And I Darken
by Kiersten White
Buy on AmazonIn this first book in a trilogy, a girl child is born to Vlad Dracula, in Transylvania, in 1435--at first rejected by her father and always ignored by her mother, she will grow up to be Lada Dragwlya, a vicious and brutal princess, destined to rule and destroy her enemies.
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"Kiersten White’s And I Darken is an evocative imagining of the life of two noble children who are handed over to the Ottoman Empire to ensure that their father, the Prince of Wallachia, will be on his best behavior. What begins as resentful imprisonment soon becomes a source of internal and external conflict for siblings Lada and Radu, as they’re torn between hanging on to their past identities and assimilating into the empire that they ought to despise. This book takes no prisoners, offering up brutal, emotional historical fiction in a seldom explored setting."
NPR Books We Love — 2016 · apps.npr.org