title: The Bride from Dairapaska
author: Moon, Odessa
description: On a terraformed Mars, young Debbie Miller was sent far from her rural village as part of a marriage compact between the rulers of two demesnes. A peasant who knew only obedience, she accepted her duty to bear her husband's children and work alongside him. But when they were sent to build a village in a barren patch of nowhere, her abusive husband forces her to take action. She flees with her children and their dog into the vast open steppes where dying was preferable to life with him.Debbie only wanted to escape, but her encounter with the Steppes Riders, and especially Yannick of Kenyatta, unwittingly ignites changes that attract the attention of Mars' ruling families. Left to her own resources, Debbie must adapt to her new life and figure out how to defend her adopted people.The Steppes of Mars series imagines a transformed world where a disaster on Earth decades ago cut off all contact with its wealth and resources. Experience a Mars where its genetically modified inhabitants have developed their own cultures, beliefs, and religions. A semi-feudal world where ruling families control vast demesnes under a central government at Barsoom. A world of limited resources where train travel is possible but cars and planes are not. A world of free-cities - open and domed - villages, vast fields and steppes, and people banding together to survive and thrive in this harsh new world.