THESE FLAMES HAVE CLAWS is a Young Adult Fantasy novel, completed at 95,000 words with series potential and will appeal to fans of Elly Blake’s Frostblood and Kristen Ciccarelli’s The Last Namsara.
In Ih’llioan, all girls are born with a dragon in their soul and Ana isn’t about to let the dragon within manifest. As a child, she watched the power consume her mother, and now she intends to burn her draconian inheritance before it can do the same to her. But in a world where power is the only currency worth obtaining, those around her—including her own brother—desire much more than a quiet life in the shadows.
With her goal only minutes away, her power manifests and unleashes a cruel and violent being within her. She struggles to regain control, but accidentally kills one of the Queen’s personal guards and ruins any chance for anonymity. Her only hope of avoiding execution lies with the mysterious King of Thieves and the Accepted, a rebel faction bent on destroying the realm’s current caste system.
In exchange for protection and training, Ana must use her incredible power to enter the yearly naming ceremonies and fight for a place in the upper levels of society—intending to defeat the Queen herself. But navigating the courts and hiding her true purpose proves challenging, especially as she comes to understand, respect, and admire her target. Each success for the Accepted means a loss for Ana in her fight to avoid her mother’s fate and a decreasing chance that she, the people surrounding her, or the realm will ever find peace.