Garth Nix, bestselling author of the Keys to the Kingdom series and Shade’s Children, combines space opera with a coming-of-age story in his YA novel A Confusion of Princes. Superhuman. Immortal. Prince in a Galactic Empire. There has to be a catch…. Khemri learns the minute he becomes a Prince that princes need to be hard to kill—for they are always in danger. Their greatest threat? Other Princes. Every Prince wants to become Emperor and the surest way to do so is to kill, dishonor, or sideline any potential competitor. There are rules, but as Khemri discovers, rules can be bent and even broken. There are also mysteries. Khemri is drawn into the hidden workings of the Empire and is dispatched on a secret mission. In the ruins of space battle, he meets a young woman, called Raine, who challenges his view of the Empire, of Princes, and of himself. But Khemri is a Prince, and even if he wanted to leave the Empire behind, there are forces there that have very definite plans for his future.
Garth Nix is a New York Times bestselling novelist and has been a full-time writer since 2001 but has also worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve.
Garth’s many books include the Old Kingdom fantasy series, beginning with Sabriel and continuing to Goldenhand; the sci-fi novels Shade’s Children and A Confusion of Princes; the Regency romance with magic Newt’s Emerald; and novels for children including The Ragwitch, the Seventh Tower series, the Keys to the Kingdom series, and Frogkisser!, which is now in development as a feature film with Fox Animation/Blue Sky Studios. Garth has written numerous short stories, some of which are collected in Across the Wall and To Hold the Bridge. He has also cowritten several children’s book series with Sean Williams, including TroubleTwisters and Have Sword, Will Travel.
More than six million copies of his books have been sold around the world and his work has been translated into forty-two languages.
This month’s most exciting teen reads range from the realistic (a gently funny tale of overcoming social anxiety, a story about a kidnapping’s aftermath) to the fantastical (a collection of genre-bending tales from consummate fantasy author Garth Nix, a time travel tale that starts with a magical photo booth). Here are 15 young adult reads […]
When you read a short story, you experience its author at her most undiluted. The constraints of the genre force writers to compress emotion and action. They’re also useful for people who like to read in brief bursts: a short story is the perfect way to while away a subway ride, for example. And this is a great […]
Sometimes, wisdom arises in the strangest of places, like a conversation between a witch and her cat. “Wickedness depends on where you’re standing, doesn’t it?” the cat tells her, not only making a salient point, but also summing up a central theme of Garth Nix’s new collection of short stories, To Hold the Bridge.
