A Forgery of Fate

When teenage Truyan Saigas’s adventurer father disappears during a treacherous voyage, Tru must lean on her skills as an art forger to ensure that her mother and two younger sisters are taken care of. Despite the discrimination she experiences for having a Balardan father and an A’landan mother, Tru makes a name for herself as an artist. When gangsters arrive seeking payment for her mother’s gambling debts, Tru feels that she’s run out of options. Then she recalls Baba’s advice, pulled from fairy tales he told her as a child: “Fortune finds those who leap.” Hoping to protect her family and secure their financial future, she agrees to marry the powerful half-dragon Demon Prince Elang, an arrangement that could also provide insight to her father’s whereabouts. In beguiling prose, Lim (Her Radiant Curse) skillfully blends elements of classic fairy tales to render Tru’s many adventures across Lor’yan, a fictional world inspired by China, and inject heart-pounding action into this lush romantasy epic. Tender moments of connection and discovery enrich Tru and Elang’s cautious developing relationship, even as they both contend with xenophobia and preconceived notions based on their nation’s mythology, and navigate a perilous world of politics and greed. Ages 12–up. Agent: Gina Maccoby, Gina Maccoby Literary. (June)