We are excited to kick off this 7-day Book Blitz + Giveaway for Cassandra Page's Rheia!!! Not only that, we are celebrating this book birthday TODAY!!! To celebrate this release, we have a sneak peek with an exclusive excerpt!! Check it out and grab your copy now!!!
Genre:
Young Adult
Fantasy Romance
Publish Date:
October 13, 2018
Synopsis:
“Beauty and the Beast" meets Ancient Greece, with a steampunk twist
Every year, Rheia’s father brought home four prisoners of war, sacrifices to keep the demon Typhein bound. Rheia never gave them much thought … until her father’s enemy made her one of them. Now she has two weeks to find a way to escape death at the hands of the Beast and either save her people or condemn them to destruction.
The last thing Rheia expected was to fall in love with the Beast oath-bound to kill her.
*Excerpt*
The sound of footsteps on the road outside their home carried clearly in the quiet night air, as did the creak of the door as her father let himself into the villa. The soft voice of Rheia’s mother greeted him. He replied with a murmur. The bar thunked into its bracket, securing the door, and then footsteps ascended the stairs as they crept up to their own bedroom. It was next to Rheia’s, with Aias’s on the other side, closest to the stairs. Although they drew a heavy cloth across their door, she still caught snatches of their conversation over the sounds of her father removing his sandals and dropping them in the corner.
The word lottery caught her ear and, before she could question the wisdom of it, she rolled out of bed and padded to her door on bare feet, pulling her own hanging cloth aside so she could better hear what they were saying.
“I told them that,” Loukios was saying in a tired voice. “I could’ve had my crew ready and at the dock with the tide at dawn. But the priests argued against it and the king listened to them, not me.”
“What reason did they give?” Antheia’s voice was tight.
“They said it would mean renewed war with the helots, who would claim they had already given the required number of thysies this year. If we Oreareans are too careless to keep them alive, that is our problem.” His words were bitter.
“For followers of the god of war, the priests have taken a remarkably cowardly position,” Antheia said acerbically. Rheia covered her mouth to muffle her gasp. She had never heard her mother speak ill of a priest before.
Loukios grunted an agreement, before adding reluctantly, “But they are right. And more citizens would die in a new war than would die in this single lottery.”
"Why then could the king not buy a young slave girl, provide the thysia himself?”
There was a long pause. When Rheia’s father spoke, his voice was low, reluctant. “Honestly? I think the temple sees this as an opportunity. A lottery would remind the city of the god’s power—of the temple’s power. And it would silence dissent about the need for continued subjugation of the helots.”
“But … a lottery? They were awful. I never wanted our children subjected to that.” Antheia’s voice sounded hoarse, as though she spoke around tears. “When will it be?”
“Tomorrow. They don’t want to give people a chance to hide their daughters, or to marry them off.” Rheia’s heart leapt into her throat at the word. Daughters. Of course they’d need a girl to replace a girl. As Charis had said, the god liked balance. But hearing her father say it in such tones of distress drove the reality home.
Across from her, on the other side of her parents’ doorway, Aias’s startled gaze stared back at her from a crack in the fabric at his own bedroom door.
“Loukios, should we…?”
“We can’t. Draconaidas is already looking for an excuse to call for my exile. We must be above reproach.”
Draconaidas was Areus’s high priest. Rheia bit her lip, wondering briefly what her father had done to earn his displeasure, but her thoughts skittered away from the question like a fish on a line, drawn back to the bigger issue. A lottery.
“But Rheia—” Antheia said.
“—will be fine. There will be hundreds of names in the lottery. Thousands, even.” Loukios’s voice was soothing.
Rheia’s fingers fluttered to her forehead as she remembered the kiss of benediction in her dreams, and her nightmare the night before. The kiss from Eidoneus, God of the Underworld. Even as the recollection surfaced, she saw his face in her mind’s eye, watching her with kind eyes and a sad smile. The conviction that hers would be the ostra drawn tomorrow crept over her. With tears burning her eyes, she looked at her younger brother. His expression was stricken; he stared at her as though she were already dead.
A mini-glossary
agora – a combination of a marketplace and a central point where citizens can meet and discuss important issues
helot – slave; used to describe the subdued peoples across the sea
mammidon – a term of endearment meaning mother
thysia (plural thysies) – a sacrifice or offering
Copyright© 2018 Cassandra Page
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**About the Author**
Cassandra Page is a mother, author, editor and geek. She lives in Canberra, Australia’s bush capital, with her son and two Cairn Terriers. She has a serious coffee addiction and a tattoo of a cat – despite being allergic to cats. She has loved to read since primary school, when the library was her refuge, and loves many genres, all of them speculative fiction. When she’s not reading or writing, she engages in geekery, from Doctor Who to AD&D. Because who said you need to grow up?
Stay connected with Cassandra Page
***The Giveaway***
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Book Blitz Organized by
Giveaway Open Internationally
Note: Not Responsible for Lost & Damaged Prizes in Your Mail Box
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Book Blitz Organized by
