Archives de catégorie : Romantasy

LIAR’S KINGDOM de Christine Calella

Can “happily-ever-after” start with a lie?

LIAR’S KINGDOM
by Christine Calella
Page Street YA, January 2025
(via KT Literary)

Ell DeBrun is the girl of the cinders. The girl who’s spent years slaving away for her cruel stepmother and ungrateful stepsisters, dreaming of rescue. So when Prince Bayard — who seems to have difficulty recognizing faces — shows up at her door with a glass slipper in hand, Ell allows him to believe she is the girl he danced with at the grand ball. There’s just one problem: Ell didn’t attend the ball and she’s never met the prince before in her life. But if it’s a choice between being whisked away to the royal palace and staying trapped with her miserable step-family, Ell is willing to concoct any fairy tale that will grant her an escape.

However, Ell finds that fitting into royal life isn’t as easy as sliding into a glass slipper. Bayard’s sister, the crown princess, has gone missing. The king is preparing for war with the sinister army of fae. And Maxim, Bayard’s treacherous (and unfortunately, terribly handsome) best friend, appears to know Ell’s secrets — and is just waiting for the most advantageous moment to call her bluff. As her lies pile up like unwashed plates, she knows they’re only seconds away from crashing down on her head.

Luckily, Ell is used to a little dirty work. If she wants to keep this life she’s stolen for herself, one with creature comforts and companionship she’s only dreamed of, she’s going to have to roll up her sleeves and rescue herself.

Christine Calella is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program for Creative Writing. Her debut YA novel The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray published in April 2024. She lives in New York City.

BEAUTY OF UNWANTED THINGS d’Astrid Scholte

A darkly bewitching, distinctive, romantic fairytale that is perfect for readers of One Dark Window, Uprooted, and For the Wolf.

BEAUTY OF UNWANTED THINGS
by Astrid Scholte
Wednesday Books, Winter 2026
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

Thoralea Winyard has been a prisoner her entire life, forced to paint dead animals pushed into her cell each day. For twenty years she has not seen outside her tower. For twenty years she has dreamed of taking revenge on her captors and watching the castle burn.

When one of her dead subjects comes back to life, Thoralea is thrust into the sumptuous world of court life where she can have anything she desires—aside from her freedom. What no one knows outside the castle walls is that the king and queen of Lagonia have ruled for centuries. Their health, and immortality, gifted through the creation of portraits by painters with magic in their veins. Immortality is their one defense in the ongoing battle with Hetchnik: a cursed neighboring realm who seek to bring death and darkness to the land.

Prince Kelter is desperate to join the ranks of the immortal battalion.

Disillusioned with court and his figurehead role, he makes a deal with Thoralea: she will paint the portrait Prince Kelter has been denied by his parents, and he will help her escape the castle. As they grow closer and their attraction intensifies, a deadly secret is revealed, and Thoralea and Kelter will have to put their trust in each other to save the kingdom before the curse comes for them both.

Astrid Scholte is the internationally bestselling and award-winning author of Four Dead Queens, The Vanishing Deep and League of Liars. When she’s not writing, she works in film and animation production. Career highlights include working on James Cameron’s Avatar, Disney’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. She currently works at Industrial Light & Magic on the latest blockbuster.

REIGN & RUIN de J. D. Evans

She is heir to a Sultanate that once ruled the world. He is an unwanted prince with the power to destroy. They must find a way to save their people from annihilation—but first, they will have to balance their own forbidden passion.

REIGN & RUIN
(Mages of the Wheel series, Book 1)
by J. D. Evans
Self-published, 2019
(via Ethan Ellenberg Literary)

“All magic is beautiful…and terrible. Do you not see the beauty in yours, or the terror in mine? You can stop a heart, and I can stop your breath.”

She is heir to a Sultanate that once ruled the world. He is an unwanted prince with the power to destroy.

She is order and intellect, a woman fit to rule in a man’s place. He is chaos and violence and will stop at nothing to protect his people.

His magic answers hers with shadow for light. They need each other, but the cost of balance may be too high a price. Magic is dying and the only way to save it is to enlist mages who wield the forbidden power of death, mages cast out centuries ago in a brutal and bloody war.

Now, a new war is coming. Science and machines to replace magic and old religion.

