A Kingdom's Cost — J.R. Tomlin

(THE BLACK DOUGLAS TRILOGY: BOOK I)

Scotland is occupied; Scottish resistance is crushed. Eighteen-year-old James Douglas can only watch as the Scottish freedom fighter, William Wallace, is hanged, drawn, and quartered. But even under the heel of a brutal English conqueror, the Scots may still have one hope for freedom: the rightful King of the Scots, Robert the Bruce. James swears fealty to the man he believes can lead the fight against English tyranny.

The Bruce is soon a fugitive, king only in name. The woman James loves is captured and imprisoned. Yet James believes their cause is not lost. He blazes a path in blood and violence, cunning and ruthlessness as he leads a guerrilla war to restore Scotland's freedom. James knows if he is captured he will share Wallace's fate, but what he truly fears is that he has become as merciless as the conqueror he fights.

Winner of *Best Historical Fiction* in the Best of the Independent eBook Awards (2012).