Halfling Tildi Summerbee has led a typical, unexciting life, tending the house for her brothers while they manage the family farm. Her days are boring, but happy...until a Thraik attack decimates her family.

 

In an effort to provide for Tildi, the town's leaders prepare an arranged marriage and take control of her farm's assets. After all, a female halfling is incapable of handling such matters on her own.

 

Tildi sees things differently.

 

In order to escape her arranged marriage and overcome the prejudices against the "weaker" sex, she decides to pass herself off as a man. Assuming the guise of her brother Teldo, Tildi disappears into the night. She plans to accept Teldo's position as an apprentice to a great wizard.

 

But she soon finds that the rest of the world isn't very welcoming to halflings. And that she is surrounded by fantastic dangers.

 

Dangers that are more than a match for a wizard's apprentice. 

Praise

Praise for An Unexpected Apprentice

 

"I thoroughly enjoyed it, the plot, the settlement, the whole nine yards, and especially the twitch of humor at odd moments...a book I can thoroughly recommend."—Anne McCaffrey

 

"An unusual story well-told, with characters it's a real pleasure to spend time with."--Dave Drake

 

“The Unexpected Apprentice is a fast-paced fantasy adventure full of warm, engaging characters and gentle humor.  I had a lot of fun with it, and you will, too.”--Harry Turtledove
 
“I’ve always wondered what The Hobbit might have been like if Bilbo had been a girl … now I know.”--Ed Greenwood

About the Author(s)

Jody Lynn Nye

Jody Lynn Nye lives in Illinois and has collaborated with Anne McCafferty on several books.

Excerpt

Chapter One

The merry piping stopped.

Tildi Summerbee looked up idly from the book she was reading, which was propped on the carved shelf beside the huge bubbling stew pot.

How strange, she thought, lifting the stirring spoon to her lips for a taste. Her youngest brother, Marco, usually played his flute all the way home from the fields as he, and the rest of her brothers, and the farmhands headed toward the big old house.

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