A Queen’s Pride

Profound love and gory revenge drive the gripping first urban fantasy in Jones’s Feline Nation series (after the Death and Destiny trilogy). When lion-shifter Asha Leothos’s parents are murdered during a failed attempt to save her from being kidnapped by the humans of Vumaris, she becomes the next sekhem, or alpha lioness, of the feline kingdom of Shona at just 18. Her people negotiate her release, but once free, Asha remains literally haunted by her parents’ ghosts, and unable to sleep from nightmares of abuse at the hands of her kidnappers. She hatches a plan to invoke Sekhmet, goddess of war, destruction, plagues, and healing, to punish her human torturers. Meanwhile, her friends in the Royal Shieldmane Guard—General Volt, their leader; Mafdet, Asha’s godmother; and Ekon, Asha’s love interest—work together to pull her back from her single-minded focus on revenge and to prevent her bloodlust from consuming her. The result is a powerful roller coaster of emotions that still makes time to probe themes of discrimination and entitlement. Readers will be hooked.(Self-published)