The Nutcracker Princess

By Courtney Milnestein

In the city of Holmgarðr, in the nation of Garðaríki, on Christmas Eve, there is magic in the air, as Uncle Drosselmeyer presents his gifts before the young children of the ambassador of Gloriana, Clara and Fitz. Yet for all the magic and festivities of Christmas, there is a sense also of danger, the shadow of war growing longer from the neighboring nations of the Hanseatic League.

Caught on the cusp of the peaceful life she has always known and the threat of impending war, Clara finds herself alone in a magical realm save for the company of her cat, embroiled in dangers hitherto unimagined as she finds herself increasingly drawn to a handsome Nutcracker Princess and faced with a choice that will impact both her own fate and that of the world around her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685501556

Book preview

The Nutcracker Princess

By Courtney Milnestein

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2022 Courtney Milnestein

ISBN 9781685501556

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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The Nutcracker Princess

By Courtney Milnestein

She could not sleep. Turning over under the heavy sheets, she wondered how anyone could sleep, especially not on a night such as this, with the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg rich in the air, the conversation of the adults from the drawing room low and hushed, full of warning and suggestions of disaster. She didn’t need to hear them to know what the topic of discussion was, instead turning once more, kicking out against the duck-feather duvet, much to the disgust of her unhappy cat, Jolly Roger.

Sighing wearily, Clara did her utmost not to repeat in her head those hushed concerns that she knew her father would be stating right at that very moment, a room full of men dressed in identical uniforms of starched shirts and pressed jackets nodding gravely at every one of his proclamations.

Gloriana was increasing isolated, he would proclaim, looking down at his glass of wine forlornly, and then he would add how he feared for the safety of his home country, and how, were it not for his job as ambassador to the peoples of Garðaríki, then he would surely be at home this very moment, offering his sage advice to those in authority. There would be a pause in which perhaps those around him would reassure him that war was impossible, not in this day and age, and then he would go to speculate that Garðaríki, Gloriana’s ally for centuries now, might also find herself endangered due to this special relationship.

Angered by such thoughts, Clara pushed against the duvet once more. In truth, all she had ever known was the Grand Duchy of Garðaríki. She had been born here in Holmgarðr; Gloriana was a myth to her, a far-off place that her father spoke of wistfully, that her mother had told her bedtime stories of, but it was not real to her in the sense of being a place to which she had any connection, and thus it was impossible for her to truly understand the nature of the anxiety in her father’s voice when he spoke of the dangers of war, of the threat of conflict between nations.

She kicked out against the duvet yet again and, deciding that he had had more than enough, Jolly Roger rose from the end of the bed, glowered at her with sharp resentment in his yellow eyes, turned with a swish of the tail, and pushed his way through the curtains that surrounded the bed, the sound of his paws on the floor reaching her through the thick fabric in his absence.

She huffed angrily. Surely, there were better things to do in the world that start wars?

Often characterized as an intelligent child by her tutors, it had been noted that she was given to a certain willfulness that had sadly been on full display in the moments before she had been sent to bed, her mother making unnecessary excuses for the ferocity of her declamations against her younger brother, Fritz.

She pushed again at the sheets, and poor Jolly Roger must have been thankful to have left when he did such was the sharpness of the gesture. Just thinking of her brother made her angry all over again.

It had started after dinner, when