
Genre:
Fantasy
Themes:
Against All Odds
Arranged Marriage
Butch / Femme
Character with Disability
Coming of Age
Coming Out
First Love
Friends to Lovers
Heat Level:
Fade to Black (sex scenes are mostly implied and use euphemistic language)
Archetypes:
Escort / Courtesan / Sex worker
Housekeeper / Servant / Maid
Geographic Location:
Fantasy or Fictional Setting
Setting:
Big City / Urban
Castle / Palace
Sexual / Gender Identity:
Lesbian
Nonbinary / Gender Fluid
Butch / Stud
Tomboy
Questioning
Trigger/Content Warning:
Sex work
In the Shadow of the Palace
The Tide of Shadows Series, Book 1
By Eliza Andrews
No one could have predicted a little girl from the wrong side of town would change the course of history.
Before a rebellious princess fell in love with her guard…
Before a kingdom transformed into an empire…
Before a war was fought in the mountains of the East…
A little girl named Cara was born in a dockside house of ill-repute.
Eight hundred years before Princess Natasia left her mark on Empire history, the daughter of a prostitute eked out a hardscrabble life in a Shipper’s Quarter brothel called the Serpent’s Tongue.
From an early age, Cara knows she wants no part of the business of the Serpent’s Tongue, but as a child of the brothel, she also knows she won’t be given a choice. As soon as her monthly blood comes, she’ll be forced to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
A Wise Man takes pity on Cara. Leveraging his influence, he takes her away from the Serpent’s Tongue and sends her to a place she never dreamed she’d even see up-close: the palace of the House of Dorsa. Yet no one — not the Wise Man, not Cara, and certainly not the residents of the palace — could have foreseen what would come next. As circumstances converge to thrust Cara into the center of palace politics, the humble young chambermaid sets out upon a path that will change her life — and the path of the Kingdom of Dorsa — forever.