The Executioness
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Magic has a price.
In Khaim, that price is your head if you're found using it. For the use of magic comes with a side effect: it creates bramble. The bramble is a creeping, choking menace that has covered majestic ancient cities, and felled civilizations. In order to prevent the spread of the bramble, many lose their heads to the cloaked executioners of Khaim.
Tana is one of these executioners, taking the job over from her ailing father in secret, desperate to keep her family from starvation. But now her family has been captured by raiders, and taken to a foreign city.
So Khaim's only female executioner begins a quest to bring her family back together. A bloody quest that will change lives, cities, and even an entire land, forever. A quest that will create the legend of The Executioness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Contributing to a two-author, two-novella project (with Paolo Bacigalupi) set in the fantasy city of Khaim, Buckell (Tides from the New Worlds) chronicles the transformation of a middle-aged mother into a legendary warrior. Tana's meager existence taking care of her two sons and drunken husband is made even more difficult when her father, an executioner, becomes gravely ill. Forced to take her father's place or see her family starve, Tana dons the hood, grabs the axe, and walks into the city to behead another illegal magic user, only to return home to find her husband dead and her boys missing. Tana sets off on a quest to find and free her sons and wreak vengeance upon those who wronged her. The final sequences are a bit rushed, but fantasy fans will love the story's lush narrative and Buckell's endearing and unconventional heroine.
