She's being watched. One wrong step can lead to her death.
A tale of treachery, betrayal, and conspiracy (imagine "The Tudors" meets "The X-Files").
Lilz Chantwell was raised in the nobility, but with her father banished and her mother dead,
she has become a bond-servant—and a servant to the Hasten family, no less, which is as ruthless
as they come.
With no one to rescue her, Lilz will have to use all of her wits to
survive and succeed despite the Hastens, who have a tendency to poison anyone who opposes them.
Not the least is Sir Jen Makeready, who is dead—and he's not the only one.
In fact, anyone who challenges Fenne, the spoiled-rotten granddaughter of Nevan Hasten,
Dych of Summerlea, seems to end up poisoned.
In the middle of all this intrigue is Lilz,
bond-servant to the Hasten family and to Fenne. Lilz gradually comes to realize there's a
onspiracy behind all this—a secret kept by the royal family and their confidants for many years.
If that wasn't bad enough, she and everyone else has to evade the king's spies: human, animal,
and mechanical. Lilz finds herself always living on the edge, always feeling she's being watched,
knowing that one wrong step could lead to her death or imprisonment.
She manages to survive for
years by her wits and by making friends with anyone who can help her. But will that be enough
to escape the plots of the Hasten family, who have a grip on power and intend to keep it by
any means necessary? Especially when she starts to uncover the conspiracy and the secrets
kept by Makeready, the Hastens, and the royal family?
Always someone who knew what she wanted, L. A. Taylor had already chosen a writing career by the time she was in first grade. Staring at the usual exhortation to Spot (Run! Run! Run! Run, Spot, run!), she was vouchsafed a blinding insight: People make this stuff up! I can do that! At the age of 11, she sent her first story to Analog, and got back her first rejection letter. Although she wasn’t exactly discouraged, she didn’t immediately return to writing. Meanwhile, she went to college, majored in math, worked at a variety of jobs, married and had two children. When she went back to writing, she started with poetry, and her collection Changing the Past won the Minnesota Voices award. L.A. Taylor is the author of several mystery novels (including Footnote to Murder), fantasy and science fiction novels (including Cat’s Paw, and Blossom of Erda) and a number of short stories.
