Join a Deadly Competition in Shannon J. Spann’s YA Romantasy“ A Stage Set for Villains” — Read an Excerpt! (Exclusive)

Shannon J. Spann is inviting readers to join a thrilling competition.

The author will publish her debut novel, A Stage Set for Villains, this fall, and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look. The young adult romantasy will hit shelves through Mayhem Books, an imprint of Entangled Publishing, which brought Rebecca Yarros’ bestselling Empyrean series to shelves.

A Stage Set for Villains follows 18-year-old Riven Hesper. The teenager is cursed by a Player, a godlike performer whose allure has made them popular with audiences, but who are also destined to kill anyone who resists their powers.

To try and break free, Riven sneaks into the Player’s traveling theater, known as the Playhouse, and discovers their infamous tradition, in which mortals compete to kill a Player and take their power. Riven has no plans to participate, until she meets the theatre troupe's dangerous lead, Jude, who offers her a deal: if Riven competes and wins, Jude will break her curse if she spares his life in return.

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As Riven moves through the competition, however, she realizes that the Playhouse has even more sinister plans for her, in this book described as Caraval meets The Serpents and the Wings of the Night.

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Ready to play? Read below for an exclusive excerpt from A Stage Set for Villains.

OVERTURE

For as long as I can remember, we have feared the Players. I know of only three ways to survive an encounter with one. 

“Never look a Player in the eye,” I recite as we shuffle forward in line. My older brother’s hand feels clammy in mine, and I wonder if he’s nervous, too. Last night, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. But the longer we wait, the more I wonder if being marked will hurt.

“That’s right,” Galen says. “Remember, that doesn’t mean ignoring them, Riv.”

I nod eagerly. If you’re going to bruise a Player’s ego, you might as well throw yourself off a cliff while you’re at it. It would be less painful.

“What’s the second rule?” Galen quizzes as another newly marked boy, somewhere between my 8 years of age and my brother’s 12, passes us on his way out of the enormous courthouse ahead.

The boy’s wrist is tightly wound in bandages, gold bleeding through the layers. He’s crying.

“Just 10 minutes,” Aunt Cassia told us before we left this morning. “Ten minutes of discomfort for a lifetime of protection against the Players.”

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I swallow hard and stare down at my wrist, trying to imagine the mark that will go there in an hour’s time. “The Three Compliments Rule,” I recite, mentally reading the flash cards I made in class last week. “Pay a Player three compliments and you might satiate their ego long enough to get away.”

“Good!” My brother offers an encouraging smile while I throw another searching look over my shoulder, trying to spot where we left our mother at the gates. “And the third way to escape a Player?”

I press my lips together, hesitating. “Give them a gift?” I guess. 

Galen shakes his head while a voice somewhere ahead shouts out, “Keep it moving!” 

They call us next, and we’re ushered into a bare, circular atrium, interrupted by a single stone hallway. My brother herds me up to a half-moon granite desk beside a gurgling fountain, our steps echoing.

“Fill these out,” states a sour-faced woman from behind the desk, extending several pages of parchment to Galen. I snatch the forms indignantly and the woman startles.

“I can read. I’m 8,” I hiss, plucking a pen from the jar on the desk while Galen apologizes for my brash behavior. 

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“Eight, is she? Tall for her age, I think.” I feel the woman’s gaze linger on my pen as I spell out my name: Riven Hesper. She inhales sharply. 

I peer up to deal the woman a venomous look. It’s easy to tell when people are mentally comparing me to my father; they always stare like I’ve risen from the dirt of his grave. My father’s face is nearly as infamous as the Players who murdered him.

My pen freezes at the sound of a scream. 

It all happens at once. The desk woman jumps to her feet as the shriek ricochets off the vaulted ceilings, followed by a second scream — this one in the shape of the word “help.” Then another and another. At the frantic pounding of feet, my attention startles toward the cavernous hall. Somewhere, a man’s voice yells out a word. 

Player.  

Excerpted from A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann. Reprinted with permission from Mayhem Books, an imprint of Entangled Publishing. All rights reserved.

A Stage Set for Villains will be published on Sept. 2 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.

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