CROWNS OF GOLD

CROWNS OF GOLD

She smiles with one side of her mouth. "And I shall kill another, on this one." At that, she attempts a cut to his shoulder. Too simple. He parries it easily, and returns with a downward diagonal to her leg. She blocks it almost as though she were expecting it. She thrusts for his other shoulder, and he binds her blade around, hoping to dislodge her balance enough to--ho! Here's a surprise! At the bottom of the bind, she suddenly angles up, muscling his blade away, bringing hers up toward his groin. He change-beats her blade aside, but not fast enough to escape the nick it leaves on his thigh. How is this possible? "First blood, Jack O'Napes?" she calls to whom John now assumes is her first mate. "Aye, Cap'n." In Crowns of Gold (or, The Compleat Guide to the Most Fearsome Pyrates of the Inland Sea, discovered in an ancient ruin, dusted off and translated from the ancient Calderian) , Jenn Zuko merges the romance of classic adventure with the grit of survival and self-discovery. A master of stage combat and the fight as story, Zuko channels her deep knowledge of writing, literature, and the performing arts into the tale of Gemmanalia Jonquil, a runaway slave who rises into a swashbuckling pirate queen.