If you haven’t read A Touch of Gold and Madness by K.L. DeVore, you need to bump this up to the top of your list! While you’re at it, you should also add The Embrace of Steel and Sorrow, a prequel in the Celestials of Arcadia series!
A Touch of Gold and Madness (Celestials of Arcadia Book 1)
Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance
- Enemies to lovers
- MMC with Jekyll/Hyde vibes
- Fated Mates
- Assassin Princess
- Found Family
- Slowburn with Spice
- Heavy Trauma and Healing Rep
- Diverse Cast
- Touch her and Die
- Dual POV
- Forced Proximity
Fairytales are for the naive.
Princess assassin Gray Monroe is ordered by her father to kill the villainous prince responsible for throwing the modern world into a post-apocalyptic society. In a decrepit landscape where two magical species war with one another while a human militia hunts them all, Gray has only one thing on her mind: vengeance.
With the single focus to kill the man who murdered her first love, she believes nothing will stop her. That is, until she hesitates when she comes face-to-face with her nemesis at long last.
Gray must return to the King’s Palace empty-handed for her annual birthday celebration to a court of vipers who lie in wait for a slip in her icy façade. When a sinister plot is revealed to assassinate the princess, she must flee into a world where she’s now the hunted and must survive to get the revenge that she’s owed.
Prince Griffin Silas is on a mission of his own: to kill the King. Problem is, he’s suffering from an affliction that robs him of his sanity while making him crave violence and death. But first, he needs the princess in his hands no matter the cost. In a race against his spiraling affliction, who will achieve their goal first?
As the first installment in the Celestials of Arcadia, “A Touch of Gold and Madness” is a story about moving through a lifetime of trauma, while also packed with action, secrets, betrayal, and tension full of slow-burning steam. It will keep you turning the pages to discover the long-buried truths concealed by those who seek ultimate power.
*This a dark romantic fantasy with heavy themes of trauma and contains explicit adult encounters. Please read the trigger warnings listed in the beginning of the book before diving in. Your mental health matters.*
- Suicidal Ideation
- Mentions of child abuse
- scene alluding to child SA (non-descriptive)
- mental and emotional abuse
- use of alcohol as coping mechanisms
- drug use
- blood, gore, beheading, torture
- Suicide
- anxiety,depression
- grief from loss of partner
- kidnapping
- explicit adult sexual scenes
- mentions of human trafficking
The Embrace of Steel and Sorrow (Celestials of Arcadia)
Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance
Note: To avoid massive spoilers, it is highly encouraged to read A Touch of Gold and Madness prior to reading the first installment in the prequel trilogy.
Before there was Griffin Silas, there was Chrome Freyr…
Two elite teen Kinetic Warriors must protect the princess at all costs, but they never anticipated that they would both fall in the process.
Chrome Freyr, the greatest Kinetic Warrior in living memory, is only sixteen years old. The only mission on his mind is to protect her—the princess. For reasons he can’t explain, he feels an intense compulsion to save and nurture her, having been drawn to her energy since that fateful day on the playground when he was ten years old. However, King Forest does everything in his power to keep the two apart.
When asked to protect the princess in Chrome’s stead, Slate Helair, a fellow elite warrior, doesn’t hesitate. The plan to remove the king from power depends on the princess’s well-being and strength, so he’ll play his role in fostering her confidence and abilities. However, he doesn’t expect to be drawn in by her simmering fire, which he is unable to resist during her training sessions.
The insurgency is in its infancy stages to permanently remove the king from power in order to spare the world from unfathomable chaos. The members must walk a delicate line to keep their secrets hidden and those closest to them shielded from the king’s wrath. One slip-up could cost them everything they hold dear to their hearts.
The Embrace Of Steel and Sorrow is the first installment of the much anticipated interconnected prequel trilogy to The Celestials of Arcadia series. Leading up to the events of Devolution Day, twists and turns are revealed that lead to the mind-blowing ending in A Touch of Gold and Madness. With themes like angst, warrior bromance, betrayal, forbidden romance, and palace intrigue at the forefront, dive into the tragic past lying within the truths that captured readers of A Touch of Gold and Madness.
The Embrace of Steel and Sorrow is a dark urban fantasy romance centered around heavy topics regarding trauma and mental health. Although the characters are aged as teens, this is not a young adult story. Please be sure to check content warnings before delving into the main characters’ dark pasts from The Celestials of Arcadia. Your mental health is important.
BOOK BLITZ ORGANIZED BY:
ramblingmads 