THE TRAITOR – SETH DICKINSON

Shortlisted for the 2016 David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut [Published as The Traitor Baru Cormorant in the US] Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people – even her soul. When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her Fathers, Baru vows to hide her hate, join the Empire s civil service, and claw her way up enough rungs of power to put a stop to the Emperor s influence and set her people free. As a natural savant, she is sent as an imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn – a post she worries will never get her the position and power she craves. But Baru soon discovers Aurdwynn is a complex and secretive country, seemingly on the brink of rebellion. All it would need is a match to the tinder . . . Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious aristocrats, Baru may be able to use her position to stoke a revolution that will threaten to bring the Empire to its knees. As Baru maintains a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with Aurdwynn s freedom as the prize. But winning the long game of saving her own people may be far more costly than Baru imagines.