[The Books of Astrune 01] • Glimmer of Steel

Stories will save her soul, but not her heart

Damen has a plan to save the life of his childhood friend before she’s forced to marry the evil Noble Tortare: switch her soul with some other girl and let the other girl die in her place. Only he didn’t count on the other girl’s determination to live, he certainly didn’t count on her soul coming from a different planet—Earth, and falling in love? No, he never planned on that. Told from alternating viewpoints: Damen, a truthsayer from Astrune, and Jennica, the soul snatched from Earth.

Like Scheherazade from 1001 Nights, Jennica, the bride with the Earth girl soul, tells tantalizing stories about her planet so her beastly husband will keep her around past the wedding night. But Noble Tortare is no Arabian prince. He’s a monster from the tip of his metal tail to his penchant for sucking the souls from his wives.

Damen must be present while Jennica speaks to Noble, to verify she isn’t lying. As Noble’s faithful servant, he does what Noble asks. Only he didn’t plan to spend so much time with Jennica, and he certainly didn’t plan to care about her so deeply he can think of no one else. Now Damen needs a new plan: free Jennica from Noble’s clutches, free himself from a life of guilt for stealing Jennica’s soul, and free his heart to love—all without telling even the tiniest of lies on a world where deception is like oxygen.

If only that Earth girl wouldn’t have so many plans of her own: like keeping Noble Tortare’s soul trapped on Astrune, because after listening to her stories, Noble craves something more than Jennica’s soul—Noble wants to go to Earth.