Erewhon Books Announces <i>The Hollow Crown of Heaven</i> by Karen Osborne

Minuet, an unhappy socialite, ditches her search for a husband to start pursuing a more fulfilling, dangerous dream: to prove that women, too, can bind dead human souls to the gems that power her world. But with a revolution on the horizon, she discovers this newfound necromantic power has consequences.

Mila, bodyguard to the late Queen, is a gunslinger caught in the royal succession crisis: she must defeat her girlfriend in a proxy duel between the opposing princes—or perish for the sake of peace.

With their country on the brink of civil war, Minuet and Mila become unlikely allies as they find themselves at the center of a centuries-old conspiracy threatening to destroy their dying world—and uncover the shattering, forgotten truth at its heart.

I am absolutely delighted that The Hollow Crown of Heaven has found a home at Erewhon Books. The Hollow Crown of Heaven is a delicate rage room of a book—my reaction to being female in this world, to being stymied and discounted at seventeen and forty-four and everywhere in between. It’s my response to an artistic culture that says your book won’t be successful if you can’t entirely describe it through trending sounds and video hashtags. On top of all that, it’s my answer to a world where that has made guns into gods and violence into a religion.

From the moment I spoke with Viengsamai Fetters and the team at Erewhon, I knew they saw the truth and the heart in my magic trick of a novel. Erewhon gets it. I originally worried the book was too ambitious, too bonkers, too close to the bone—but that’s what Erewhon does best, isn’t it? Viengsamai’s excitement about my story means the world to me, and I’m thrilled to partner with a team that values and champions bold, boundary-pushing fiction.

Karen Osborne has such a talent for hiding secrets in plain sight; I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with her on this brilliant palimpsest of a story. The Hollow Crown of Heaven is a hell of a ride, playing with the cutting edge of genre and daring you to look closer. I fell in love with this cast of characters, and—without spoiling too much—with each iteration, I fell in love with them again. It’s Bridgerton and Battlestar Galactica and the Borg all in one, with clever necromantic magic and an ineffable heart that rings true in our present and through to our future.”