The kingdom of Vaelmere never goes hungry. Once a year, it feeds someone to the crown instead - and calls it gratitude. Orla knows what it costs to be unmade. She spent decades nameless in a monster's dark before someone called her home, and she has spent every year since returning that mercy - one stolen name at a time. So when word reaches her of a golden kingdom that has never known a lean year, she knows exactly what the plenty smells like: a bargain. The kind a country pays in people. Rook is the most famous curse-hunter alive, and the angriest. A hunger took his sister; he has killed eleven of them since and never once felt even. He needs Orla's gift to reach the crown. She needs his name to get through the gates. Neither needs the other looking at them like that. Posing as hunter and hired blade, they enter a citadel where the horror is bright: gold leaf and harvest garlands, children's choirs singing the taken up a marble stair, and a lottery every family prays to win. But the crown's secret is worse than either of them guessed. The tithe has a chancellor who knows exactly what he feeds. A drowning queen has been leaving clues for nineteen years. And the truth about what Rook's sword has been feeding since the day his sister died will break far more than their alliance. To unmake a crown an entire kingdom loves, Orla must do the one thing she has never done for anyone - say her own name out loud. And Rook must learn that the sharpest thing a man can do with a sword is put it down. The Crown I Unmade is a standalone enemies-to-lovers dark fantasy romance in the Cursed Crowns world, perfect for readers of Carissa Broadbent, Hannah Whitten, and Ava Reid. Expect forced proximity, one bed, a morally gray hero who waits, a heroine who sits down in front of monsters, slow-burn tension with open-door heat, and a guaranteed happily ever after. Enemies to lovers · Forced proximity · One bed · Morally gray hero · Touch her and die · Found family · Guaranteed HEA And the short description (Ingram's ~350-character summary field):She unmakes monsters with mercy. He kills them with iron. To destroy a crown that eats one citizen a year - in a kingdom that calls it gratitude - they'll have to work together. An enemies-to-lovers dark fantasy romance with forced proximity, one bed, and a guaranteed HEA. A standalone in the Cursed Crowns world.
