Finding Courage

Lea and her brothers are normal teenagers living normal lives in Vancouver with their parents. (Well, except for the part where they’re quintuplets . . . and ninjas in training.)

But that normalcy is turned upside down when, one day, they get home from school to find their house trashed. On top of that, their parents are missing, and all traces of their existence have been erased. As they search the house for clues, they find a message from their parents telling them they are members of the Hirawa clan and that they should travel to Japan to get help from their grandparents.

The only problem? They’ve never met their grandparents. They didn’t even know they had grandparents.

The Hirawa clan has historically stood against the Kaneshiro clan, who are planning to release the Yōkai, creatures of myth that were banished by a Hirawa ancestor long ago. And according to prophecy, only the quintuplets have what it takes to stop them. But to do that, they’ll need to survive life under the Hirawa clan’s roof, find their parents, and unlock their true powers.

No sweat, right?

Things really couldn’t get any worse. The quints have been captured by their enemies, the Kaneshiro clan. Their parents are still missing. And the Kaneshiro clan’s psycho mad scientist keeps asking them questions about the North Guardian. Which is super annoying, because they don’t know anything about the North Guardian!

Held prisoner in the depths of a Kaneshiro stronghold, the quints are separated from each other and subjected to physical and mental tortures that test not only their mettle, but also their bonds with each other. Any attempt at escape is quickly thwarted. As for rescue? That seems hopeless, too, given how much their grandparents and most of their clan seem to hate them.

The longer they’re imprisoned, the more reality—and the line between friend and foe—blurs. And so the quints start to wonder . . .

Just who can they trust these days, anyway?

About the author

Emma Grondines started writing at a young age. Early on, she dabbled in fanfiction, but as she gained confidence in her skill, she decided to try her hand at telling her own tales of adventure. When she was eighteen, one of her short stories, “The Realm Traveller,” was published in Young Writers of Canada’s The Night Voice: Anthology of Creative Writing. Then, inspired by her ten years of practicing martial arts, she wrote Finding Courage, the first novel in her series The Chosen.

Shifting Loyalty is her second novel, and also the sequel to Finding Courage. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading. Emma lives in Williams Lake, B.C., with her family and cats.