Mere months ago, gunslinger Amani al’Hiza fled her dead-end hometown on the back of a mythical horse with the mysterious foreigner Jin, seeking only her own freedom. Now she’s fighting to liberate the entire desert nation of Miraji from a bloodthirsty sultan who slew his own father to capture the throne.

When Amani finds herself thrust into the epicenter of the regime—the Sultan’s palace—she’s determined to bring the tyrant down. Desperate to uncover the Sultan’s secrets by spying on his court, she tries to forget that Jin disappeared just as she was getting closest to him, and that she’s a prisoner of the enemy. But the longer she remains, the more she questions whether the Sultan is really the villain she’s been told he is, and who’s the real traitor to her sun-bleached, magic-filled homeland.

Forget everything you thought you knew about Miraji, about the rebellion, about djinni and Jin and the Blue-Eyed Bandit. In Traitor to the Throne, the only certainty is that everything will change.

Series:

Rebel in the Sands

Book 2

Book Type:

YA fantasy

Alwyn Hamilton’s Traitor to the Throne dazzles, ratcheting up tension and intrigue.

It’s been months since gunslinger Amani al’Hiza, otherwise known as the Blue-eyed Bandit, joined the now-faltering rebellion. Jin, the boy she’s fallen for, disappears when she needs him the most, and to make matters worse, she’s deceived and sold to Sultan of Miraji, the very enemy they seek to dethrone.

Deception deepens within the walls of the palace, with a harem who hates her and a Sultan who exploits her Demdji powers. The only silver lining is that she can now spy on the manipulative Sultan in efforts to help the rebellion capture the throne.

The more she learns, however, the more doubts about the rebellion’s true strength and likely success addle her thoughts. New characters bring more complication and more scheming to an already tangled political landscape.

Before the novel’s shocking, tear-jerking climax, more blood will be shed, more hearts will be broken and more treachery will come to light, even as final surprises flip the story on its back. Love and loyalty is shaken; loss is felt deeply—all leaving readers desperate for more of this Wild West meets Arabian Nights adventure.