The Quantum rose

Kamoj Argali, the young ruler of an impoverished province on the backwater planet Balumil, has resigned herself to a political marriage with Jax Ironbridge, the arrogant lord of a wealthy neighboring province, to save her people from starvation. But on the eve of the wedding, Havyrl Lionstar, an enigmatic, immensely wealthy stranger from beyond her world, claims her as his bride instead. As Kamoj is drawn into a life she never imagined, she discovers that Havyrl's forbidding reputation hides secrets that will upend everything she thought she knew about her world and the interstellar empire beyond it. A science-fictional retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and the sixth novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire — winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel.