Disenchanted
Brianna Sugalski
(A Lay of Ruinous Reign, #1)
Publication date: December 16th 2022
Genres: Adult, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, New Adult, Romance
At the peak of the Breton Renaissance, Lilac Trécesson is held prisoner in her own castle after a most wicked secret is revealed on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. Her coronation looms years later, and between their town riots and the noble family bent on snatching her throne, she prepares for the worst…
Until a letter arrives from The Witch of Lupine Grotto, detailing a curious offer to banish her curse forever.
Her heirloom dagger at the ready, Lilac embarks into Brocéliande and finds herself in the hands of a bloodthirsty barkeep who demands her help in exchange for protection against the even deadlier forces of the woods.
She is thrust on a quest to uphold her family’s legacy—and her sovereign right to destroy it and start anew—by any means necessary. Pity the fool to underestimate the girl with subpar blade skills but pure spite to make up for it.
This is the tale of a cursed princess,
A crestfallen killer,
The town that wants them to burn,
And the witch who can save them both.
Teaser Excerpt:
They gasped and spun toward the voice that floated from the
trees. Sinclair jumped and brandished his sword blindly in the air.
Smirking, the vampire emerged from the shadows.
“But you knew that.” He winked at her, his mouth stained the
color of cherries.
Lilac’s soul nearly left her body.
He was dressed in the same black undershirt and quilted vest
that both Enzo and Mathis had worn, over a pair of their uniform black
trousers. One of their dark leather baldrics was laced across his chest.
In one hand, he held the stone goblet that had been on the
floor next to the utensils, and in the other, he clutched a limp arm—a severed arm, torn from its body at the
shoulder by brute force. Humming pleasantly to himself, he tilted the appendage
and squeezed it like a summer orange, causing the blood to drain. Each red
droplet clung to the mottled flesh before dripping clean into the cup.
“I apologize for keeping the both of you waiting.” Garin
spoke methodically, observing the scarlet liquid. He frowned when the blood
seemed to stop flowing altogether, but instead of stopping there, he held a
finger up for them to wait and placed the goblet down as he knelt next to it.
The vampire then grabbed the bluish hand and flexed the forearm and bicep,
pumping the last of it into the chalice.
“Just trying to get every last bit. Some Daemons are on the
brink of starvation, you know. It would be a shame for me to be wasteful.”
Lilac and Sinclair watched, petrified. Each hollow plink shattered the otherwise deafening
silence.
When they didn’t answer, Garin clicked his tongue without
looking back up at them. “Don’t pretend to be friendly now, you two. Come on.”
He spoke coldly, yet his voice was warm. It felt intimate, made Lilac shudder,
as if he’d dragged a blade along her naked form. “No more pretending, now that
our truths are out in the open.”
She said nothing.
“You don’t drink blood!” Sinclair finally raised his voice,
his sword at the ready.
Smiling down through his lashes, Garin licked each of his
fingers clean and used the tattered sleeve hanging off the arm in an attempt to
wipe the blood off his face, only smearing it further, before carelessly
tossing the limb into the fire. “It appears my reputation has preceded me.”
Nausea had replaced her hunger. It was true. All true. The
final vestiges of her denial of what he was, that it was all some idiotic
misunderstanding on Sinclair’s part, crumbled. The way Garin didn’t eat
anything at the inn, the weight of his gaze upon her, as if he were sizing up a
pie.
The way he’d tried to trap her.
Author Bio:
Southeast Asian fantasy author with a soup addiction. Diverse medievalist and developmental editor who lives in oversized sweaters, and prefers to explore the more ominous—disenchanting, if you will—undertones of history, romance, and the arcane.
My debut, Breton Arthuriana-inspired YA Dark Fantasy DISENCHANTED, released with the Parliament Press in March 2020, and is being re-released and rebranded for the New Adult/ Adult indie market in December 2022. The rest of the trilogy will follow this updated genre rating.
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