Escape from the Past: The Duke's Wrath by Annette Oppenlander - Excerpt & Giveaway

Escape from the Past:

The Duke's Wrath

Annette Oppenlander

YA Historical Fiction/Time Travel

July 31, 2015

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Summary from Goodreads:

When fifteen-year-old nerd and gamer Max Anderson thinks he's sneaking a preview of an unpublished video game, he doesn't realize that 1) He's been chosen as a beta, an experimental test player. 2) He’s playing the ultimate history game, transporting him into the actual past: anywhere and anytime. And 3) Survival is optional: to return home he must decipher the game's rules and complete its missions—if he lives long enough. To fail means to stay in the past—forever.

Now Max is trapped in medieval Germany, unprepared and clueless. It is 1471 and he quickly learns that being an outcast may cost him his head. Especially after rescuing a beautiful peasant girl from a deadly infection and thus provoking sinister wannabe Duke Ott. Overnight he is dragged into a hornets' nest of feuding lords who will stop at nothing to bring down the conjuring stranger in their midst.

Excerpt

The guard yanked me to face the group. Not ten feet away

towered one of the largest horses I’d ever seen. Its humungous

head swung back and forth as if it were proud of the armored

breast and nose shields. On top soared Knight Werner whose

piercing blue eyes searched my face. For a moment, the world

retracted into stillness. I felt my knees wobble.

Any moment now they’d cut off my head. Hadn’t Bero said

the Lord would kill me? Yet, the Lord of Hanstein neither showed

anger, surprise nor fear. Nobody spoke as I stood pinned between

the guards, their hands iron cuffs on my arms. I smelled them,

their unwashed bodies and filthy hands. I wanted to leave the

game. Return to the safety of my former life. Now! I sucked air.

My room might as well have been on the moon. Werner’s men

waited, probably ready to charge on command.

“Your name is Nerds,” Werner finally said. The blue eyes were

unsettling.

I stared up in surprise. “I’m Max.”

“Then what is the odd script on your robe? Are you a ruler’s

son?” He pulled his sword and pointed toward my chest. I kept

my eyes on the tip of the blade when I remembered. The right

side of my T-shirt had a kind of logo showing the word Nerds

underneath a crown. Despite the filth, the printed word and

image were clearly visible. Bero hadn’t noticed because he

probably couldn’t read.

“I…it is a fashion where I come from,” I stumbled. I wanted to

kick himself, having opened the door to more disaster. Werner’s

knights broke into chuckles.

Werner retracted his sword. “Most interesting. Tell us, you

come from where?”

“A distant place, My Lord,” I said, attempting to buy time.

“I’ve traveled afar, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ten years ago.”

Confidence radiated from the knight’s voice. “You speak like a

foreigner. Are you on a quest?” Werner’s expression was still

more curious than suspicious. A glimmer smoldered in his eyes

as if the blue had been turned into gas flames.

About the Author

Annette Oppenlander writes historical fiction for young adults and anyone who loves stories set in the past. When she isn’t in front of her computer, she loves indulging her dog, Mocha, and traveling around the U.S. and Europe to discover amazing histories.

"Nearly every place holds some kind of secret, something that makes history come alive. When we scrutinize people and places closely, history is no longer a number, it turns into a story."

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