Aileana is the king's pet. She has lived her entire life in a tower, waiting for the day she will be forced to marry his son. When that day arrives, she has a plan. Armed with her daggers and desire for freedom, she runs from the king and his deadly power. Xander has spent his entire life on the run. He doesn't need anyone or anything, certainly not a mate. But when his path crosses with a feisty elf, nothing will ever be the same again. He has secrets to keep. She wants to leave Ithenmyr behind and not look back. Fate has other plans for them both.

Unladylike, bookish, and wholly uninterested in being a princess, Arismendi has one dream: to open Kingsgarden’s first school for girls. But such a dream is expensive—too expensive for a young woman with no legal right to money of her own. Ari’s only hope is the insufferable but fabulously wealthy lord who promises to fund her school in exchange for her hand in marriage. Seeing no other choice, Ari accepts the bargain, giving up any hope of love… until a beautiful girl kisses her on the very eve of her betrothal.

On her 17th birthday, Ashen Spencer is blindfolded and escorted to the massive, mysterious building known as the Arc to begin her year of training and testing in hopes that she can earn the Cure - a powerful drug given only to those deemed worthy to survive beyond their 18th birthday. Ashen has a chance to rise up from her former life of squalor and be granted a place in society, if the Panel - the mysterious group of powerful men and women in charge of the Arc - deems her year a success.

Living in a small town like Woodvine, North Carolina, means everyone knows everything about everybody. The same goes for seventeen-year-old Leath Elliott who can’t seem to escape her tragic past and the loss of her father. The sympathetic looks from well-meaning neighbors rip open her wounds every time she turns around. Her only break from reality is in her recurring dreams where she’s spent a lifetime growing up with a boy she’s never met. When a stranger shows up in the form of James Turner – a mysterious boy with a dark past – Leath begins to wonder if her dreams might be coming true.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. That’s why they’re banished for their 16th year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life - a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear.