Differentiating Darkness

Chess genius, hacker, gamer, nerd, and bespectacled—this is Snezka. She’s prickly and serious, distrustful and vengeful. She doesn’t believe in fairy tales, but somehow lands inside one. Only instead of a handsome prince, a magical gift, and the title of Chosen, she gets the fate of a romantic heroine’s companion—and a wizard’s doll. And there’s also a world on the brink of war, a slave collar, a prison for the cruel Dark— and not-so-bright Light.

Snezka enters the main game of her life, where the stakes are survival and freedom. But will she be able to win this match relying only on her own intellect? Because when everything around turns out not to be what it seems, it changes the rules—big time. Just like her sympathy for the player on the other side of the board…

The first book of the duology “Ridge Gambit” by Yevgenia Safonova, author of the series “Saga of the Forbidenes” and the duology “Necromancer.”

The magical world isn’t at all what it is in books, though here too there’s its own game—and the stakes are life.

An enemy you want to respect, an opponent you must fear—plus the person whose presence makes your heart beat faster. Too dangerous a combination for everything to turn out simply.

A bright, unforgettable heroine and an unexpected take on a familiar plot. A story that breaks all genre canons and laughs at clichés.