The Ballad of Never After
Characters trapped by cruel curses and tragic destiny must fight against fate itself using curse-breaking magic and forbidden love. Sacrifice, magic, and defiance of prophecy drive the plot forward. Doomed lovers discover that some bonds cannot be broken by even the cruelest spell.
Everything You Need to Know About The Ballad of Never After
Evangeline Fox got her fairy tale wrong. On her wedding night, Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, poisoned her new husband Prince Apollo and framed Evangeline for it, all to push her toward the fate he needs her for: she is the key that can open the Valory Arch, a sealed vault of the Magnificent North whose contents nobody agrees on. This book picks up with Evangeline forced back into an alliance with the Fate she should hate. To open the arch they have to track down its missing stones, while old prophecies, dangerous Fates, and Apollo, awake and no longer the harmless prince he seemed, close in around them. The pull between Evangeline and Jacks gets harder to deny with every chapter, which is exactly what makes him so frightening.
Poisoning, blood, violence, death, memory manipulation, controlling behavior from a romantic figure. No explicit sexual content.
The hunt for the Valory Arch stones is tangled up with the story of the Archer and the Fox, and what the arch actually holds reframes the series. The ending is the trilogy's nastiest cliffhanger: Apollo strips Evangeline's memories, everything about Jacks included, while she fights and begs. The book closes with Evangeline blank and trusting, beside a husband who vows he will never let her go. A Curse for True Love starts from inside that lie.
For readers who love whimsical fairy-tale fantasy with a morally gray love interest, closer to Caraval or The Cruel Prince than spice-heavy romantasy. This is a kisses-and-longing book, not an explicit one. Skip it if dream logic and characters who lie constantly drive you up a wall, Garber's magic runs on vibes more than rules.
Book 2 of the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy, between Once Upon a Broken Heart and A Curse for True Love. Read book 1 first, this one starts mid-mess. The trilogy stands on its own, though it shares a world with Garber's Caraval books, so Caraval readers get extra layers with Jacks.
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