We’re thrilled to share the cover of The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic, a collection of twelve spellbinding fantasy love stories edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane—available 24th June 2025 from Titan Books. Check out the cover below, and preview an excerpt from the story “The King’s Witch” by Tasha Suri.
Enemies become lovers, rivalry turns to romance, and convenient marriages create true love in these twelve addictive tales.
Featuring Olivie Blake, Kelley Armstrong, Katherine Arden, Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Tasha Suri, Melissa Marr and more. A gorgeous collection of 12 original fantasy romance stories from bestselling and beloved authors. Expect chemistry, heat and dreams come true…
• Olivie Blake
• Kelley Armstrong
• Katherine Arden
• Hannah Nicole Maehrer
• Tasha Suri
• Melissa Marr
• Megan Bannen
• A. G. Slatter
• A. C. Wise
• Kelly Andrew
• Kamilah Cole
• Eliza Chan
Buy the Book
The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic
Marie O’Regan is an award-winning author and editor working in the SFF, crime and horror genres, known for books such as Celeste, Phantoms, and In These Hallowed Halls, among others.
Paul Kane is an award-winning #1 bestselling author and editor in the SFF, crime and horror genres, with books such as Hellbound Hearts, Hooded Man and Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell to his name.
From “The King’s Witch” by Tasha Suri:
There are fourteen regions of the Helvell Peninsula. Braithen is the thirteenth, and an unforgiving land. Its proximity to the sea should make it a wealthy trade port, and the mountains that rise sharply from the salt-green shore should be rich in seams of ore. Instead, the mountains are cold, impassable and worthless, and the sea is known for nothing more than flinging ships against deep rocks, costing many a trader their crew and their livelihood.
The hermitage lies between the tooth-sharp spires of two mountains. The priest who will serve as my proxy spouse and king stands in the shadow between them both, before a stone altar, at a holy space where sky and land meet.
The monks wanted to attend the ceremony—there’s precious little to do in the hermitage, and this is the most excitement anyone is likely to see in decades—but the soldiers insisted that the priest requires privacy. So I walk now to my wedding—my proxy wedding—alone.
The darkness is lit by golden torches, flickering wildly in the fluting wind. Against the backdrop of the sky, with the contract unfurled upon the altar, stands the priest.
Priests are different from monks. Monks serve knowledge. Priests serve power. Knowledge and power are often the same god, but sometimes—often—they are not.
The Anamoren priest wears a gilded mask of the First King, priceless rubies embedded in a flourish like blood at the brow. I do not know their gender, or if they have one at all. They have not tied their gown in a typically feminine manner, or a masculine one, or marked themself with the braided belt or epaulettes typically used by Anamoren folk of other genders. Instead, their gown is a sweep of black, without belt or drapery—a great spill of night.
I walk to them, and bow. “Welcome, priest,” I say. They reach for me and urge me to stand, their hands on my arms at first—and then around my own, clasping them tight.
“You are not Braithenese,” states the priest. In their grasp, my hands look small. Their fingers are callused, flecked with scars, and sun-darkened; my own are pale, with a single callus at my writing finger, a blush of ink stains beneath my nails.
How do they know? I suppose my accent revealed me.
“I was born in Anamora,” I reply. They have not released me. “I came to this hermitage in my nineteenth year.”
“A decade in this place is a fate I would not wish on anyone,” the priest murmurs. Only their eyes are visible through the mask, and they are dark brown, penetrating.
Of course the priest knows my age. Likely every official in Anamora knows everything about me. I am chosen, after all. But a disquieting feeling slithers through me. Those eyes look at me as if they know me.
“Why did you come here, Mistress Silver?” The priest’s voice, turned hollow by the mask, is prying. “Were you exiled to Braithen as punishment?”
“I chose to come here.”
“A strange choice for an heir of Tyrene,” says the priest.
“Not so strange,” I reply. “In this place, I may copy manuscripts and study magic without interference. I have a quiet life, with food and shelter and a very fine cat. Many would envy such a life.”
“As you say,” the priest offers eventually.
They turn from me abruptly, toward the marital contract, pinned to the stone altar with four palm-sized stones.
“Does anything stand in the way of your marriage to our king?” the priest asks. The words are brusque and formal. Their quill is ready, beaded with golden ink.
I almost say, Yes. I love someone else, steadfastly. I always shall. I would rather die than marry another. But love and marriage rarely co-exist when crowns are involved, and I am not actually interested in my own death, so I simply shake my head.
“Nothing,” I say. “Give me the quill.”
The priest signs the contract, then places the quill in my hand. I sign too, the words blurred in front of me.
The priest exhales. The mask lifts.
I see, in the torchlight, the shape of a strong jaw and a full, lush mouth. No more. The priest presses their lips to my knuckles. Their mouth is soft, skin hot. No part of me has been kissed in a decade, and the touch is a shock, a revelation. I hadn’t realised how much I missed tenderness.
I should be affronted. But I do not pull away as the priest’s mouth lingers, then leaves my skin.
“You do not have the right to kiss me,” I say.
“You should read contracts before signing them,” the priest replies. Their mask is back in place, their voice unreadable. They’ve released me. My hand is tingling. “Follow me,” they order.
Excerpted from The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic © 2024
