The Gold Queen

What is gold worth?

Sophie Aurelius has spent her life in poverty--she balances odd jobs, scrabbles for what she can find, and does her best to provide for her and her younger brother.

Nondescript and relatively content, Sophie holds no aspirations even in the flourishing central district she calls home.

Sophie's past is twisted with memories of her dead mother and sister and of the father who left her family heavily indebted. Her life with a low profile is more than personal preference.

For nearly fifteen years Sophie has worn the same pair of gloves that conceals her darkest secret. She hides her past from everyone she knows, including her best friend and one of the most intelligent scholars in the realm, Mathias Daumanthas.

Sophie has the remarkable and frightening ability to turn human flesh into gold. Her touch freezes living individuals in the precious metal, and ever since Sophie discovered her gift years ago, she has been living a life of suppression for fear of hurting those she loves and those she fears.

When the queen offers Sophie a job at the Grand Palace as the royal tea sommelier, she must walk head-on into a place where her secrets are at the most risk. Here, she must gain the trust of her fellow chefs, and, more importantly, allow herself to trust the people she cares the most about.

In between forging a strong friendship with Ramayana, the compassionate and free-spirited queen of the central district, and managing her life at home, Sophie begins to suspect one of the envoys visiting the Grand Palace. She discovers a darker and deeper plot that could endanger herself, the queen, and the entire queendom.

Sophie's struggle with her secrets and her unwillingness to take a stand eventually opens the gate for tragedy. She is thrust into a position that she would do anything to be rid of.

It is then that she decides she must take matters into her own hands or else risk being overcome by her enemies, and ascends the throne as the Gold Queen.