Cards of Crown and Ruin

In the gutters of the lower city, fate is a deck of greasy, dog-eared cards. For a low-born card-reader surviving on the fringes of society, the Tarot is more than a livelihood—it is a weapon. In her hands, the Major Arcana don’t just predict the future; they manifest it. When she draws the Swords, steel flickers into existence; when she calls upon the Moon, shadows bend to her will. It is a forbidden, volatile magic that should have kept her hidden in the dark forever. Instead, it earns her a summons to the one place she cannot survive: the Royal Court.

*Cards of Crown and Ruin* pulls readers into a shimmering, viper-nested world where every dance is a duel and every whisper is a death warrant. Our heroine is thrust into a high-stakes political game, tasked with navigating a labyrinth of ancient bloodlines and gilded treachery. But the court’s opulence masks a rot, and at the center of it all stands a prince as magnetic as he is marked for execution.

The hook that will leave you breathless? The prophecy. According to the stars, the prince is destined to fall—and the card-reader is the one fated to strike the blow.

Caught between a desperate need to protect the man who represents everything she’s supposed to hate and the terrifying realization that her magic might be the very instrument of his demise, she must decide if she can rewrite the cards. The tension is electric, the world-building is visceral, and the slow-burn romance is laced with the constant threat of a blade to the throat. Perfect for fans of *Caraval* and *Serpent & Dove*, this is a story about the cost of power and the defiance of destiny. In a game played for crowns and ruins, the most dangerous card in the deck is the one you never saw coming. Get ready to lose your heart to the shuffle.