Rudyard Kipling became deeply involved in the 1899-1902 war between Britain and the Boer republics, during which period a number of the poems in this collection were composed. The poems bear witness not only to the political turmoil of the period, but also to the state of the poet's own inner world at the time.

Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won Prince Maxon's heart. Now the time has come for Princess Eadlyn to hold a Selection of her own. Eadlyn doesn't expect her Selection to be anything like her parents' fairy-tale love story ... but as the competition begins, she may discover that finding her own happily ever after isn't as impossible as she's always thought.

Excerpt: "In Northern India stood a monastery called The Chubára of Dhunni Bhagat. No one remembered who or what Dhunni Bhagat had been. He had lived his life, made a little money and spent it all, as every good Hindu should do, on a work of piety-the Chubára. That was full of brick cells, gaily painted with the figures of Gods and kings and elephants, where worn-out priests could sit and meditate on the latter end of things: the paths were brick-paved,...