Today we're excited to share Aditi Khorana's excerpt from her new novel, The Library Of Fates as part of the YABC Scavenger Hunt! Read on for more about Aditi and her novel!

And don't forget to answer the question from this post on the Scavenger Hunt form for a chance to win the Grand Prize!

You can find Scavenger Hunt rules HERE!!

Meet Aditi Khorana!

Aditi Khorana spent part of her childhood in India, Denmark and New England. She has a BA in International Relations from Brown University and an MA in Global Media and Communications from the Annenberg School for Communication. She has worked as a journalist at ABC News, CNN, and PBS, and most recently as a marketing executive consulting for various Hollywood studios including Fox, Paramount and Sony.

Mirror in the Sky (Razorbill/Penguin, 2016) was her first novel. The upcoming Library of Fates (July 2017) is feminist historical fantasy, set in ancient India, and tells the story of a louche, misogynistic dictator overthrowing an idyllic kingdom, and the women who fight to wrench it back from his hands.

Aditi lives in Los Angeles and spends her free time reading, hiking, and exploring LA's eclectic and wonderful architecture.

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Meet The Library Of Fates!

A romantic coming-of-age fantasy tale steeped in Indian folklore, perfect for fans of The Star-Touched Queen and The Wrath and the Dawn 

No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything—family, her childhood love, and her freedom—to save her people. But her offer isn't enough.

The palace is soon under siege, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on one another. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them. 

Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life—and another love—await?

Amazon * B & N * Indiebound

~ Excerpt ~

Parable of the Land of Trees

Long ago, there was a land entirely occupied by some of the most beautiful and oldest trees in the world. These trees had inhabited the Earth longer than humans, longer than the vetalas—the immortals who roamed the planet alongside humans till they all but disappeared.

They were wise trees, and had existed on the Earth for such a great span of time, they had learned how to speak. They offered their visitors fruit and shade. They told captivating stories, and made people laugh. They were servants to the land and to those around them.

Those who had the good fortune to stumble upon the Land of Trees said that the experience stayed with them forever. They returned to their homes and spoke of this ethereal world, and so, word began to spread about the Land of Trees. Waves of new explorers trickled in, and soon visitors came in droves, marching into the land from all corners of the Earth.

But these new visitors wanted more from the trees. They sought to own the trees and the land that they lived on. They spoke of opening up taverns and lodges and inns so people could stay when they came to visit. They wanted to build roads, bridges, an infrastructure that would allow individuals to come by the thousands so that they could experience the Land of Trees. But there was one problem with this . . .

They needed the wood from the trees to build all of these things. And so they began to chop down the trees in order to build inns and taverns and roads and bridges. One by one, the trees came down, axes cutting into their trunks. Saws slicing away at their roots and branches.

And soon, the Land of Trees was filled with inns and taverns and roads and bridges. Some trees survived, but they were so devastated by the loss of their family and friends that they stopped speaking, stopped laughing, stopped sharing their voices. Their despondency, their mistrust became silence, and the forest was no longer filled with laughter, with wisdom, with stories.

For some time, people continued to visit, but instead of the Land of Trees, what they saw now was a land that had devolved into just another place on a map.

After some time, people stopped coming, and now the Land of Trees is just like any other place. A place whose magic has been erased.

But perhaps one day, you’ll find yourself walking through a forest, and maybe if you listen closely enough, and maybe if you ask from the very bottom of your heart, one of the trees might hear the longing in your soul—the longing for connection, the longing for something deeper that resides so far below the surface of the world in which we choose to live out our day-to-day. And you’ll hear it, the voice of one of those trees, calling back to you, telling you that the world is alive with mysteries, and that in order to understand them, one must first learn to be still, to listen, and the world will unveil itself to you, as though it was waiting to do so all along.

Prologue

I still remember the first time my father told me the Parable of the Land of Trees. It was night, and outside my window, a soft quilt of mysterious darkness had settled over Chanakya Lake. But I felt safe under the gauze of the white silken mosquito net that hung over me, and my father’s presence reassured me. He sat at the edge of my bed and pointed out past the lake, past the mountains, to a horizon shrouded in mist. What he was really pointing to was a time that existed before us, to a world neither of us could even be sure had ever really prevailed.

“Have I ever told you the Parable of the Land of Trees?” he asked me, his dark eyes fixed on that elusive brim between earth and sky, before they turned to look back at me, a wistful smile twitching on the edges of his lips.

I shook my head. Outside my window, lanterns lit up the sterns of houseboats on the lake, their twin haloes reflecting in the water, suggesting another world underneath that channel, a mirror to the one we inhabited now. I wondered about the people who slept on those boats, who lived in that sphere I had still never seen. I thought about all the places I had never visited, that I had heard about only in the stories people told me.

And then in the gauzy lamplight, over the quiet, contented chirping of insects calling out to each other in the night, my father told me the tale. I didn’t understand then how stories have a way of staying with us long after people are gone. That night, I simply held on to his words: somber and thoughtful. I listened to his voice: calm, soft, measured, wise. It was how I would always remember it, taking for granted that it would always be there. I didn’t know then what I know now: that everything—my father, this moment, every experience that molds and shapes us—is ephemeral, evaporating into the air before we have a chance to grasp on to it, before we can truly even understand what it means.

The Library Of Fates

By: Aditi Khorana

Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin

Release Date: July 18th, 2017 

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