Behind the Throne

Behind the Throne is a science fiction novel by K. B. Wagers, published in 2016 and the first of a series about an empire whose ruling family has been reduced to a single survivor.

Hail Bristol has spent years making a name for herself in the galaxy for everything except the role she was born to fill: ruling the Indranan Empire. She is a gunrunner, and she is good at it. When she is tracked down and dragged back to her home planet to take her place as the only remaining heir, she learns that a palace is more dangerous than a ship, because the people around her have spent years preparing for a succession and not all of them are pleased to see her arrive. The novel follows her first attempts to work out who wants her alive, who wants her gone and what the empire's politics will actually let her do.

Wagers writes space opera with a military edge and a heroine who has to learn a court instead of a cockpit, and the series continues from the problems she inherits in this first book.