Dust if off bloghop

I'm joining this bloghop kind of late, but I figured that since the linky list was still open, I would!

For yesterday, a pitch of my shelved WIP, working title "Croak":

Prunella is an antisocial and unpleasant witch-in-training who longs only to be loved and popular but watches her sister get everything she wants while she herself gets punished and repeatedly rejected by those she adores. As she is thrown into battles to save her kingdom being enslaved by demons, becoming a dictatorship ruled by greed, or both, she learns that wisdom and compassion are even more necessary than skill when it comes to the use of magic.

And now, here's an excerpt:

The door swung open, and Lily started, pricking her thumb with her needle. The small sound that escaped her lips was accompanied by a shining piece of gold that rolled across the rug and came to rest by the foot of the intruder. Her husband.

Jerin bent and picked up the gold piece, sliding it into his pocket. He’d started having all his doublets made with oversized pockets shortly after the marriage had taken place. Lily knew by now that it wasn’t so much that he begrudged the servants pocketing spare bits of gold—although that, too, was true—but it was more that he really hated mess. He had tried keeping servants about to clean up the gold as it was produced, but he’d had to behead three of them for stealing before he decided it was a task best taken care of only by himself and a few trusted others. Lily, for one. He might not trust her with most things, but stealing—that, he trusted her not to do.

She glanced about the room, confirming that she’d picked up every piece. Not that she talked much to herself when she was alone, and even crying, which she did a great deal of these days, she’d learned to do silently. She tried to smile at Jerin as he approached, although the hands clutching her embroidery shook.

“Good day, my dear,” Jerin said, his own smile effortless as he bent and kissed her cheek. He peered at the pattern she was embroidering, of a rainbow-breasted hummingbird trapped in a golden net.

“Oh come now. It’s not so bad, is it?” he asked, and then he laughed, standing behind her and stroking her hair. “I’ve met your stepmother. You can’t tell me it’s worse living here than it was with her.”