A Gift Freely Given by J Ellen Ross

Cover & Excerpt

A Gift Freely Given
by J. Ellen Ross
The Tahaerin Chronicles Book One
Leisha’s father, the king of Tahaerin, bartered away her childhood with his failed invasion of a neighboring kingdom. She grew up a hostage, a guarantee of the king’s good behavior. At sixteen, she returns to a land and a throne she knows almost nothing about.

Her powerful and ruthless uncle plans to force her into a marriage or take her crown by violence. The nobles of her kingdom all expect her to fail spectacularly and are eager to fight over the scraps. But, Leisha has no intention of going along quietly with any of their plans.

As a boy, Zaraki watched as slavers butchered his family. Orphaned and starving, he was taken from the streets, trained to spy and kill. He finds a position with the new queen when he is forced to flee the only home he remembers. But the job is far larger than he anticipated and Leisha’s life is threatened from all sides.

Leisha will fight to hold her crown and her throne with the help of an unknown and unproven spy. Zaraki will try keep her alive and to keep the oaths he took - to be loyal to her, to keep her secrets and never, ever fall in love with her.

Genre: Fantasy Romance
Content/Theme(s): Royalty
Release Date: December 1, 2014
Publisher: Indie

Giveaway, Excerpt & More

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Excerpt:
He barely remembered getting Capar from the stable and pointing the great horse towards one of the city gates. Once they were out of town he rode Capar hard, giving the horse his head. Both were sweating but neither one wanted to call a halt to their wild ride down the small roads and over hedges.

You have no right. You have no claim. This was the danger Aniska warned him about and now that it found him, he could not face it. Capar would never outrun it. He wanted to get drunk, to walk away from this job forever and never see her again, to enlist in someone’s army and march into certain death. But more than anything he wanted to be the one she loved.

Exhausted, Capar slowed to a trot. Finding a small stream, he stopped and drank deeply. Zaraki slid off and collapsed under a nearby tree. He laid his arms across his knees, and rested his head there. Feelings of shock, grief and anger warred in him. Now what? he wondered. “What do I do, Capar? How do I live like this? Can I live like this? You have no answers, do you?” The horse flicked an ear at him but continued nibbling at the grass nearby. This revelation broke open all the walls he had carefully built since that day he held her.

He loved her and those feelings had, cruelly, not diminished, not subsided in nearly four years. He still remembered breathing in the scent of her hair, still remembered how she felt pressed close to him. She still haunted his dreams at night. He was twenty six or so now and had not touched a woman in all those years.

Panic. I have to decide right now. Can I live with this? He felt like the answer was no. He could not live with seeing her love another, could not live with knowing that someone had won the right to know her body and take her heart.
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Giveaway
Win 1 of 15 copies of A Gift Freely Given (ppbk)
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Ends Mar 25, 2015
Enter at: www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/128622-a-gift-freely-given

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