Hello readers. Welcome back to a bookish Saturday with more tours for you to enjoy. Today I am featuring Fran Zuid's new release "Where Dragons Are Captured." You can check out the sneak peek she provided for us below and find out why you should purchase this epic grimdark dragon fantasy adventure today. Happy reading everyone :).
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How much would you wager to save a dragon?
Your safety, your friends, your people?
How about your life?
Where Dragons Are Captured
Where Dragons Are Book 1
by: Fran Zuid
Genre: Epic Grimdark Dragon Fantasy Adventure
The girl showed up with their tankards and a jug of homebrew. The man’s attention went straight to her cleavage. The hairy man pinched her behind for good measure before tipping her. Skye used the distraction to nick a card from the pack, a prince, hiding it in her coat sleeve. She waited for the girl to leave before dealing. The cards were soft, faded, and stained from nights of gambling.
Skye watched the three players as they scrutinized their cards. ‘Stupid’ smiled, Sid’s left eye twitched. The hairy man downed his tankard of homebrew.
Skye looked at her cards, she had two of pawns and a prince. On the table were a five and a seven of shields, a castle, and a three of pawns. Skye wasn’t sure what ‘Stupid’ thought he had, but Skye was pretty sure Sid had a castle, giving him the highest pair from the table.
Skye’s attention turned to the hairy man. The more she watched him, the more he seemed a ‘Stupid’ and in that case, no threat to Skye. He was only lucky with the previous hand.
Skye had the winning hand if she switched her two of pawns for the prince in her sleeve. ‘Stupid’ started the bets, throwing half his coin in, four silvers. Sid saw the bet and the hairy man added a silver.
She didn’t want to chase away Sid, so she also raised with only a silver coin. Keep it modest, keep it moving.
As the bets evened out around the table, Skye shifted her weight slightly and slid one hand under the edge of her sleeve. A quiet motion, a simple flick. She switched her cards—replacing a dud with a prince. Now she had two.
But just as her fingertips closed over the edge of the second card, a hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Steel. Not touch. Not pressure. Just steel.
“That is enough. We know what you are,” a male voice said. “Good call, Jim, you will get your reward. And you,” the man’s grip tightened slightly, “Finn Skylar, just won yourself a meeting with the gambler’s guild.”
Her heart jumped. Breath caught halfway up her throat. The hairy man had a smug cat-smile. He’d caught his mouse.
Her gut twisted. A setup. She should’ve seen it. Should’ve felt it. No wonder he was unreadable—he wasn’t here to play. He was here for her. Cold flooded her limbs.
What did they know? That she was a cheater? A woman? An alitur?
Or all three?
She relaxed her face into neutrality, but her mind raced. Could she run? No. Not yet. Too many eyes, too close to the table. No one had drawn steel, which meant they still wanted her alive—questioned, not killed. Yet.
“What? You have nothing to say?” the hairy man–Jim–said. He leaned over and took Skye’s tankard of homebrew and downed it. “Cheers.”
Skye didn’t answer. She reached down, slow and measured, and picked her tricorne up off the floor. Her hat was just fabric—but it made her feel armed. Steady. Like herself.
She rose to her feet.
“I don’t know what this guy told you,” Skye gestured towards Jim, “but I didn’t cheat. I haven’t seen him before in my life.” She truly hoped that was the only reason they were confronting her.
The house-muscle behind Skye chuckled, or that was what she assumed the rumbling noise was.
“We have been watching, and you have an appointment with the gambling guild.”
“No one told me,” Skye said with a shrug.
“I did. Just now.”
Skye looked over her shoulder at the house-muscle looming over her. Tall. Broad shoulders. A scar cut down his right temple, hugging the cheekbone like a crack in old stone. His stance was heavy, but not rooted. A bit off balance. Good.
The short one would be slower, maybe better in a brawl, but easy to outmaneuver. The tall one could be clumsy. The real problem was her coat—it would get in the way if she had to move fast. If she had to fight.
But—
She ran through options. Surrender. Fight. Flee. None was good. She shifted her weight, breath held shallow in her chest.
“Where is this meeting?” Skye asked.
“At the boss’s office, at the pits,” the tall one answered.
Skye scanned the room. No escape. Everyone watched. Waited. Sid had crushed his cards in his hands. Only Jim kept drinking, he found his entertainment for the night.
“I don’t go to the pits,” Skye said.
The tall one rumbled again from behind, “I don’t care, you are going.”
The room inhaled.
Jim smirked at Skye and lifted his tankard off the table. With a flick and a flash of her hand, a knife plunged into Jim’s eye.
Gasps.
The cup fell, and Jim followed.
BLURB:
How much would you wager to save a dragon? Your safety, your friends, your people? How about your life?
Skye, an alitur—elf as the small-minded humans would degrade her—is a gambler hiding in the skin of her enemy to escape capture, her past and her true identity.
However, her fragile safety shatters when she's caught cheating. Thrown into the corrupt world of gambling, where animals and creatures are pitted against one another for sport, Skye witnesses something she thought long extinct: dragons.
Determined to save and connect with the dragons, Skye is drawn into a web of deceit, loyalty, and love, impelling her to face her past and reclaim her heritage.
With unlikely allies, Skye must confront the soul-devouring priestesses and their ruthless general, One-Eye-Nic, before the last dragons—and her own soul—are lost forever.
This is an enthralling tale of lies, rebellion, and the price of freedom…
*** NEW RELEASE ***
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Fran Zuid lives in a village on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, with two dogs and four parrots (her personal dragons, without the fire-breathing part—which is a bonus). If she is not submerged in a creative fantasy world, or playing old games, she is fiddling in her garden, sipping wine at a vineyard or conquering a hiking trail somewhere—that is, if her “dragons” allow it.
Where Dragons Are Captured is her debut novel.
Learn more about Fran...
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