Heir to the Valkyrie throne, Alithea belives she is better suited to the battlefield than the throne room. On the eve of her betrothal ceremony where she will finally meet the young man the queen's council has chosen for her—the man raised to serve her every need—Alithea makes a desperate decision that will change her life forever. Rejecting her birthright, she flees across the broken bridge to the human realm where she must hide her true Valkyrie nature. When the queen's Berserker bounty hunter finally catches up with her, Druan gives her no choice but to return to a war-torn world where her mother and all those she loves are trapped, powerless to resist the vicious usurper queen. To save her people, Alithea will have to do the one thing she swore she would never do. Ascend to the Valkyrie throne and take her seat as the High Queen of the Nine Realms, all while keeping a dangerous secret that could destroy everything. The Reluctant Queen is the first book in a brand new series by award winning author, Melissa A. Craven. Fans of her Queens of the Fae series will fall in love with this new world deeply rooted in Norse Mythology as you've never seen before! Don't miss the opportunity to dive into this reimagining of Asgard in a post-Ragnarok world where the gods are all gone and the Valkyries rule in their place.
Author
Melissa A. Craven (the "A" stands for Ann—in case you were wondering) was born near Atlanta, Georgia, but moved to Cleveland, Ohio at the age of seventeen. She still thinks of Cleveland as home, so it was only natural for Emerge to take place there. Today, she is back in Atlanta—for some reason she can't seem to stay away from the ungodly heat that makes her long for things like "lake effect snow" and wind that will knock you flat. Melissa decided a long time ago that the “life checklist” everyone else was clutching so tightly in their fists, just wasn’t for her. She does everything backwards because she is weird like that, but then, she is an artist and artists are notoriously "unique" and "quirky." She is an avid student of art and design, and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of West Georgia in 2009. She worked as an interior designer for several years, but she's always thought she might like to be a writer when she grows up. In her spare time, if she has any, she enjoys shopping for derelict furniture she refinishes to exercise the interior design part of her brain.
