A Lie so Pretty and Poisonous

She is a dark stain on her lineage.
He is a dark stain on his kingdom.
Together, they are cracks in the foundation of the systems they threaten.

The past is persistent, and Rory's has come to claim her once more. Unwilling to condemn her child to a fate of oppression, Rory Alwine, and her ten-year-old daughter, desperately flee the life determined to keep them in a gilded cage. But fate is fickle, and as they try to escape from one danger, they end up at the mercy of another—stranded among the demigods on the forbidden side of the continent. A kingdom where defiance is paid in blood, and being a woman makes Rory powerless and disregarded.

To protect her daughter from a world of magic and sacrificial religion, Rory harnesses her defiant nature and forms an uneasy alliance with Darragh, a demigod with a condemned lineage and a formidable reputation. As complicated feelings between them bloom, blurring the line between enemy and ally, Rory and Darragh discover evidence of an atrocity so horrifying the gods have been abandoned to keep it buried.

Poisoned promises, pretty lies, and tarnished truths are met at each dangerous revelation, and Rory must decide who to trust and who could condemn her to a fate worse than death.