After the Crown

Wagers’s exciting second Indranan War space epic keeps roaring, with plenty of action, tension, and constant interplay among the characters. In Behind the Throne, Hail Bristol, gunrunner and secret heir to the 31st-century galactic Indranan Empire, was dragged back home after her sisters were murdered. She had to assume the throne and the struggle against political intrigue and a looming war. Now a calamity engineered by Hail’s enemies has knocked the empire off balance and has given Hail and her laser-focused personal bodyguards, Emmory and Zin, the biggest challenges of her short reign. In order for her and the empire to survive, she’ll need all the help she can get from both the Indranans she can trust—who are few—and her gunrunning acquaintances, who are less trustworthy. In fact, one of them has put a price on Hail’s head. Wagers pulls readers into Hail’s former haunts in the intergalactic underworld, perfectly showing off her more disreputable but constantly useful talents, which were often hinted at before. Hail is in her element again, as Wagers’s fans will be. Agent: Andrew Zack, Zack Company. (Dec.)