A sweeping YA fantasy about legacy, betrayal, sisterhood, and politicizing emotion in the quest for power-all balanced by a slow-burn LGBTQ romance.
For centuries, the citizens of Velle have waited for their New Maiden to return. The prophecy states she will appear as the third daughter of a third daughter. When the fabled child is finally born to Velle's reigning queen all rejoice except for Elodie, the queen's eldest child, who has lost her claim to the crown. The only way for Elodie to protect Velle is to retake the throne. To do so, she must debilitate the Third Daughter-her youngest sister, Brianne.
Desperate, Elodie purchases a sleeping potion from Sabine, who sells sadness. But the apothecary mistakenly sends the princess away with a vial of tears instead of a harmless sleeping brew. Sabine's sadness is dangerously powerful, and Brianne slips into a slumber from which she will not wake. With the fates of their families and country hanging in the balance, Sabine and Elodie hurry to revive the Third Daughter while a slow-burning attraction between the two girls erupts in full force.
Rebecca Lee portrays characters of various social classes as she narrates this Sapphic fantasy. When the queen dies, religious prophecy declares that 13-year-old Brianne is the new queen--although her bossy older sister, Elodie, believes Brianne is unfit to rule. In a Cockney-like accent, commoner Sabine wrestles with her "darkness," a depression-like affliction that speaks to her in hissing sinis
