Excerpt from The False Prince

A couple of Christmas reminders:

How Kindle Matchbook will Save Your Christmas

Dickens Advent Reader

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

I am reading the Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer A Nielsen and today’s teaser is from book one, The False Prince. It is full of action, adventure, and twists and turns. A great young adult fantasy read!

“Let me finish,” Conner said. “Four years ago, when he was nearly eleven years of age, Jaron was to be sent north to the country of Bymar, always a friend to Carthya. He was sent there not only to be educated abroad but, frankly, to stop embarrassing the king and queen. However, on the way, his ship was attacked by pirates. There were no survivors. Pieces of the boat washed ashore for months, but Jaron’s body was never found.”

Jennifer A. Nielsen, The False Prince

In this first book in a remarkable trilogy, an orphan is forced into a twisted game with deadly stakes.

Choose to lie…or choose to die.

In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king’s long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner’s motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword’s point — he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage’s rivals have their own agendas as well.

As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner’s sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, in the end, may very well prove more dangerous than all of the lies taken together.

An extraordinary adventure filled with danger and action, lies and deadly truths that will have readers clinging to the edge of their seats.