The Trouble with Kings

Book excerpt: Princess Flian finds herself the unwilling object of desire of three royals. Is the one she wants a villain or a hero? Waking up in a strange place, Flian Elandersi at first doesn t know who she is. One wicked prince tells her she is secretly engaged to an even more wicked king who wants to marry her right away. But before that happens, yet another wicked prince crashes through a window on horseback to sweep her off her feet. Memory returns, and Flian realizes that all any of them seem to want is her considerable wealth, not her pleasant-but-ordinary self. She longs to escape the barracks-like, military atmosphere and return to civilization and her musical studies. Flian endures another abduction, this time in the middle of a poetry reading. Who is the villain? Prince Garian Herlester languid, elegant, sarcastic? Prince Jaim he of the dashing horsemanship? Or King Jason Szinzar, whose ambiguous warning might be a threat? Flian decides it s time to throw off civilization and take action. The problem with action is that duels of wit turn into duels of steel and love can t be grabbed and galloped away.