Description de l’éditeur
A fierce Celtic princess is captured and sold to an elite training school for female gladiators where she will have to fight for her survival both in and out of the arena.
“Spectacular, brutal, tender, and romantic.”—Mary E. Pearson, New York Times bestselling author of the Remnant Chronicles
“Has everything I love in a book: danger, violence, and a badass protagonist with a sword.”—Julie Kagawa, New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Fey series
Princess. Captive. Gladiator. Always a warrior.
Fallon is the daughter of a proud Celtic king, the sister of the legendary warrior Sorcha, and the sworn enemy of Julius Caesar.
When Fallon was a child, Caesar’s armies invaded her homeland, and her beloved sister was killed in battle.
Now, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Fallon is eager to follow in her sister’s footsteps and earn her place in the fearsome Cantii war band. She never gets the chance.
Fallon is captured and sold to an elite training school for female gladiators—owned by none other than Julius Caesar. In a cruel twist of fate, the man who shattered Fallon’s family might be her only hope of survival. Now Fallon must overcome vicious rivalries and deadly fights—in and out of the arena. And perhaps the most dangerous threat of all: her forbidden yet irresistible feelings for Cai, a young Roman soldier.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On the night of her 17th birthday, Fallon, a Celtic warrior princess, is betrayed by her father when he promises her to her true love's brother. Furious, Fallon flees, only to be captured by slave traders, taken to Rome, and sold to an elite training school (called a ludus) for female gladiators. Fallon learns that the school is owned by none other than Julius Caesar, the tyrant who killed her sister and tore her family apart. Facing immense danger as a combatant, Fallon quickly realizes that the ruthless politics of Rome are just as deadly. A engaging romance develops between Fallon and a young Roman soldier, but this relationship is secondary to that between Fallon and her sister: "Strong and sharp and dangerous as the sword she carried on her hip, Sorcha was my goddess even more than the Morrigan we both worshipped." Livingston (the Wondrous Strange trilogy) skillfully illustrates Fallon's emotional growth as she becomes a fearsome gladiatrix, her ties to the sisterhood within the ludus overshadowing her ties to the men that betrayed her. Ages 12 up.
