Severed Realms

One stunning bride. One wedding. One night with the king. One execution come morning. Rinse and repeat. When the fae king of Naenden returns home to his palace only to find that his human queen has committed treason by conspiring to assassinate him, he has the queen executed and decrees that once every mooncycle, he'll marry a human woman from the kingdom, only to execute her the following morning. Unless one woman offers herself as a sacrificial bride for the rest. Asha isn't worried about being chosen, of course. The decree was quite clear about beauty being among the top criteria for being selected as one of the king's unfortunate brides. Asha is no beauty thanks to the illegal magic that inhabits her body, leaving her scarred and missing an eye. The same magic that occasionally possesses her voice so it can amuse itself by telling a never-ending story with a string of horrible cliffhangers. The problem is Asha might not be a beauty, but her sister Dinah is. When Asha realizes Dinah is in danger of being selected as the king's sacrificial bride, Asha decides she can't live with that risk. So she offers herself instead. Except on the night of their wedding the king grants Asha a final request. Naturally, she asks to tell her sister one last bedtime story. Naturally, the king eavesdrops. The question is, will the story save her life or ruin it? A tale of love and betrayal, vengeance and sacrifice, magic and romance, this imaginative retelling of 1,001 Nights will keep you guessing with each turn of the page.

She's a wanted criminal, but he doesn't have to know that. Piper's job is simple: Take the children. Don't get caught. The rules she binds on herself, however… Well, they're a tad more complicated. Kidnapped as a child for her connection with the Old Magic-the one that grants her the ability to enchant others with her music-Piper knows good and well the rules of the Coup, the underground organization intent on bringing down the fae regime. As the Coup's first "recruiter," she's supposed to take the strong, the good-boned, the clever, the healthy. Except Piper doesn't always do what she's supposed to. Instead, she makes a few rules of her own. Like how she only takes the children who need taking-the children who suffer harm and neglect in their current homes, the ones who come with her willingly. The children for whom a life bound in service to the Coup would be a mercy. When a deadly oversight leaves Piper injured, stranded in the forest, and unable to protect the no-nonsense child to whom she's promised a better life, she's left with no other choice. She strikes a bargain with a handsome archer whose aim is almost as deadly as his past. Oh, but there's another rule, too: Don't fall in love. Especially not with a human who has no idea who Piper really is. Fast-paced and action-packed, this second installment in The Severed Realms series transports the reader across Alondria to Avelea, a kingdom full of wicked forest faeries, underground rebellions, and a king with a secret of his own. A Tune to Make Them Follow is the second book in a series of interconnected fairytale retellings. This book can serve as a standalone or as an entry point into the series.

The shoe fits, but she's no Cinderella. Ellie knows what she wants in life: Open a glassblowing shop in the art district; See her father retire; Marry for love (if she can find someone who can keep up, that is). Winning the fae prince's heart doesn't make the list. So, when Prince Evander throws a ball to find a human bride, Ellie respectfully declines. When she reads the morning paper and discovers the prince danced the night away with a mysterious stranger, only for the woman to flee at the stroke of midnight, Ellie can't help but laugh. Until she learns the mystery girl left behind a glass slipper. Ellie's glass slipper. From the set that went missing from Ellie's workshop. When the idiotic prince decides it's a good idea to use the slipper to identify the love of his life (because, you know, no two women could possibly share the same shoe size), Ellie doesn't hesitate to prove the slipper is hers. Little does she know there's been a modification to her work of art. The prince may or may not have attached a fae bargain to the shoe, and when Ellie places it on her foot, she finds herself both legally and magically betrothed to the very prince she detests. Not that Prince Evander is thrilled about the situation, either. After all, he'd thought the shoe would only fit Cinderella. Together, the unhappy couple must discover a way to break the fae bond, but there's danger along the way. After all, what's more dangerous than falling in love with someone whose heart belongs to another? Hilarious and filled with witty banter, this not-so-retelling of Cinderella takes a fresh spin on the classic tale, pairing the dangerous politics of Alondria with the swoon-worthy chemistry of a romantic comedy. A Bond of Broken Glass is the third in the Severed Realms series of interconnected standalones, but you just might recognize a few faces along the way.

Silly servant girl, only princesses get happy endings. Blaise wasn't supposed to be the villain. She was supposed to charm the prince, the male she'd loved for years. That was all the potion was supposed to do-give her another face, and only for a few hours. All so she could prove the prince loved her. Except Blaise got more than she bargained for, and instead of a beauty potion, she's now infected with a magical parasite who takes control of her body every full moon. A parasite who would rather take control permanently. When Blaise is kidnapped from her prison cell, she wakes in a dungeon only to find herself the object of the Queen of Mystral's magical experiments. The queen wants the parasite. The parasite wants Blaise. And Blaise wants… Nox, the brainy, sarcastic fae tasked with extracting the parasite from Blaise's body. Nox is different from any fae she's met. For one, he can actually lie. Then there was that time she sliced her finger, and he couldn't stop staring at the drop of blood. The queen definitely has something over him, but Blaise can't figure out what. She just has a feeling she won't be making it out of these dungeons alive. Witty, heartbreaking, and devastatingly dark, A Throne of Blood and Ice transports the reader to the kingdom of Mystral, where betrayal rots the queen's cold heart and vampires lurk in the shadows. A Throne of Blood and Ice is a loose fairytale retelling of The Snow Queen and is the fourth installment and first of a two-part finale in the Severed Realms series. It should be enjoyed only after listening to the other books in the series.

Silly servant girl, no one cares about saving the villain. Blaise wasn't supposed to be the villain, but now Nox is gone, and Blaise will stop at nothing to get him back-even if that means betraying everyone she holds dear. Meanwhile, Asha can't shake the feeling that Az is closing in on her. After all, he's been two steps ahead of her and Kiran from the beginning. All she can do is hope he stays too focused on opening the Rip to learn the truth: Az is the true heir to the throne. Between her nightmares, Ellie's secret, and the news that Piper has been taken captive by Queen Abra, Asha isn't sure she can handle much else. Especially not an enemy in their midst. Realms collide and stories converge in this second part of the epic two-part finale to The Severed Realms series.