A lost princess. A dark puppet master. And a race against time—before all is lost.
SISTERS OF THE SNAKE
(Ria & Rani #1)
by Sarena & Sasha Nanua
HarperTeen, June 2021
(chez Park & Fine – voir catalogue)
The law in Abai—the last known magical kingdom—does not look kindly on street thieves, but for eighteen-year-old orphan Ria, stealing isn’t a choice of convenience: it’s a matter of survival. So when she and her friend Amir devise a plan to steal priceless jewels from the kingdom’s royal palace and use them to bribe their way into a new kingdom, it seems a new life may finally be within reach. Then, while sneaking into the palace, Ria runs into the princess, and everything she knows about herself is turned on its head—because Princess Rani looks exactly like Ria, down to the freckle. Running into her doppelgänger, Princess Rani doesn’t see her long-lost twin or a dangerous, thieving intruder. She sees an opportunity: a chance to escape the tight confines of her gilded prison before her marriage, and a chance to find the wife of her late, beloved tutor, recently executed for treason, so that Rani can give her the valuable possessions he left behind. After Ria and Rani strike a deal to temporarily switch places, Rani discovers that her father’s kingdom is not the place of prosperity she once thought, and that it’s hurtling toward a dangerous war. Living with the Raja and the queen, Ria learns that they—her family?—have their own dangerous secrets, and that there’s a treasonous conspiracy brewing in the royal court. Neither life inside nor outside the palace walls are safe, and Ria and Rani are in a race against the clock to unravel a conspiracy and stop a war with wits and magic—or else allow the kingdom of Abai to sink into ruin.
Sarena Nanua & Sasha Nanua are twin sisters living in Ontario, Canada. Born on Diwali ten minutes apart from each other, they grew up loving stories about twins and magic, and began writing books together when they were nine years old. They are graduates of the English and professional writing programs at the University of Toronto and are also the authors of the Pendant trilogy.
Her destiny was death. The shadows brought her back. Wrongly accused of her brother’s murder, Sonara’s destiny was to die, sentenced to execution by her own mother. Punished and left for dead, the shadows have cursed her with a second life as a Shadowblood, cast out and hunted by society for her demon-like powers. Now known as the Devil of the Deadlands, Sonara survives as a thief on the edge of society, fighting for survival on a quest to uncover what really happened to her brother and whether he is even dead at all…
« Guilders work. Foundlings scrub the bogs. Needles bind. Swords tear. And men leave. There is nothing uncommon in this city. I hope Errol Thebes is dead. We both know he is safer that way. » In a walled city of a mile-high iron guild towers, many things are common knowledge: No book in any of the city’s libraries reveals its place on a calendar or a map. No living beasts can be found within the city’s walls. And no good comes to the guilder or foundling who trespasses too far from their labors. Even on the tower rooftops, where Errol Thebes and the rest of the city’s teenagers pass a few short years under an open sky, no one truly believes anything uncommon is possible within the city walls. But one guildmaster has broken tradition to protect her child, and as a result the whole city faces an uncommon threat: a pair of black iron spikes that have the power of both sword and needle on the rib cages of men have gone missing, but the mayhem they cause rises everywhere. If the spikes not found and contained, no wall will be high enough to protect the city–or the world beyond it. And Errol Thebes? He’s not dead and he’s certainly not safe.
Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie rode into the forest with the queen’s huntsman. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight. When they stopped to rest, the huntsman took out his knife . . . and took Sophie’s heart. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Sophie had heard the rumors, the whispers. They said she was too kind and foolish to rule — a waste of a princess. A disaster of a future queen. And Sophie believed them. She believed everything she’d heard about herself, the poisonous words people use to keep girls like Sophie from becoming too powerful, too strong . . . With the help of seven mysterious strangers, Sophie manages to survive. But when she realizes that the jealous queen might not be to blame, Sophie must find the courage to face an even more terrifying enemy, proving that even the darkest magic can’t extinguish the fire burning inside every girl, and that kindness is the ultimate form of strength.
For as long as sixteen-year-old Adele can remember the village of Oakvale has been surrounding by the dark woods—a forest filled with terrible monsters that light cannot penetrate. Like every person who grows up in Oakvale she has been told to steer clear of the woods unless absolutely necessary. But unlike her neighbors in Oakvale, Adele has a very good reason for going into the woods. Adele is one of a long line of guardians, women who are able to change into wolves and who are tasked with the job of protecting their village while never letting any of the villagers know of their existence. But when following her calling means abandoning the person she loves, the future she imagined for herself, and her values she must decide how far she is willing to go to keep her neighbors safe.