They must find a way to save their people from annihilation and balance the sacred Wheel—but first, they will have to balance their own forbidden passion. His peace for her tempest, his restlessness for her calm…

Night and day, dusk and dawn, the end, and the beginning.

J. D. Evans writes fantasy and science fiction romance. After earning her degree in linguistics, J. D. served a decade as an army officer. She once spent her hours putting together briefings for helicopter pilots and generals. Now she writes stories, tends to two unreasonable tiny humans, knits, sews badly, gardens, and cultivates Pinterest Fails. After a stint in Beirut, J. D. fell in love with the Levant, which inspired the setting for her debut series, Mages of the Wheel. Originally hailing from Montana, J. D. now resides in North Carolina with her husband, two attempts at mini-clones gone rogue, and too many stories in her head.

DIVINE MORTALS d’Amanda M. Helander

Mona can name anyone’s soulmate—but she’ll do anything to avoid being matched with her own. Especially when she learns he’s the king.
This debut romantasy perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros delivers sizzling romance, cutthroat competition, a lush fantasy world, and an unforgettable heroine..

DIVINE MORTALS
by Amanda M. Helander
Disney Hyperion, November 2024 – October 2025
(via Kaplan DeFiore Rights)

Book 1: DIVINE MORTALS (November 2024)

Blessed by the crow god of love, eighteen-year-old Mona Arnett has the power to traverse the watery realm of the gods, speak with its seven deities, and divine soulmate matches with absolute certainty. Though Mona refuses to read her own match, she’s predicted pairings for wealthy nobles seeking amusement and lovesick couples desperate for affirmation. Still, it’s a shock when the king’s closest advisor demands her services.

The king is dying without an heir, explains Master Delmar Whitman—and if the royal line ends, the realm’s gods-given nexus will shatter and magic will vanish from the land. Only Mona can name the future queen and prevent the kingdom’s collapse.

But according to her reading, Mona is the king’s soulmate. Mona is destined to be queen—a role she doesn’t want and doesn’t believe she deserves. Worse: It’s not the king she thinks about when she’s alone at night.

Mona will lie, cheat, or contend with scheming gods if it keeps her off the throne. The only thing she can’t do is face her past. But when a mysterious blackmailer threatens murder, confronting her secrets may be the only way to survive.

Book 2: WAYWARD GODS (October 2025)

This sequel to young adult romantasy Divine Mortals delivers sizzling romance and epic stakes.

Mona is tasked with saving the world and everyone she loves—but what can she do when even the gods have failed?

Though she’s blessed by the god of love with the ability to divine soulmates, Mona Arnett never wanted romance for herself. And yet, after a twisted game of murder and blackmail, she’s been forced to marry the king—and to part from the man she might truly love.

Worse, Mona was put on the throne to bring about the prophesied end of the world. And though she’s found a way to delay the apocalypse, she fears that in doing so she’s only extended the suffering of her subjects. The people of Selledore face starvation and torture, the castle is besieged by demons, and the gods have turned their backs.

But Mona isn’t alone. Second to the gods, divine mortals like her are the strongest beings alive, and there are seven of them scattered throughout the human and god realms. So Mona sets out to recruit the others to her cause.To stop the forces tearing her world apart and protect everyone she’s come to love, though, Mona will need far more than the combined wisdom and magic of her new allies. She may have to find a way to become more powerful than the gods themselves. . . .

Richly imagined and breathtakingly inventive, the stunning conclusion to Amanda M. Helander’s Divine Mortals duology delivers passion, intrigue, and desperate, devastating hope.

“Fans of Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas need look no further for their next big read. . . Sexy, thrilling, and utterly unputdownable.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred

“You will fall madly in love with this book!” —Ava Reid, #1 New York Times best-selling author of A Study in Drowning

“An absolute delight! Mona is a heroine after my own heart, navigating court intrigue, divine machinations, and an opposites-attract romance with crass humor and an iron will. With wit, whimsy, and fantastic worldbuilding, Divine Mortals will pull you in—and you might never want to resurface.” —Allison Saft, New York Times bestselling author of A Far Wilder Magic

Amanda M. Helander is a fantasy author and paralegal from Seattle, Washington. When she’s not writing, Amanda can be found watching horror movies, learning to crochet, or eating entire blocks of Parmesan in one sitting. Visit her online at www.amandahelander.com or @helander_amanda on Instagram.