The Shattered King

A captive healer and a mysterious prince are drawn to each other in the midst of war and magic in a beguiling dark fantasy by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.

The kingdom of Cansere is on the brink of war. Young men are conscripted from their homes, and a royal decree from the queen has made healing the only legal form of craftlock. Nym, a healer and beekeeper, is the sole provider for her family of seven now that her younger brother has been sent to the war front. But when a letter comes from the queen, summoning Nym to the palace to heal Prince Renn, the kingdom's ailing shut-in, Nym finds herself making the tumultuous journey from her family's apiary to the capital city. Nym is determined to fail the queen's mission and return to her younger siblings as soon as she can.

But escaping the castle's hold isn't as easy as failing a simple test. Prince Renn is cold and distant, and his illness is like nothing Nym has ever seen before, nothing she could ever imagine treating. In a moment of connection with Prince Renn, Nym manages to remedy the faintest symptom of his ailment--only to discover that no healer before has made such progress. Forced to become the prince's official healer and a ward of the castle, and with her only hope of returning to her family hinging on the prince's recovery, Nym must navigate the castle's cruel and twisted court and uncover the haunting truth behind Prince Renn's illness--even as she finds herself irrevocably drawn to him.

Charlie N. Holmberg is a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author of fantasy and romance fiction, including The Hanging City, Star Mother, the Paper Magician series, the Spellbreaker series, and the Whimbrel House series, and she writes contemporary romance under C. N. Holmberg. She is published in more than twenty languages; has been a finalist for the ALA awards, the Goodreads Choice Awards, and multiple Whitney Awards; and won the 2020 Whitney Award for Novel of the Year: Adult Fiction. Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names. She is a BYU alumna, plays the ukulele, and owns too many pairs of glasses. She currently lives with her family in Utah. Visit her at www.charlienholmberg.com.