The Sunbearer Trials

Reino del Sol is a fantasy world drawn from Mexican culture, where gods and semidioses live alongside modern technology. Every ten years, the sun god Sol picks ten young semidioses for the Sunbearer Trials. Whoever wins brings light to the temples and restores the Sun Stones that shield the world. The loser is sacrificed to feed them.

This round, Sol breaks a habit of more than a century. He passes over the Golds and names two Jade semidioses. One is Teo, a 17-year-old trans son of Quetzal, the bird goddess. The other is Xio, who is 13, the child of the god of bad luck, and has never come into any powers.

The field includes Niya, Teo's best friend, and Aurelio, a famous Gold who used to be his close friend. Teo decides to look after Xio, and together they face five trials against rivals who are stronger and far better trained.

This is young adult fantasy rooted in Mexican folklore, with class division, identity and friendship running through it. The stakes are fixed from the first page, since someone has to die when the contest ends. It is the first book of a duology, and the story continues in Celestial Monsters.