Caroline Abbey at Random House has preempted Breeana Shields’s debut YA fantasy novel, The Serpent’s Promise, set in an alternate world based on the mythology of ancient India, in which a girl has been trained since birth as a “poison maiden” in the Raja’s service. When she is ordered to kill a boy she has feelings for, she begins to question not only her role but the Raja’s end game. Publication is scheduled for 2017.