As I write this, Naomi Novik’s latest Temeraire novel, Tongues of Serpents, doesn’t hit bookshelves and download queues until next week (July 13). Which is what makes this offering so exciting.
Suvudu is bringing you this exclusive download of Chapter 3 from Tongues of Serpents. Curious, aren’t you? Chapter three will put you in a perfect position to taste a little of the intrigue that Naomi has in store for you in her latest book and will leave your appetite whetted for more (which, unfortunately, you’ll have to wait for).
So what are you waiting for? It’s hotter than dragon’s breath outside, so grab this download and stay in to read. I promise you won’t regret it!
Grab the free PDF of chapter three here: Tongues of Serpents, Chapter 3.
About Tongues of Serpents
A dazzling blend of military history, high-flying fantasy, and edge-of-your-seat adventure, Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels, set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which intelligent dragons have been harnessed as weapons of war, are more than just perennial bestsellers–they are a worldwide phenomenon. Now, in Tongues of Serpents, Naomi Novik is back, along with the dragon Temeraire and his rider and friend, Capt. Will Laurence.
Convicted of treason despite their heroic defense against Napoleon’s invasion of England, Temeraire and Laurence–stripped of rank and standing–have been transported to the prison colony at New South Wales in distant Australia, where, it is hoped, they cannot further corrupt the British Aerial Corps with their dangerous notions of liberty for dragons. Temeraire and Laurence carry with them three dragon eggs intended to help establish a covert in the colony and destined to be handed over to such second-rate, undesirable officers as have been willing to accept so remote an assignment–including one former acquaintance, Captain Rankin, whose cruelty once cost a dragon its life.
Nor is this the greatest difficulty that confronts the exiled dragon and rider: Instead of leaving behind all the political entanglements and corruptions of the war, Laurence and Temeraire have instead sailed into a hornet’s nest of fresh complications. For the colony at New South Wales has been thrown into turmoil after the overthrow of the military governor, one William Bligh–better known as Captain Bligh, late of HMS Bounty. Bligh wastes no time in attempting to enlist Temeraire and Laurence to restore him to office, while the upstart masters of the colony are equally determined that the new arrivals should not upset a balance of power precariously tipped in their favor.
Eager to escape this political quagmire, Laurence and Temeraire take on a mission to find a way through the forbidding Blue Mountains and into the interior of Australia. But when one of the dragon eggs is stolen from Temeraire, the surveying expedition becomes a desperate race to recover it in time–a race that leads to a shocking discovery and a dangerous new obstacle in the global war between Britain and Napoleon.
