Jaran
Heir to the Empire
Tess had been cursed by an accident of birth,
cursed to be the sister of the one man honored by the alien conquerors
of human-run space. Her brother, Charles Sorensen, the leader of
Earth's rebellion, had been given a dukedom after his defeat and now
ruled over far-distant worlds. And Tess was his only heir, a position
and a responsibility she was not yet willing to assume. So she fled to
a world in his brother's domain, a world where – she was soon to
discover – the alien conquerors were themselves involved in some covert
and dangerous mission.
And despite herself, Tess was suddenly
forced to become both player and pawn in an interstellar game of
intrigue and politics, caught between protecting her brother's
interests, and her own growing involvment with Ilya, the leader of the
nomadic tribe with whom she had taken shelter. But it soon became
apparent to Tess that wether Charles or the aliens were the victors
here, Ilya and his people were balanced at a crucial point in their
history – a point at which they muth either learn to adapt to the
incursions of more advanced civilizations or, by remaining rooted in
their own traditions, face inevitable extinction.
Kate Elliott
Kate Elliott has been writing stories since she was nine years old, which has led her to believe that writing, like breathing, keeps her alive. As a child in rural Oregon, she made up stories because she longed to escape to a world of lurid adventure fiction.
Her most recent novel is Unconquerable Sun, gender swapped Alexander the Great in space. She is also known for her Crown of Stars epic fantasy series, the Afro-Celtic post-Roman alt-history fantasy (with lawyer dinosaurs) Cold Magic and sequels, the science fiction Novels of the Jaran and YA fantasy Court of Fives, and the epic fantasy Crossroads trilogy with giant justice eagles.
