Title: Mordizan Author: Alyssa Roat Series: The Wraitwood Trilogy #2 Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
The bane of Mordred, the son of Mordizan, and a millennia-old prophecy—together they may provide what Brinnie needs to defeat the world of magic’s greatest threat.
More than a year has passed since Brinnie left Wraithwood, never expecting to see it again. But when Mordred captures her sister, she is thrust back into the world of magic. She flees to Wraithwood, where she learns of a prophecy located in the dark wizard capital of Mordizan that reveals the identity of “Mordred’s bane,” something that could destroy Mordred for good.
Brinnie agrees to a rendezvous with Mordred to exchange herself for her sister, going undercover at Mordizan as a spy to find the prophecy and Mordred’s bane. There, she weaves a complicated web of secrets, lies, and tenuous friendships. She makes an unexpected ally in Marcus Vorath, son of the Master of Mordizan, who fears the implications of Mordred’s growing power. But in Mordizan, friends and foes may be one and the same.
In the midst of court intrigue, battle, ominous new depths to her power, and searching for Mordred’s bane, Brinnie struggles to draw the lines. How far is she willing to go to destroy Mordred? And how much of herself is she willing to give up along the way?
Alyssa Roat grew up in Tucson, Arizona, but her heart is in Great Britain. She has worked in a wide variety of roles within the publishing industry as an agent, editor, writer, and publicist. With 250+ bylines and 9+ books under contract in genres ranging from YA chat fiction to fantasy to sweet adult romance, you could say she dabbles in a bit of everything. Her name is a pun, which means you can learn more about her at www.alyssawrote.com or on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as @alyssawrote.
It’s been almost a decade since the end of the war, when the telegram first arrived at their house on Lennox Lane.
Four years since the apartment on Harker Street, where food was scarce and nights were long and their mother slept away her grief.
Three months since Janie was forced to leave her little brother, Brayden, and best friend, Leo, behind at Anthers Hall.
Two weeks since she stole a bicycle and ran away from the new children’s home on the other side of the state.
One day since she arrived in Montours City.
No one knows her secrets in this small town. If Janie is going to make it back to her brother and the only place she’s ever called home, she needs to keep it that way. But when a hard-hearted widow, a boy in a boxcar, and a dog named Panda weave their way into her life, Janie begins to wonder if what she’s searching for isn’t better off laid to rest.
The town was on fire. The four o’clock sunlight filtered through a tangle of skeletal branches, its leaves already tinged gold and red, burning the brick exteriors of the buildings so the whole world looked ablaze. It reflected off car mirrors and flecks of dust in the asphalt, paving a path of scattered light as she pedaled past houses with white-shingled siding and painted shutters and swings tied to trees in the side yards. Broken pieces of colored chalk rolled into cracks in the sidewalk, a red wagon crushed purple mums in a flower bed, and milk bottles rattled as a woman shooed away stray cats from the porch steps.
Janie turned the corner and lifted her feet from the pedals of her bicycle, allowing the tips of her tennis shoes to skim the pavement, their leather already blackened and cracked from wear. The front wheel wobbled from the decrease in speed, and she tightened her grip on the handlebars and leaned to the side before pushing off the pavement again with one foot, letting the momentum carry her further down a new street—past a man in denim overalls raking leaves and white-haired ladies sipping lukewarm tea on front porches, she herself a whisper of a vision of which no one could be certain.
She didn’t know what she expected when she turned off the main road along the river and coasted around the mountain bend. Maybe another small town like the one she’d left behind or some thoroughfare to an anonymous city. But when she paused at the green wooden sign, its words etched in scratched gold paint, she thought it would be as good a place as any to pause and sleep and see what road came next.
Color and light and sound whizzed by her as she veered down another street and followed the road until the sidewalks widened and turned to brick. Storefronts with hand-sewn awnings and faded chalkboard signs pressed against front windows boasting sales and specials. On her left, a row of tall, elegant townhomes with large oak doors filled most of the block until they, too, gave way to a beauty shop, a five-and-dime, and a small café announcing a full chicken dinner for $1.65 and a beer for a quarter.
