THE THOUSAND STEPS

On the brink of execution, 16 year old Ebba den Eeden is unexpectedly elevated from the bunker deep in Africa's Table Mountain where she has lived all her life, believing - as do all the other teenagers who toil daily to make their food and power the bunker - that the world "Above" is uninhabitable due to a nuclear holocaust. Instead, she is heiress to a massive fortune - one that everyone wants to control. While dealing with the machinations of the High Priest, his handsome son Haldus, and the rules and regulations of a society and religion she doesn't understand, she must also try and save her three friends, still stuck in the bunker and facing execution any day.

Combining elements of South Africa's past and projecting into a dystopic future, The Fiery Spiral trilogy is a powerful commentary on how class, race, and social identity are foundational to the ways in which society is organized and power wielded.

Helen Brain was born in Australia in 1960 and raised in Durban, South Africa. After school, she studied music at the University of Cape Town. Before settling to a life writing and teaching writing online, she was a freelance journalist and editor, a screenprinter and crafter, and taught English, music, and Ancient Greek. A mother to three sons and grandmother to one grandson, Brain lives in Muizenberg, South Africa with her husband.