The Shadow Throne by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Cregan, one of Conner's men, was talking to Roden and wanted Roden to kill Sage and Tobias to assume the throne by himself. Roden is eventually chosen as price, but after Sage does a coin trick only the prince could do, Conner removes Roden, and chooses Sage instead. Sage finds out that whoever is not chosen by Conner will be killed. Before leaving for the capital to fool the court, Mott figures out who Sage is, and puts himself in Sage's service. Sage eventually develops feelings for Imogen, but does not act on them, for Princess Amarinda of Bultain is betrothed to the throne, and therefore, to him. As Sage, Roden, and Tobias (other orphan boys) go through training to impersonate the prince, Sage meets Imogen, a servant girl who is believed to be mute, though she is not, and Mott, one of Conner's men, and befriends him.

Conner is visiting different orphanages and buying teenage boys who resemble the missing prince Jaron, who was killed in a pirate attack, to replace the price, and fool the court so that he can control whoever is on the throne. He is saved from the butcher by a nobleman named Bevin Conner who buys Sage from the orphanage owner. Sage is a fourteen-year-old orphan who lives at an orphanage and steals roasts and other things from a local butcher, but is eventually caught. While Paramount Pictures licensed the movie rights for the series in 2012, they did not renew the contract for the series in 2017. Reception for the first book was mostly positive, but decreased to mixed for the second and third books. At the back of the book, an excerpt confirmed the title of the fifth novel to be The Shattered Castle. The Captive Kingdom was released in October 2020.

In December 2019, Nielsen announced that a fourth book in the series would be published in October 2020, titled The Captive Kingdom, and also confirmed that she would be writing a fifth book in the series. The second book, The Runaway King, was released on March 1, 2013, and the third book, The Shadow Throne, was released on February 25, 2014. The book sold well and its paperback reprint placed The False Prince on The New York Times Best Seller list in May 2013. The first book in the series, The False Prince, was first released on Apthrough Scholastic Press. After Sage ascends the throne, he has to lead Carthya through a destructive war with multiple neighboring nations. In the Ascendance Series, an orphan named Sage is kidnapped and trained to impersonate Prince Jaron, the missing Prince of Carthya. The Ascendance Series (formerly the Ascendance Trilogy) is a series of juvenile fantasy novels by Jennifer A.

The Shadow Throne by Jennifer A. Nielsen