This enthralling Beauty and the Beast-inspired retelling is Naomi Novik’s Uprooted meets Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thrones and Roses, delivering all the high stakes and steamy intensity that make it every fantasy romance fan’s perfect next read.
SILVER AND BLOOD
Book 1
by Jessie Mihalik
Avon, 2025
(via Nancy Yost Literary)
© 2018 Dustin Mihalik
When Riela, an untrained magic wielder, agrees to venture into the dark forest to kill the deadly beast that has been attacking her fellow villagers, she accepts the responsibility even though it likely means her death. The last thing she thought to encounter while battling one of the forest beasts was a powerful, scarred, and strikingly handsome mage.
Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. Riela soon learns Garrick is not a mortal mage at all—he’s a powerful Etheri sovereign who has been locked out of his kingdom in Lohka for nearly a century, and his powers are weakening.
Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the dangerous woods, Riela and Garrick fight a losing battle against the desire growing between them. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets connecting Riela’s past to Lohka, the tenuous threads of trust between Riela and Garrick begin to fray because her life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything he’s lost.
Jessie Mihalik writes romantic fantasy and science fiction packed with found family, action, adventure, and badass women.
Book 1: THE PRINCESS PROTECTION PROGRAM
Beck Garrison lives on a seastead—an archipelago of constructed platforms and old cruise ships, assembled by libertarian separatists a generation ago. She’s grown up comfortable and sheltered, but starts doing odd jobs for pocket money. To her surprise, she finds that she’s the only detective that a debt slave can afford to hire to track down the woman’s missing sister. When she tackles this investigation, she learns things about life on the other side of the waterline—not to mention about herself and her father—that she did not expect. And that some people will stop at nothing to keep her from talking about . . .
For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry. When Sciona finally achieves her ambition and becomes a Highmage, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome, and instead of a qualified lab assistant they give her a janitor. What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was not always a janitor. Ten years ago he was a nomadic hunter who lost his family on their perilous journey from the wild plains to the city. But now he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the privileged in power. At first, mage and outsider have a fractious relationship. But working together they uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first.