"A twisty, dark-royalcore YA fantasy that takes the courtly intrigue of Hamlet and infuses it with the vicious ambition of the Boleyn family. For fans of House of the Dragon and readers who love The Cruel Prince, Red Queen, and Sara J. Maas.
Marry the Prince, then kill him…
Princess Madalina and her twin sister Inessa were born attached at the hand and separated right after. That's the only time the sisters ever held hands. The girls' personalities have been shaped in the Sinet family's drive to make their kingdom more than it is: unrespectable and loathsome, a damp place where deceit fills the palace walls like mold.
Madalina is different from her family. She's considered the weak one and only finds peace in the garden, tending the flowers, which are pejoratively called grave flowers because they are ideal for tortures and torments. Secretly, she dreams of escape and a new life.
Then Inessa, who was betrothed to Prince Hadrian, the heir of a wealthy kingdom, appears to Madalina as a ghost. She decries her murder and begs Madalina to free her from Bide, a terrifying place where souls get caught. Now Madelina must take her sister's place and carry out her secret mission: Inessa wasn't just sent to marry Prince Hadrien, but to kill him, too, and solidify a pact with his uncle.
On behalf of her family, Madelina must finish the job, knowing that whoever wanted Inessa dead is sure to wish her dead as well.
Step into the deadly and decedent world of Grave Flowers, a seductive, royalcore romantic fantasy from acclaimed author Autumn Krause that will enthrall readers at every turn."
"War comes to the streets of Paris and Safiyyah’s life changes for ever.
Her best friend’s family have fled, and the bombing makes her afraid to leave the mosque where she lives. But when her father is arrested by the Nazis for his secret Resistance work, it falls to Safiyyah to run the dangerous errands around the city.
It’s not long before hundreds of persecuted Jews seek sanctuary at the mosque. Can Safiyyah find the courage to enter the treacherous catacombs under Paris and lead the Jews to safety?"
"The history of a demonic tradition that was stolen from women – and then won back again.
Demonic temptresses – from siren-mermaids to Lilith – are well known today, and their mythology focuses around the seductive danger they pose to men. But the root of these figures can be traced back 4,000 years and in their earliest incarnations they were in fact demons worshipped and feared by women: like Lamashtu, the horrific talon-footed, serpentine monster, who strangled infants and murdered pregnant women, or the Gello, the ghost of a girl who had died a virgin and so killed expectant mothers and their babies out of jealousy. This history of a demonic tradition from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day – from Lamashtu and Gello, to Lamia and Lilith, and mermaids and vampires – shows how these demons were co-opted by a male-centred society, before being recast as symbols of women’s liberation. We also learn what this evolution can tell us about the experience of women and womanhood: the danger of childbirth, changing attitudes towards sexuality and the movement for women’s rights."
