Donnel's Promise

Book excerpt: An absorbing fantasy for young adult readers. Feisty heroine Risha becomes the rightful heir to her mother’s kingdom, but is caught between two armies and her own tangled allegiances. Donnel’s Promise is the sequel to Cattra’s Legacy – award-winning YA writer Anna Mackenzie’s stunning young adult novel set in an imaginative medieval world, where Risha discovers she is the rightful heir to the kingdom of Havre. In Donnel’s Promise, Risha takes up her mother’s legacy, and travels to Havre, where she finds a stifling world of court gossip and intrigue, and an entrenched resistance to her involvement in the Duchy’s politics. Missing the freedoms of her former home of LeMarc, she embarks on a tour of western Havre with her mother’s cousin, Ciaran, and the Havrean Captain, Nolan. The party is ambushed, revealing the existence, if not the identity, of a traitor in the city. Risha eludes capture and with the aid of friends Nolan gets to safety, but time is against them as political events stride forward. A coup in Havre puts Risha’s life at risk once more, while a treaty with Westlaw promises war with LeMarc. If she is to save Elgard from civil war Risha must come to terms with Cattra’s legacy and find a way to balance the debts of the past with the price of the future. Muir can help her, if she’ll let him; if he can reach her in time. Risha must decide what matters most: a promise made by her father, or a future of her own choosing. CATTRA SERIES Book 1: Cattra's Legacy Book 2: Donnel's Promise