Welcome to one of the many stops on the book blitz for The Hidden Princess by Mira Crest, organized by XPresso Book Tours. Look for others participating in this blitz across social media and on your favourite bookish blogs May 25-29, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway! #YALit #YAFantasy #free #freebooks #MiraCrest #BookWorm #XpressoTours
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About the Book
The Hidden Princess
Princess League Book One
by Mira Crest
Published 16 April 2020
Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Count: 238
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
Penny is an ugly princess born to a family known for its beautiful offspring. To protect the royal bloodline’s reputation, the king proclaims her dead since birth and locks her away in the castle cellar.
But unbeknown to most, including herself, Penny has a gift: she can see the darkness within one’s mind through touch.
Everett is a dragon prince whose land is plagued by a deadly sickness in the form of black mist, capable of turning any fairy being it touches into stone. He comes to Penny’s kingdom seeking the one princess foretold to end the darkness.
The choice is clear, it’s either Penny’s cynical eldest sister, Tatiana, or her kind elder sister, Sarah, because Penny does not exist, not officially. But a twist of fate and Penny’s gift bring her to Everett’s attention, and she takes on a secret identity to aid him to trace the origin of the black mist.
What follows is a journey into a dark magical world within the minds of the corrupt, ruled by demons that plague on the dark aspects of the human psyche.
With the clock fast ticking, the prince must discover who the chosen one is in order to defeat the black mist before it turns him to stone and spreads to the rest of the world. But there are those who will do anything to keep Penny’s identity hidden.
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Excerpt
The noises of the tavern drained away, and a gloom fell over the place. It reminded her of what happened at Marvin’s store. She was back in the Eternal, though, this time, she was at the tavern. All the people around her had frozen. She walked across the still crowd and saw Everett protecting Sarah from several Brutes. The other dragon warriors were busy keeping any hostiles from getting near Tatiana, who was lying on the ground. She had one eye slightly open to peek at her surroundings. It was pretty obvious she was faking unconsciousness.
When all seemed still and quiet, she caught sight of something stirring in the darkness of the tavern’s interior. Black mist! It was dripping from the ceiling, rising from the floor. Mist from different spots rushed to the center of the tavern and merged. Something grotesque was forming from it. Penny quickly hid behind the tavern counter and observed the transformation. A wolf took shape, only this time it was nearly thrice as large as the previous one.
Was this new mist form a manifestation of the head Brute’s anger? If it was, it was a clear indication of how much it had grown. Could this huge wolf be the cause of the mist, and defeating it would destroy the mist altogether? There was only one way to find out.
Penny readied herself. She checked her feet and saw the shiny red shoes were back. She peered out from the side of the counter, but the wolf was no longer at where it had stood. Carefully, she emerged and took cover under a table. Bit by bit, she advanced closer and closer. She needed to be close enough to open the portal and bring it to reality.
“Penny, you can do this!” As she moved to the next table, the wolf turned wildly with its eyes fixed on Penny.
She put out her hand and a fireball shot out, hitting the back of the wolf. Its bellow shook the tavern. More fireballs hit the body of the wolf, but they only made the demon angrier. It leaped and crashed down on the tables before Penny.
It sank its terrifying misty black fangs into the table, concealing Penny and crushing it into debris. Penny ducked away in time. She was then lying on the floor as the wolf turned toward its attacker. Penny willed her mind and conjured as much power as she could, igniting blast after blast. The wolf roared as the fiery magic engulfed its front body.
She got back on her feet and backed away, but the wolf clawed at her, slashing her shoulder. Penny suddenly felt drained, wincing at the searing pain in her shoulder. That voice, she heard it before. It was the most familiar voice; it was hers. Immense rage came flooding through her all of a sudden. Thoughts of her staring into the mirror at her ugly reflection and trapped inside a cell rushed into her mind.
The wolf closed in as she crawled away and hid beneath another table. The wolf clawed under the table, barely missing her as she moved out of range. She tried to conjure magic, but every blow she delivered hit the wrong places and missed its target.
“What’s going on?” It was like her magic was malfunctioning. It must have something to do with her getting slashed by the wolf’s claw. She was going to die if she didn’t find a way out.
The wolf smashed the table to pieces. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The wolf’s snout was before her. Anytime now it’s going to devour her.
She struggled and gathered her thoughts, focusing instead on the happiest memory buried within her. She closed her eyes. The wolf’s mouth closed in, ready to consume its helpless prey.
About the Author
Since young, Mira loves fantasy romance with strong female protagonists and perilous adventures to magical realms and parallel universes to visit dragons, witches, shifters, and fairy tale creatures, bringing heroes and heroines together and aiding their epic fantasy battles against dark enemies so they can have the happily-ever-afters they deserve.
When she grew up, she takes a liking to young adult stories, which explains her passion writing in the young adult fantasy romance genre. Her books are clean romance with character development as the prime focus. Even now, she still journeys to fantasy realms whenever she’s not writing.
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Giveaway Alert!
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT): Audiobook copy of book 2, The Silent Princess
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