The Thorn Crown Trial
A Romantasy of Fae Courts and Deadly Choices

About this book:

Twenty years ago, the fae stole a baby from its cradle and left a changeling in its place. Elsie survived on mortal cabbage and cold iron, hiding pointed ears and a hunger no porridge could fill—until the Briar Court comes calling. The King has summoned the Thorn Crown Trial, a deadly gauntlet where seven tributes fight for a crown soaked in blood, and the seventh seat belongs to the borderlands: a child of the cradle-swap whose original vessel has finally drawn her last breath. Elsie is that child. She has three days to shed her mortal skin, learn the knife-dance of fae politics, and survive trials designed to break nobles born to silk and starlight. Her only advantages? A tongue sharpened on a washerwoman's scorn, hands that know the weight of iron shears, and a Lord of the Seventh Verge who smiles like a trap snapping shut.

Prince Kaelen, the Queen's winter branch, watches the lists with eyes like fractured hazel and a contempt carved from centuries of privilege. He sees ditch-water in her veins; she sees a crown she never asked for on a head that still aches from the glamour's burning. But the trials—Labyrinth of Whispers, Drowning Mirror, Feast of Illusions, Heart of the Hollow—demand more than hatred. They demand trust. Bargains sealed in stolen breath. Alliances forged in the Iron Grove where mortal steel meets fae gold. And somewhere between the first poisoned goblet and the final blood on the dais, the line between captor and ally, monster and man, thins to a wire's edge.

Lush, vicious, and steeped in the old folklore where every courtesy hides a blade, *The Thorn Crown Trial* delivers the romantasy event of the season: a heroine who bakes rye bread and slits adder throats with equal skill, a fae prince who wears his cruelty like armor, and a court where the only way out is through. For readers who devoured *A Court of Thorns and Roses* and *The Cruel Prince* and are hungry for sharper teeth, higher stakes, and a love story that draws blood before it draws breath.