Book excerpt: The New World and the Old clash in this bestselling epic of the Conquistadors and the Incas. In sixteenth century Peru, Anamaya, daughter of an Incan princess, is summoned to the dying Huayna Capac, ruler of the Incan empire. Huayna makes her guardian of the Empire, entrusted with the mysteries of the Inca Gods. But after his death, Anamaya finds she cannot remember these secrets. Her only reminder is the black puma spirit that prowls around her at night. Yet Anamaya must remember them. For sailing from Spain is a force of men intent on capturing the wealth of the Empire, and at its head, Francisco Pizarro, a man whose destiny is inextricably linked with the fate of the Incas... A unputdownable historical adventure, The Puma’s Shadow is the first in the Incas Trilogy.