A captain in debt, a princess in peril, and a fate that neither can foresee. All Jason ever wanted was to sail the Azure Sea as a merchant ship's captain. But money problems have him up to his eyeballs in debt, and if he doesn't return to port with the gold, his dreams will be dashed forever. So when the princess of a far-off kingdom is kidnapped by pirates en route to her wedding, Jason merrily takes up the chase, staking his future on the reward for her safe return. Yet the competition for the princess proves fierce, and Jason soon learns that there are far more powerful forces behind her kidnapping than any of them realize. And though Princess Julietta has no qualms about marrying for political advantage, the last thing she wants is to be a mere trophy in a different sort of game. As duty, desire, and destiny clash, only one thing is they both must risk everything to earn the ultimate reward.
Author
Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read A Wrinkle in Time and The Neverending Story as a child. He wrote several unfinished novels in high school and took Brandon Sanderson's writing class at Brigham Young University. He first came onto the indie writing scene in 2011 with his debut novel Genesis Earth. Since then, he has written more than twenty novels and novellas, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. His stories have been published in Perehilion, Mirror Dance, Sci Phi Journal, Uprising Review, Kasma SF, and Leading Edge. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He has also traveled across the United States, and has lived in Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Utah, Washington DC, and Iowa. Wherever he goes, though, he's always writing.
