Morning approached, brightening the sky over the ocean with the palest wash of blue. Asha saw the light and was afraid.
Reaching into the bowls that lay at her sides, she took up fistfuls of salt and sand from her dwindling supply. The sand was the fine, silvery sand of Sacrifice Beach; it clung to her sweaty palms and caught beneath her fingernails. The salt was coarse and white as sun-bleached bone. Sand in one hand, salt in the other, she continued her pattern.
"Sumner-Smith is another writer picked out by the Asimov's Undergrad Award program and a Clarion grad. So should readers hold the bar higher for this new writer?
Well, any reader who does will find Sumner-Smith capable of clearing the bar with room to spare in "A Prayer of Sand and Salt".
... I don't want to say much, don't want to spoil the reader's pleasure in encountering another significant talent in Summoned to Destiny."
- Pat Forde, Made in Canada
Buy Summoned to Destiny at: Amazon.com Amazon.ca
Rumour has it that the cover image was inspired (in part) by "A Prayer of Salt and Sand". No castles in the story -- or trees, for that matter -- but it's a fabulous image.