About this item
Welcome to Riverside, where the aristocratic and the ambitious battle for power in the city's ballroom, brothels and boudoirs. Into this alluring world walks Katherine, a well-bred country girl versed in the rules of conventional society. Her mistake is thinking that they apply. For Katherine's host and uncle, Alec Campion, aka the Mad Duke Tremontaine, is in charge here—and to him, rules are made to be broken. When Alec decides it would be more amusing for his niece to learn swordplay than to follow the usual path to marriage, her world changes forever. Blade in hand, it's up to Katherine to navigate a maze of secrets and scoundrels and to gain the self-discovery that comes to those who master: the privilege of the sword. .
About the Author
After college, I wanted to be a writer, but there aren't any jobs like that, and I knew I'd be a lousy waitress because I'd drop things and be rude to people. Happily, I lucked into jobs as a fantasy editor for Jim Baen at Ace Books, and then got kidnapped by David G. Hartwell to work at Pocket/Simon & Schuster. I quit to write my first novel, Swordspoint, which took longer than I thought it would, so I supported myself writing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (tm) books. But writing is a lonely business, and I love being onstage. So after I wrote my second novel, Thomas the Rhymer, I moved to Boston to become an announcer for WGBH public radio, later becoming the writer and host of PRI's national series Sound & Spirit. During that time I wrote The Fall of the Kings with Delia Sherman, and pulled an old manuscript out of a drawer, something I'd started after Swordspoint, about Alec's teenage niece, and my agent said I should finish it, so I did. I call it TPOTS (pronounced "teapots") , but its real name is The Privilege of the Sword. About this time, it became clear I was writing all the Riverside novels out of order, a practice I continue to this day, as I am currently working with a bunch of friends on Tremontaine, a collective serial published by Serial Box online, and SAGA Press in dead tree format.I love reading my own work aloud, and have been hideously indulged by "Neil Gaiman Presents" & producer SueMedia, who allowed me to read all 3 Riverside novels into a microphone for Audible.I am proud to have been one of the original writers on Terri Windling's shared world "Bordertown" series, so I convinced Holly Black recently to co-edit Welcome to Bordertown, inviting younger writers who grew up with the series to join some of us old-timers on the Border where Elves on Motorbikes is pretty common. I sometimes teach creative writing at Clarion, the Odyssey Workshop, and Hollins University's Children's Literature summer M.F.A. program, where students say I do not coddle them, but I do bring them Turkish Delight, so that's OK. I now live in New York City with my wife, the writer, teacher, editor & best friend Delia Sherman. We have no cats, just plane tickets and theater stubs.
