Welcome, welcome to my stop on the Heartstone Blog Tour! Today I'm featuring an except from debut author Elle Katharine White's fantasy adventure, Heartstone (a Pride and Prejudice retelling with dragons!) along with a chance to snag one of three copies in the tour-wide giveaway! Read on!
by Elle Katharine White
♦publisher: Harper Voyager
♦release date: January 17, 2017
♦paperback, 352 pages
A debut historical fantasy that recasts Jane Austen’s beloved Pride and Prejudice in an imaginative world of wyverns, dragons, and the warriors who fight alongside them against the monsters that threaten the kingdom: gryphons, direwolves, lamias, banshees, and lindworms.
They say a Rider in possession of a good blade must be in want of a monster to slay—and Merybourne Manor has plenty of monsters.
Passionate, headstrong Aliza Bentaine knows this all too well; she’s already lost one sister to the invading gryphons. So when Lord Merybourne hires a band of Riders to hunt down the horde, Aliza is relieved her home will soon be safe again.
Her relief is short-lived. With the arrival of the haughty and handsome dragonrider, Alastair Daired, Aliza expects a battle; what she doesn’t expect is a romantic clash of wills, pitting words and wit against the pride of an ancient house. Nor does she anticipate the mystery that follows them from Merybourne Manor, its roots running deep as the foundations of the kingdom itself, where something old and dreadful slumbers . . . something far more sinister than gryphons.
It’s a war Aliza is ill-prepared to wage, on a battlefield she’s never known before: one spanning kingdoms, class lines, and the curious nature of her own heart.
Elle Katharine White infuses elements of Austen’s beloved novel with her own brand of magic, crafting a modern epic fantasy that conjures a familiar yet wondrously unique new world.
They say a Rider in possession of a good blade must be in want of a monster to slay—and Merybourne Manor has plenty of monsters.
Passionate, headstrong Aliza Bentaine knows this all too well; she’s already lost one sister to the invading gryphons. So when Lord Merybourne hires a band of Riders to hunt down the horde, Aliza is relieved her home will soon be safe again.
Her relief is short-lived. With the arrival of the haughty and handsome dragonrider, Alastair Daired, Aliza expects a battle; what she doesn’t expect is a romantic clash of wills, pitting words and wit against the pride of an ancient house. Nor does she anticipate the mystery that follows them from Merybourne Manor, its roots running deep as the foundations of the kingdom itself, where something old and dreadful slumbers . . . something far more sinister than gryphons.
It’s a war Aliza is ill-prepared to wage, on a battlefield she’s never known before: one spanning kingdoms, class lines, and the curious nature of her own heart.
Elle Katharine White infuses elements of Austen’s beloved novel with her own brand of magic, crafting a modern epic fantasy that conjures a familiar yet wondrously unique new world.
~Excerpt~
The dragon’s wings stretched the length of the field, and talons the size of plowshares scoured the earth where it landed. Pewter scales shone with a bluish-gold luster where the sun hit its sides, and I longed for a canvas and some paints to capture the sight, my fear forgotten.
A broad-shouldered figure leapt from the dragon’s back.
“You there!”
The Rider’s voice tore me away from the strokes of my mental paintbrush. I reddened as he approached and tried to wipe some of the mud from my dress, succeeding only in smudging it farther down the front. The contrast between us grew clearer—and more painful—with each step. Tooled in gold across the Rider’s breastplate was the rampant figure of a dragon, the symbol of House Daired, and on the hilt of the sword slung over his shoulder I caught the bloodred glimmer of a lamia’s heartstone. As my younger sister Mari once told me, the serpentine, scythe-wielding monsters called lamias were one of the Tekari, sworn foes of humankind. A lamia’s heartstone would be a worthy pommel gem for a Daired’s blade.
My gaze trailed from his heartstone to his face, and a new chill ran through me, though this one wasn’t so much fear as a healthy dose of embarrassment.
Blast. He would be handsome.
Of course, he could’ve looked like the wrong side of a troll and his appearance would’ve still made me blush. By rights this Daired shouldn’t have been here at all. Merybourne Manor sat at the heart of a poor county, the smallest in the island kingdom of Arle. Lord Merybourne ruled over farmers, craftspeople, and the occasional merchant, but no one rich or distinguished, and it’d taken us months to scrounge enough to meet the bond-price for a band of Riders.
My father, the Manor clerk and an old friend of Lord Merybourne, had spent weeks running the sums to see how we could afford it. Five Riders, five mounts, and food and lodging for a fort-night, in return for which they’d hunt down and slay the gryphon horde that plagued us. At twenty silver dragonbacks per Rider, the commission cost the Manor a total of one hundred dragonbacks.
Or, by my more practical calculation, the entire income of Merybourne Manor in a year.
* * * * * *
•ABOUT THE AUTHOR•
When she's not writing she spends her time reading, drinking absurd amounts of tea, having strong feelings about fictional characters, and doing her best to live with no regrets.
Connect with her on Facebook at @ellewhite.author, or witness the hilarious spectacle that is a writer contending with the 140-character limit on Twitter at @elle_k_writes.
Purchase The Graces: Indiebound • BookDepository • Amazon
*GIVEAWAY*
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance at one of 3 finished copies !
•US mailing address only please
Be sure to drop by all the other tour stops for Heartstone!
Week One:
1/9/2017- YA Book Nerd- Interview
1/10/2017- Seeing Double In Neverland - Review
1/11/2017- Novel Novice- Guest Post
1/12/2017- What the Cat Read- Review
1/13/2017- Two Chicks on Books- Interview
Week Two:
1/16/2017- Fiction Fare - Review
1/17/2017- The Eater of Books!- Excerpt
1/18/2017- History from a Woman's Perspective- Review
1/19/2017- Stories & Sweeties- Excerpt
1/20/2017- The Book Nut- Review
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