The Necromancer's Daughter
an excerpt

Lenora hated her life. And not just in the way that any average librarian living in an average primitive town might hate her life. She hated it with a passion. “I wish I were someone else completely,” she might have told her friends, if she had any. “I wish I were a princess in one of the kingdoms across the southern sea, or a pirate lass raiding the ships of the [NAME OF DISTANT GOVERNMENT]. I wish I lived in a house up in a tree, yes a house so high up in a tree that it split the clouds apart like marshmallows on a stick.” Instead, Lenora lived in a small town, and spent far more time than she liked tending the town’s humble collection of books.

What’s more, Lenora found most of the books to be dreadful. If you were to walk in to Lenora’s library one day and ask for a book about the history of the north-lands, or a guide to brewing ale, or a hundred year old cookbook, or a tome describing a thousand different species of plant life, then you would walk out quite satisfied (after filling out a book contract, of course, which is an enchanted document that causes a most unpleasant rash to develop in those unwise enough to keep their books out past the due date). If, however, you were seeking something more exciting, such as an epic adventure, a tale of romance, or maybe even a collection of ribald poetry, you would be disappointed.

Unless you could sweet talk Lenora into letting you borrow the copies she had hidden away. These few volumes kept her interested enough in the library not to burn it down when the owner (who happened to be her father) was away. Lenora was re-reading one of them, “[SILLY TITLE GOES HERE],” when she first met Timmon.

Lenora pegged him for a city boy the moment she saw him. His tunic was sturdy enough, but was too clean. His breeches and boots were dusty, as they would be from a long horse ride. His glasses were of a quality not often seen out here in the country. But most telling of all was the shade of his skin, which was so pale it would have been right at home inside one of the many hundreds of books in the room, with letters all over it and perhaps a captioned woodcut drawing.