The Golden City Captives by Julie C. Gilbert [Young adult fantasy]

Karyne (00:00:07) - Hi fantasy readers. This is Karyne Norton, your fellow book binger, and you are listening to the Finding Fantasy Reads podcast where you can test out a new fantasy story every single week to find your next favorite author.

Today's story is a fun young adult adventure story with dystopian undertones and unique magic. It's written by Julie C. Gilbert, a high school chemistry teacher who writes fiction, nonfiction, and fictional nonfiction. I actually find that last one so fun, and I'm picturing her creating chemistry textbooks for an urban fantasy series. I'll have to look up her fictional nonfiction now to see how close I am. She also can't pick a favorite genre, so she writes in mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, chemistry, writing, thriller, young adult, and more. You can find her drinking tea or foofy coffee while listening to audiobooks on long walks.

Today's narrator is Paeter Frandsen, host of Christian Geek Central. Stick around to the end or check out today's show notes to see where you can find more from both the author and the narrator, as well as how to enter our giveaway. For now, please enjoy The Golden City Captives by Julie C. Gilbert.

Paeter (00:01:25) -  The Golden City Captives is read by Paeter Frandsen. Due to copyright, the full transcript of the story cannot be included here.

Karyne (01:06:49) - I hope you enjoyed listening to The Golden City Captives by Julie C. Gilbert, narrated by Paeter Frandsen of Christian Geek Central. If you want to read more by Julie, go to juliecgilbert.com to find more of her books. And if you're into graphic novels, you'll want to check out her upcoming Kickstarter, which is for a superhero saga, but it will have a bonus add-on that includes the graphic novel of the story you just heard. You can either search for her name on Kickstarter or you can check out the link in the show notes.

If you enjoyed listening to Paeter narrate the story, you might also enjoy listening to his audio dramas at spiritblade.com or his podcast, Christian Geek Central, where he discusses movies, video games, and all things enjoyed by self-proclaimed geeks from a Christian worldview.

Last week I mentioned I had two ideas for how to keep the podcast running, so today I'm going to explain my second idea, which involves creating a volunteer team. Several other podcasts I know and love do this, and some grow those volunteer positions into paid positions, which would be amazing. I already have my sister-in-law volunteering her time to listen to the episodes before they go live to make sure we don't make fools of ourselves with all the words we mispronounce. You should all be super thankful that she saves you from that experience.

But there are three other very specific tasks I'm needing help with, two of which require specific skill sets and one that can be done by most anyone. I'm not great at delegating, so this has been a hard one for me, but if any of these three things sound fun to you, I'd love to have you fill out an application for the volunteer team, which you can find at findingfantasyreads.com/volunteer. The one that most anyone can do involves pre-reading short stories for the podcast. I've mentioned this before, but finding stories for the podcast is one of the most time-consuming activities for me. I'm certain that if I had several people helping me hunt, it would make that process easier.

I'm also looking for someone who enjoys the admin tasks of website maintenance, which would involve setting up the blog posts and show notes each week. It requires some familiarity with WordPress and would take about an hour a week. I will admit that one of you sneaky listeners already applied for this position, so it's possible it will be filled very soon, but still worth applying because we could always split it into two.

And then I'm also looking for someone who might have interest in audio editing, which would take about one to two hours each week. If any of those sound like something you'd enjoy doing, please check out the volunteer application for more information on the roles and requirements, as well as the benefits of volunteering. Again, you can find the form at findingfantasyreads.com/volunteer.

Don't forget that this month we are running a giveaway for some fantastic fantasy audiobooks and an Audible subscription. So if you want a chance to win, go to findingfantasyreads.com/giveaway to enter. As always, I will have links for all of those sites in the show notes.

Thank you all for listening and happy reading.