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Looking for a sweeping summer read? Magic, romance, and slumbering gods clash in this riveting romantasy about a seafaring girl and a playboy prince who band together in a precarious journey. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Aurora Cycle and the Illuminae Files. Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails off to adventure. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician's marks on his arm commandeers her ship. He is Prince Leander of Alinor and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods. Selly has no desire to escort a spoiled prince anywhere, and no time for his entitled demands or his good looks. But what starts as a leisure cruise will lead to acts of treason and sheer terror on the high seas, bringing two countries to the brink of war, two strangers closer than they ever thought possible and stirring two dangerous gods from centuries of slumber...
Looking for a sweeping summer read? Magic, romance, and slumbering gods clash in this riveting romantasy about a seafaring girl and a playboy prince who band together in a precarious journey. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Aurora Cycle and the Illuminae Files. Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails off to adventure. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician's marks on his arm commandeers her ship. He is Prince Leander of Alinor and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods. Selly has no desire to escort a spoiled prince anywhere, and no time for his entitled demands or his good looks. But what starts as a leisure cruise will lead to acts of treason and sheer terror on the high seas, bringing two countries to the brink of war, two strangers closer than they ever thought possible and stirring two dangerous gods from centuries of slumber...
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover
Part One
Glitter and Grit
SELLY
Royal Hill
Kirkpool, Alinor
The woman selling magicians’ supplies is wandering around her little market stall like she’s lost her map. It’s as if every item she encounters, from the stacks of fat green candles to the bins of bright glass beads and stones, is somehow a new discovery.
“You said half a dozen candles?” She pauses to look over her shoulder and needlessly tighten her apron strings. She’s dragging things out in the hope something extra will catch my eye, but although the grim, anxious buzz of the city has sunk into my bones, I am not going to lose my temper. I don’t have time.
“Yes, please.” I try to make my gritted teeth look like a smile, though I can tell from the woman’s expression it doesn’t work. But honestly, at this rate I should ask her name and how she likes her tea, because the two of us are going to grow old together.
If anything, she seems to slow down even more, lifting a newspaper and studying the crate beneath it. “Best in the city, these ones. Poured at the high temple, you know. Are they for you, young lady?”
My hands tighten into fists in my fingerless leather gloves, but I glance down anyway, automatically checking that they hide the green magician’s marks on the backs of my hands. “They’re for our first mate. Ship’s magician.” The words barely provoke their old, familiar ache. I’ve got other things on my mind today.
“Oh, indeed!” That catches the woman’s attention, and spirits save me, now she stops altogether to study me with interest. “I should have seen you were a saltblood—look at those clothes. Where have you come from?”
Her gaze flickers back to the newspaper in her hand, and suddenly I see it: She’s not vague. She’s worried.
The questions have been the same at every stall I’ve been to so far today. There are strange shortages, and prices are shifting, and whispers are winding their way through the marketplace about new taxes and confiscations. About war.
When they see my sailor’s clothes—the shirt, trousers, and boots setting me apart from the city girls in their tailored dresses—everybody asks where we’ve come from and what it was like there.
“We’re just on a quick run down from Trallia,” I tell the woman, digging into my pocket for a few crowns. “I’m actually in kind of a hurry. I need to get to the harbormaster’s office before it closes, or my captain won’t be happy.”
Somewhere, Captain Rensa probably just lifted her head and sniffed the wind, smelling my lies from the deck of the Lizabetta, but the shopkeeper gives herself a shake, as if she’s waking up.
“And here I am chatting away at you. We’d better—what do you young people say? Something to do with autos.” She finds a smile as she remembers, though now I can see the strain in it: “We’d better put our foot on the gas.”
A minute later my candles are wrapped up and I’m on my way.
I leave behind the rough flapping of the spirit flags and the crowded market stalls at the top of Royal Hill, letting my momentum hurry me along as I jog past the magnificent façade of the temple to Barrica, my spirits lifting as I gather speed.
The priests and priestesses are out front in their soldiers’ uniforms, brass gleaming as they call the faithful to the afternoon service, to prayers for peace. The stone steps of...
Reviews-
Starred review from April 3, 2023 In this electrifying high-seas series launch from Kaufman (the Aurora Cycle), teenage Selly is eager for her fleet-owning father to return to port so she can end her apprenticeship sailing under Captain Rensa and become her dad’s first mate. When business delays him, the impatient teen schemes to hop a vessel headed his way, until Rensa’s ship unexpectedly sets sail, commandeered by the Kingdom of Alinor’s magically gifted Prince Leander. Citizens believe that Leander is off cementing allegiances with Alinor’s neighbors in case enemy nation Mellacea declares war; in truth, Leander plans to find the hidden Isles of the Gods to make a sacrifice meant to keep Mellacea at bay. He’s also on the run from Laskia, a ruthless pro-war Mellacean who—prior to Leander’s acquisition of Rensa’s vessel—tried to assassinate him by sinking his schooner. Selly, Leander, Laskia, and two other teens narrate this high-stakes game of cat and mouse; their illuminating first-person tellings skillfully interlock to maximize tension and forward momentum. Kaufman’s organically incorporated, intricate mythology never detracts from the action-packed plot or the complex relationships developing between the variously diverse characters. Ages 12–up. Agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary.
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Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
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