World Buidling

A shield maiden blessed by the gods battles to unite a nation under a power-hungry king—while also fighting her growing desire for his fiery son—in this Norse-inspired fantasy romance from the bestselling author of The Bridge Kingdom series. Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back. Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. It was foretold such a magic would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate. Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect.

Princess Bellanova has spent years surviving on her own, forced to flee her palace in order to escape the curse that put the rest of her royal family into a death-like slumber and set their lands to rotting. After spending her exile honing her thievery skills alongside her innate necromancy powers, Nova has earned a reputation as one of the fiercest outlaws the kingdom has ever suffered. But soon she’ll be the fiercest outlaw who ever died. A death that will be on purpose. For rumor has it that the true cause of her family’s demise—Luminor, the Blade of Light—is buried deep in the belly of the underworld. Stealing that blade back into the realm of the living will mean a chance at undoing the curses it left, restoring her family, her reputation, and her kingdom to life. The only things standing in her way are the endless twists and turns of the underworld, its terrifying monsters, unpredictable magic…and Aleksander, the infamous Light King himself—keeper of the blade, and the one who wielded it on the night of her family’s ruin. King Aleks has spent nearly a decade trapped in the underworld, a phantom of his former self, unable to truly die. When Nova crash lands into his purgatory—an inexplicably bright and lively being in a sea of endless dead things—he begins to dream of the world above for the first time in ages. He needs her to get him back to that world above. She needs him to undo the curse. But as the two form a reluctant alliance that soon blooms into something dangerously deeper, they find themselves unraveling ancient magic and dark secrets that will have greater consequences than either of them could have ever imagined...

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. Twenty\-four\-year\-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone. When Saeris comes face\-to\-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself right in the middle of a centuries\-long conflict that might just get her killed. The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her. Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home. Be careful of the deals you make, dear child. The devil is in the details... N.B. Quicksilver contains depictions of graphic violence/adult situations and is therefore recommended for readers 17\+. For a full list of tropes and TWs, please visit the author's website.