When the grandmaster engineer behind the world’s first airship disappears, his three employees must deal with the consequences of his secrets.

Vi, a junior draftswoman working on the world’s first airship, wants to be a grandmaster engineer someday. After fleeing an oppressively patriarchal society, she lands her dream job with the Technics, a venerated organization responsible for developing the technology to protect their island home, the Barg. The airship project is the perfect opportunity to catapult her career.

But her aspirations are derailed when she finds a terrified ten-year-old boy named Naana in her apartment. An escaped slave from her corrupt hometown Newton, Naana is an Elemental who can manifest electrical current as easily as breathing. A note from her boss bids her to smuggle the orphaned fugitive off of the island. With zero experience with kids or magic, Vi begrudgingly accepts the assignment.

On the road, hunters hell-bent on recapturing Naana strike, and the boy effortlessly summons a lethal thunderstorm that stops the three grown men in their tracks. Vi learns that Newton breeds Elementals as living batteries for aircraft. When she teaches him how to outsmart rather than maim his enemies, the orphaned boy begs her to be his guardian. If she agrees, she would have to abandon the airship project and her home forever. But if she chooses to be his pilot, they could shape the future of flight together.

Author Natalie Nakamura is an award-winning technical leader at a Fortune 500 aerospace company and certified aviation nerd. She drew upon her professional experience to speculate how air power might evolve when humans can control the elements. Like airplanes, books provide freedom, and it is her personal goal to help readers escape. THE MACHINE ASCENDS is her debut novel.

PRE-ORDERS opening in March 2027

Release date: June 21, 2027

Hardcovers signed by author

If preferred, Amazon link: TBD