A Throne of Silk and Blood (Fascinating Lives Series)

Brothers by Blood. Rivals by History.

Wallachia, 1442. Taken as political hostages to the Ottoman court, young princes Vlad and Radu are forced to survive far from home. As the years pass, captivity shapes them in radically different ways. Vlad returns to Wallachia determined to rule through fear and force, while Radu the Handsome remains close to Mehmed II, embracing diplomacy, strategy, and a very different vision of power.

Against the fall of Constantinople and the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the brothers find themselves divided by loyalty, ambition, and the future of the homeland they both love. One will become infamous as Vlad the Impaler. The other will be remembered by many as a traitor.

Discover A Throne of Silk and Blood, an epic historical novel about brotherhood, loyalty, survival, and the human cost of power.

Excerpt from the book

The final summer before the Turks came—before the world split and burned and the word home became a riddle—Radu was convinced that every path, every rut in the earth, every winding sheep trail through the beeches and firs, all inevitably circled back to this place: Târgoviște, the fortress city, the heart and hearth of Wallachia. From the bluff behind the monastery, he could nearly see it all. The princely court fanned out below the ridgeline like a fable made from stone and clay, its high white walls clutching the red-roofed houses in a protective ring. The churches stood gathered in the lower quarter and caught the first sunlight on their spires so that, from afar, they looked like the upturned beaks of nesting birds. Past them, the river curled in a silver ribbon around the town, gathering in pools and meanders, glinting at daybreak, before slipping off into the forests that hemmed the world in green. And at the furthest edge—where the cultivated fields faded into thickets of wild plum and hawthorn—spread the forest, immense and patient, older than any man or town or king.

The morning was already steaming with sun, but the air above the river still clung with last night’s cool. Radu rode his pony in the shadow of his brothers, Mircea, the eldest, ahead on a great chestnut warhorse, and Vlad somewhere just out of sight, always between the trees, always watching. The path was steep here, the soil loose with scree, and Radu’s pony picked its way gingerly compared to Mircea’s reckless gallop. Still, Radu urged it along, stubborn against the bite of the saddle and the itch of sweat on his back.

He grinned, feeling a thrill as the hoofbeats echoed off the hillside. The simple, banal pleasure of the ride filled him, and he lifted himself in the stirrups, lifting his voice with it.

“You’re too slow!” he called, letting laughter carry into the trees.

Ahead, Mircea didn’t turn or answer—he never did, not for his little brother’s taunts. He leaned forward, urging his beast faster down the steep, twisting trail, every part of him built for speed and command. Radu admired the way Mircea handled the horse, almost as if the animal was an extension of himself: hands loose on the reins, body low, knees tight. There was no fear in Mircea, not even the sensible kind.

Then, around the bend, Vlad emerged from the tangle of undergrowth—older than Radu by only five years, but already with the dark, unreadable face of someone who kept all his thoughts locked behind his eyes. He leaned against a beech tree, arms folded, one foot propped up on a root. There was a brief moment when Radu thought Vlad might let him pass—he was so still, so perfectly balanced—but then Vlad uncoiled, stepped straight into Radu’s path, and blocked the way with a branch he brandished in front of the pony’s nose.

“Hurry,” Vlad said, not unkindly, but with that flat, exasperated tone that made Radu want to hit him. “Unless you’ve decided to become a monk.”