Nielsen plays up the incongruity of a man training orphans to act like royalty but still expecting them to obey like servants. It’s this wiggle room that Conner seeks to exploit when he takes the boys back to his estate, where the boys are given a taste of the good life with clean clothes, fresh bed linens, hot meals prepared by doting servants - and a crash course in feigning royalty. Still, Prince Jaron’s body was never found - leaving just enough wiggle room for doubt. The whereabouts of their youngest son, Prince Jaron, is unknown, but it’s long been presumed he is also dead: He had been a passenger on a ship that was captured by pirates four years earlier. Unbeknown to most commoners, the king, queen and their oldest son were all poisoned and are now dead. When, during a sword fight, a character says to Sage, “I don’t want to kill you,” he retorts: “Lucky coincidence. Sage is a quick wit, and Nielsen showcases it with terrific dialogue. And though Sage, who narrates the story, embodies the requisite talent for causing trouble, his sharp tongue often gets him into trouble with the very man who will decide his fate. Roden is strong but lacks leadership ability.

Tobias is intelligent but not especially physical.

One boy elects to depart.Ī sort of Cinderella story in reverse, each of the remaining boys, under his cloak of filth, looks the part but lacks the education, fighting skills or refinement one expects from a royal. He does, however, allow the boys to leave if they aren’t interested in an admittedly dangerous plot that, if successful, could reap a major reward. Having collected four boys, Conner announces his intention “to conduct the greatest fraud ever perpetrated within the country.” He doesn’t provide any details. Why this “friend” wanted such a delinquent isn’t immediately clear, but it becomes apparent as this man, Master Bevin Conner, wheels his horse-drawn carriage around the land of Carthya picking up other teen orphans with an uncanny resemblance to a missing prince. The thief is Sage, a mischievous almost-15-year-old on the verge of being thrown out of an orphanage until he was purchased by a man identifying himself as a friend of the king’s court. The book opens with a boy running through the streets being chased by a cleaver-wielding butcher hoping to retrieve a stolen roast. This kickoff to her new “Ascendance Trilogy” is a swashbuckling origin story about orphans forced to compete with one another for a chance to take the crown. Nielsen takes that desire to an extreme with a romp of a medieval-themed, middle-grade novel. Most children want to be recognized as someone special.

The false prince by jennifer a nielsen