queens of Tristaine
When a deadly plague stalks the Amazons of Tristaine, Jess and Brenna must return to the place of their nightmares to find a cure. The sinister laboratories of the City Clinic hold their only hope for saving the sisters they love. The danger the Amazons face is harrowing, the stakes enormous…and they have precious little time.
(Winner of a Golden Crown Literary Society Award for Speculative Fiction)
All four Tristaine novels are available as one package.
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