The Wolf and the Crown of Blood

Bryony Devaliant is a princess of Vartena, and she is born to die again and again. In her kingdom, the royal line pays for peace with its own blood: each monarch is sacrificed and then resurrected to satisfy the gods. The arrangement dates back centuries, to a pact made in the ashes of a broken city between a princess and a war-weary god.

Now rebellion is stirring. To restore order, the god-king sends out his deadliest weapon, an immortal assassin known as the Wolf. His name is Evander, and he has spent centuries perfecting the craft of killing. His latest target is the one person he cannot destroy.

The book is a dark romantasy and the first of a series. The central romance runs on enemies to lovers, forced proximity, death pacts and a villain who gets the girl. It draws on Beauty and the Beast and on Eros and Psyche, with a gothic, dark fairytale atmosphere and a seductive, spicy edge.

The desire between assassin and sacrificial princess is forbidden, because it threatens the boundary between gods and mortals. If that boundary breaks, empires fall with it, and the mortals are the ones who pay. Expect a dangerous, sensual read in which love and death are tied together.