Rogue’s Pawn
Author: Jeffe Kennedy
Publisher: Brightlynx Publishing
Release Date: July 5, 2022 (2nd edition)
Series: Covenant of Thorns #1
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Snippet:
Darling slipped around the door, which had been left ajar with all the comings and goings. With a pleasant chirrup, he padded up to me and stroked up against my bare legs.
“Hi, Darling.” I crouched down to stroke his arched back. It felt blessedly normal to simply pet him, feel his cat vitality. He sniffed at my face. A pink raspy tongue licked my cheek. If I didn’t look around, I could be at home.
“Darling, come here to me,” Healer said in a tight voice.
As cats will, he simply blinked at her in disinterest, then butted his head against my hand. I obligingly rubbed his ears.
“You do understand, don’t you,” Healer said in her serene voice, but the Nasty Tinker Bell tone threaded underneath, “that he’s a Familiar, not a pet? I thought you knew this, since I saw your own Familiar in your head. But it seems I’ve given you far too much credit.” She glanced to see if anyone was listening to us, but the Brunette General was busily herding maids.
I wanted to say, “Well then, you do understand that Isabel is just a plain old cat, don’t you?” But I kept it very whispery in my head.
Darling purred and rubbed against me again, arching his back in a way that meant he wanted to be held. I gathered my arms around him and stood.
“He doesn’t like…!” Healer started and trailed off as Darling’s purr filled the room. He rubbed his whiskers on my chin, then tilted his head at Healer, a coy look in his eyes. She stared back, her displeasure obvious under the thin veneer of calm.
Anyone who spent any time with cats should know they love best to be contrary. I had no idea what made a cat a Familiar and not a pet—except Familiars maybe possessed more intelligence, could communicate in some ways. Isabel was certainly a pet.
But then, apparently, so was I.
Darling delicately sniffed the underside of my chin, his cold nose tickling me, then, with a renewed purr, dug his head into my collarbone.
“Lady Gwynn.” The brunette appeared at my elbow, long delicate fingers clasped in front of her generous bosom. “Your bath is ready.”
“I shall leave you.” Healer tried her serene smile, but it looked gritted out. “See that you eat—I replenished your fluids, but your body needs sustenance after the healing coma.”
Healer walked to the door, waited expectantly. I set Darling down on the floor and felt a bit bereft.
“Come along, Darling.”
He didn’t.
She clucked at him.
He pulled cat attitude and acted as if she were empty air. Instead the freshly made bed became his chief interest. He padded over to it, examined the height and leaped up, landing soft as dandelion down in the center, where he curled up, suddenly exhausted.
By the time I looked at the doorway, Healer had gone.
About the Book:
Be careful what you wish for…
When I walked out on my awful boyfriend, wishing to be somewhere—anywhere—else, I never expected to wake up in Faerie. And, as a scientist, I find it even harder to believe that I now seem to be a sorceress.
A pretty crappy sorceress, it turns out, because every thought that crosses my mind becomes suddenly and frighteningly real—including the black dog that has long haunted my nightmares.
Now I’m a captive, a pawn for the fae lord, Rogue, and the feral and treacherous Faerie court, all vying to control me and the vast powers I don’t understand. Worse, Rogue, the closest thing I have to a friend in this place, is intent on seducing me. He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, enthralling, tempting, and lethally dangerous. He’s as devastatingly clever as he is alluring, and he tricks me into promising him my firstborn child, which he intends to sire…
I don’t dare give into him. I may not have the willpower to resist him. He’s my only protection against those who would destroy me
Unless I can learn to use my magic.
Purchase links:
https://jeffekennedy.com/rogue-s-pawn
About the Author:
About Jeffe Kennedy
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has won the prestigious RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America (RWA), has been a finalist twice, been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. She has 64 published fiction titles and is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms hit the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world, beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms. Book one in that series, The Pages of the Mind, was nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and won RWA’s 2017 RITA Award. The second book, The Edge of the Blade, was a 2017 PRISM finalist, along with The Pages of the Mind. The final novel in the series, The Fate of the Tala, released in February 2020, along with a short novel epilogue, The Lost Princess Returns. A high fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria, taking place in The Twelve Kingdoms world came out from Rebel Base books in 2018. The novella, The Dragons of Summer, first appearing in the Seasons of Sorcery anthology, finaled for the 2019 RITA Award.
Kennedy also introduced a new fantasy romance series, Sorcerous Moons, which includes Lonen’s War, Oria’s Gambit, The Tides of Bàra, The Forests of Dru, Oria’s Enchantment, and Lonen’s Reign. And she released a contemporary erotic romance series, Missed Connections, which started with Last Dance and continues in With a Prince and Since Last Christmas.
In September 2019, St. Martins Press released The Orchid Throne, the first book in a new romantic fantasy series, The Forgotten Empires. The sequel, The Fiery Crown, followed in May 2020, and culminated in The Promised Queen in May 2021.
Most recently, Kennedy has released two new series. The epic fantasy romances in the Heirs of Magic series include The Long Night of the Crystalline Moon, The Golden Gryphon and the Bear Prince, The Sorceress Queen and the Pirate Rogue, The Dragon’s Daughter and the Winter Mage, The Storm Princess and the Raven King, and The Long Night of the Radiant Star. The Bonds of Magic and Renegades of Magic series are dark fantasy romances and include the completed first trilogy, Dark Wizard, Bright Familiar, and Grey Magic. The overall series arc continues with Shadow Wizard and the upcoming Rogue Familiar.
Kennedy’s other works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion; an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera; and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract.
Jeffe Kennedy lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Wednesday at the popular SFF Seven blog, Facebook, Goodreads, BookBub, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and—just like all the kids these days—TikTok. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
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