The Crown Made of Lies

A Spellbinding Quest Fantasy of an Enemy-to-Ally Bond, a Dangerous Alliance, and the Magic That Could Unmake the WorldBy Frederick B. Halloway

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Length8h 27m

About this audiobook

The light sweeping the workshop window means the Guild has come. And Maren has just finished building the one thing that could get her hanged. In Thornwell, an unlicensed gear is contraband. A handmade pocket-watch is grounds for prison. But the Royal Guild of Artificers never taught a girl who learned to file brass by candlelight, hiding her work until her mother fell asleep. Maren made the watch for her brother Tomn's birthday. She made it in the dark, filing teeth one at a time under a magnifying lens, stealing shavings from the scrap bin. She made it because her father is already dead of the coughing sickness — and now the cough is in the back room, and it is taking her mother too. Last week the cough lasted five seconds. Tonight she counts to seven. The gear slides home with a sound like a kiss, and for one breath everything is perfect. Then the Guild's light finds her window, and everything she's hidden comes spilling into the open. What Maren doesn't know is that the watch she built is no ordinary contraband. It is tied to the crown itself — to a queen's wounded truth, a vault of burned sunlight, and a mainspring of lies wound tight enough to unmake an empire. To save her mother, Maren will have to bargain with the very people who want her in chains. She'll have to trust an enemy. She'll have to walk into the heart of Spirehold, into a prison that was once a home, and listen to the lies a kingdom tells itself. She'll have to learn that the most dangerous machine in the world isn't made of brass and springs — it's made of secrets, and her family has been a hidden gear in it all along. The crown is built on lies. And the girl who smells of oil and lamp-smoke is the only one who can hear them ticking. The Crown Made of Lies is a spellbinding YA quest fantasy about a clockwork-clever heroine, an enemy-to-ally alliance, a dying mother, hidden royal secrets, and magic that could unmake the world. Perfect for readers who love clockpunk and gaslamp fantasy, brave working-class heroines, enemies-to-allies bonds, kingdom-toppling secrets, and quests with everything on the line. A teen fantasy adventure with heart and wonder.

Memory Magic Conspiracy Political Intrigue Family Hidden Identity Rebellion Dystopian Thriller Mystery Adventure Dark Fantasy Psychological Alternate Universe Royalty & Courts