The Wind Reader (A Tale of Rinland)

A street kid fakes magic to survive... but the prince is listening. A BBNYA Book Award Semi-Finalist YA fantasy of royal intrigue, found family, and the lethal cost of pretending to know more than you do.

Lies can be more deadly when believed than exposed.

Stuck in the capital city of Rin, street kid Doniver survives by faking fortunes for enough loose coin to feed himself and his friends. Then the impossible happens: one of his predictions comes true while the prince is listening in, and the lie becomes a noose.

Dragged into the castle as the new royal 'wind reader, ' Doniver is ordered to use his so-called magic to uncover a traitor and prevent the king's murder. But Doniver isn't magical - he's improvising, and someone is determined to silence him before he exposes the truth.

As danger stalks closer and the lies stack up, Doniver must decide where survival ends and honor begins. Because if he fails, the king will die.

But if he succeeds, he may never make it home to the Uplands.

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Readers who love the layered court intrigue of Megan Whalen Turner, the warm, character-driven worldbuilding of Travis Baldree, and the YA fantasy sweep of Cinda Williams Chima and Kristin Cashore will find a fast-paced story that takes its young characters seriously without sacrificing heart. The Wind Reader is a YA fantasy tale of found family, reluctant heroism, and what honor actually costs when you have nothing else to bargain with. This is book 1 of the Tales of Rinland series and a BBNYA Book Award Semi-Finalist, from the bestselling author of The Wysman.

"An exciting, adventurous, and thoughtful YA fantasy novel... Doniver, a young man from the remote Uplands, finds himself orphaned and alone in the big city. Embroiled in palace intrigue, he has to learn to distinguish friends from enemies, while keeping his honour intact." - Una McCormack, NYT Bestselling Author

For about a dozen years, Dorothy A. Winsor taught technical writing at Iowa State University and served as the editor of the Journal of Business and Technical Communication, but then she decided writing young adult (YA) fantasy was more fun.Her novels include the Tales of Rinland series (Deep as a Tomb, The Wind Reader, The Wysman, and The Trickster) and the Dolyan Islands series (Glass Girl, and Dragoncraft). She also wrote the middle-grade fantasy, Finders Keepers.Her short stories have appeared in Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Bards and Sages Quarterly, FrostFire Worlds, Wyldblood, and the Autumn's Harvest anthology.She is a member of the Barrington Writers Workshop and a graduate of both the Taos Writers Workshop and Blue Heaven workshop. She was elected Fellow of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing and was awarded the Alfred N. Goldsmith Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Communication. Her deepest secret is that she once wrote over a million words of Lord of the Rings fanfiction.