Janie closed her eyes and raised her head, imagining she could smell roasting chicken with rosemary or thyme, perhaps, and garlic string beans, mashed potatoes on the side. Her stomach twisted, a sharp pain to the center of her gut, and she quickly steered her bicycle to the other side of the street. A small garage, its doors lowered, boasted a pile of discarded tires and a red gas pump out front. A savings bank and post office advertised postage for letters home while a small grocer stacked canned goods in the window, a drooping maroon flag above the door. There was a tailor, a drugstore, and a bakery—the last in a line of shops displaying loaves of French bread in a wicker basket, pound cakes set on lace doilies and fruit tarts placed on stands beside it.
She veered closer to the bakery, the soles of her shoes skidding along the sidewalk as she rolled to a stop and stared at the display. She could distract herself from the dinners and canned goods and produce hidden behind closed doors, but she couldn’t ignore the sight of warm butter rolls, the crumbling coffee cakes, the cinnamon raisin loaves that taunted her from behind the glass. Something burned in the pit of her stomach—something deep and raw and wailing, threatening to break through to the surface. Cream cheese fillings and honey glazes and flakey, crusted breads warped her senses. They blurred her vision and tugged her memory forward until she was back in the kitchen at Anthers Hall, unwrapping fresh loaves on the counters where they cooled before breaking off the ends to tuck in a cloth napkin and hide behind the flour canister for Leo.
Leo…
“Closed up for the night.”
Janie whirled around, her eyes darting to the few cars that sat outside the shops before wandering up and down the empty sidewalk until she spied a tall, thin man dressed in coveralls across the street. He stood on the front porch of a large, yellow stucco house, a paintbrush in his hand.
“Today’s Sunday. Nothin’ open Sundays. Everybody’s gone home for supper.” The man shook his head and turned back to the porch columns, carefully raising and lowering his hand with every pass of the paintbrush. “Y’ain’t from around here.” His voice carried across the street, though he didn’t pause from his work. “I know everyone in Montours City, and you ain’t one of them. Which can only mean one thing: you ain’t from around here.”
Susan Pogorzelski is the award-winning author of Gold in the Days of Summer and The Last Letter. When she’s not writing novels of nostalgia and the magic of everyday life, she works as a consultant and editor at Brown Beagle Books, is an intuitive energy practitioner at Susan Dawn Spiritual Connections, and is the founder of LymeBrave Foundation. She lives in South-Central Pennsylvania with her beloved family and pets.
Knives Out meets One of Us is Lying with a hint of the Inheritance Games. Like the original whodunnit, Clue, this suspenseful mystery also has three possible endings explaining what could have happened.
They all have secrets. They all have motives. They all tell lies.
Every year, at a prestigious boarding school, Professor Groff hosts the Midnight Masquerade. But this year, before the festivities, he’s discovered dead in his office. Yet six students still receive invitations. The same six students who’re questioned about his murder.
The show must go on. At the Masquerade, two additional students claim to know the truth. The lights go out and when they come back on, one of them is dead. Anyone could’ve been at fault.
Francisca blind in one eye and deadly on the rugby field. Toshi a number ninja and the campus punching bag. Taz who struggles with anxiety and lingers in the shadows. Fish the golden boy hiding wounds and not only in his heart. Caroline the heiress and the image of perfection. Gorgeous George the resident Greek God with nothing to lose.
The six receive anonymous notes, making them question themselves and the assumptions they’ve made about each other. Brought back together, they must prove their innocence before the all-school meeting the next morning, otherwise, they risk humiliation if their secrets are exposed exposed—and worse, if they’re found guilty.
It’s a long night of theft, danger, and threats by a secret society that shows Professor Groff was right during his final lecture.
Deirdre Riordan Hall is the author of the contemporary young adult bestsellers Sugar and Pearl as well as the High School Murder Mystery series. She’s in an ongoing pursuit of words, waves, and wonder. Her love language involves a basket of chips, salsa, and guacamole, preferably when shared with her family.
