Monday, September 21, 2009

Debut Showcase: Queen of Hearts

Queen of Hearts (Amazon USA - UK)
by Daniel Horman (Blog - Composer Website)
Prime Books
Trade Paperback

One question remains: Did it begin or end in theft? His mother, taken before memory, his father, disappeared in the Manor where Asriael rules, home of the Great Game, where lives are antes and countries divided by mere hands, where the deed to the Slants was bet and lost so many years ago. The underground wizards of the Slants had trained Renue in the high arts, as an expert in disguise, a deadly fighter, a daring card player.

His mission was to infiltrate the Manor and win back the deed so that Asriael's dark magic could finally be unraveled and the people freed. But inside the Manor, Renue meets a mysterious young woman called the Queen of Hearts who seems to hold the secrets to his parents' fate. When Asriael is murdered and the mission betrayed, Renue and the Queen must flee the Manor, the Black Thing on their trail. As the other great lords vie for power, amid chaos and war, Renue must protect the Queen while they search for an ancient magic to end the nightmare of Asriael's black revenge.

The author is also a composer and has a website to showcase his music. He had an interesting path to publication; after selling a short story to Fantasy Magazine, the publisher--who is also the publisher for Prime Books--commissioned a novel. And this is it. I liked this blurb--which I found at Amazon--better than the blurb on his site. I was not able to find this novel at Prime Books' website, but it is available at Amazon. The UK Amazon link shows this novel as unavailable.

The cover image was strangely hard to find, which is why you don't see one here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Political intrigue doesn't usually--er--intrigue me. But for some reason, this novel blurb made me want to run out and grab the book. Like, right this second. As in, crawl through the back window of the bookstore if the bookstore is closed and read the book until the sun comes up.

I don't know why. I think it's the whole infiltration business. Infiltration is always, always interesting, particularly if you become allied to someone whom you meet during the infiltration.

Rachel Heston Davis
Up and Writing