"Kel Saren, body double to Conor, crown prince of the dazzling city of Castellane, is caught between two worlds. In order to protect his beloved prince, Kel must find the culprits responsible for a massacre at the royal palace--and the only clues are held by the Ragpicker King, the notorious criminal who rules Castellane's underworld. The trail Kel follows leads back to the Hill, where among decadent nobles and glittering parties a dark conspiracy to destroy the royal family has taken hold--a conspiracy headed up by the monstrous Artal Gremont, the man engaged to marry the woman Kel adores. Meanwhile, Lin Caster must face the aftermath of the greatest risk she's ever taken. To save the life of a dying friend, Lin has falsely claimed to be the Goddess Reborn, the legendary heroine destined to save her people. Now the terrifying--but strangely magnetic--leader of her people has arrived to test her powers. The price of failure is exile, and only through her alliance with the Ragpicker King can she continue to access the magic that may save her. Then Prince Conor reappears in her life, demanding that she use her healing powers to cure the madness of his father, the King. Lin soon realizes the King is gripped by an ancient and terrible magic, one whose lure she cannot deny any more than she can deny her growing passion for Conor. As the simmering tensions in Castellane reach a fever pitch, Lin and Kel must decide who to trust when any false move means death--or worse." -- Provided by publisher

On an island where the dead once walked, seven noble houses fell to a conqueror's blade, their necromancy lost. Only the House of Teeth survives: heiress Marozia and her silent cousin Agnes, keeper of dark secrets. To reclaim their magic and avenge their family, Agnes must betray her heart - but love may doom them all.

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt, enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus's livestreamed assassination spectacle : the Lamb's Gauntlet. Melinoe is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks. When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs, the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she's had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother she might stand a chance of staying alive. For Melinoe, this is a game she can't afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption. As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything : Inesa wonders if there's more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she's capable of more than killing. And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of 2025 Both sweeping and intimate, a majestic novel of love and war that brilliantly evokes the drama and turbulence of medieval France Thierry Villar is a well-known—even notorious— tavern poet, familiar with the rogues and shadows of that world, but not at all with courts and power. He is an unlikely person, despite his quickness, to be caught up in the deadly contests of ambitious royals, assassins, and invading armies. But he is indeed drawn into all these things on a savagely cold night in his beloved city of Orane. And so Thierry must use all the intelligence and charm he can muster as political struggles merge with a decades-long war to bring his country to the brink of destruction. As he does, he meets his poetic equal in an aristocratic woman and is drawn to more than one unsettling person with a connection to the world beyond this one. He also crosses paths with an extraordinary young woman driven by voices within to try to heal the ailing king—and help his forces in war. A wide and varied set of people from all walks of life take their places in the rich tapestry of this story. A new masterwork from the internationally bestselling author of All the Seas of the World , A Brightness Long Ago , and Tigana , Written on the Dark is an elegant tour de force about power and ambition playing out amid the intense human need for art and beauty, and memories to be left behind.