Draft:Once Upon A Broken Heart

• Comment: several unsourced sections and the plot is well over the 700 word limit. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 14:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

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Once Upon a Broken Heart is a 2021 fantasy novel written by Stephanie Garber. It is the first book in the Once Upon a Broken Heart Trilogy, the sequel trilogy to the Caraval Trilogy, set in the same universe. In this novel readers will follow Evangeline Fox in her story of finding out who she really is and her adventures.

Plot

The majority of the novel is set in a fictional universe called The Magnificent North. However, it starts in the Meridian Empire, where the main character Evangeline Fox, an orphan, lives with her stepmother and stepsister Marisol. She is seventeen years old and has rose gold, long hair.

In the beginning of the novel Evangeline finds the lost door to The Prince of Hearts' church. She manages to get inside the church and there she asks the Prince of Hearts statue for help. (The Prince of Hearts, Jacks, is introduced in the beginning of Legendary, the second book in the Caraval Trilogy). The real Prince of Hearts appears after hearing Evangeline's pleas and agrees to help her. Jacks is a fate, which is a non-human creature, though it looks and somewhat acts like a human. A fate can't die, but if they fall in love, they turn human. It's not something a fate wants.

Evangeline wants Jacks to help her to stop the wedding between her stepsister Marisol and the boy Evangeline loves. In exchange for Jacks's help, Evangeline has to make a deal with him. In order for Jacks to help her he gives her three scars on her forearm, by biting her. Each scar stands for a kiss and the deal is that Jacks can choose who Evangeline is going to kiss. The three scars on Evangeline's arm are a recurring theme. They burn everytime Jacks is around.

But, to Evangeline's horror, Jacks stops the wedding by turning the whole wedding party to stone. The only way for Evangeline to save Luc Navarro, the groom who she loves, is to drink from a bottle that rests on a stone. The liquid in the bottle turns her to stone instead. She is rescued six weeks later by Poison, another fate. She is now called a hero in her village for saving the wedding, but that doesn't make her any happier. Luc did not visit her after she got rescued, and it turns out he left town.

After some time Evangeline gets invited to visit the Meridian Empress, Scarlett Dragna and her sister Tella, for tea. (These sisters have their own storylines in the Caraval Trilogy as well). Scarlett and Tella tell Evangeline that they want her to represent the Meridian Empire in The Nocte Neverending in The Magnificent North. It's an event where young women attend, hosted by the crown prince, so that he can find a bride. Evangeline always dreamed of a happy ending and decides to go. She persuades her stepmother to let her go and to bring Marisol with her.

When they get to The Magnificent North Evangeline attends a dinner. There she meets another fate, Lala, but Evangeline doesn't know that she is one yet. Jacks appears at the dinner as well and he wants Evangeline to kiss Apollo, the crown prince, as the first kiss of their bargain. Jack paints her lips with his golden blood and she kisses Apollo. She thinks he will die but instead he seems enchanted. The next day Apollo proposes to Evangeline at a ball and The Nocte Neverending comes to an end. The following six days they prepare for the wedding but Evangeline realizes that Apollo is really obsessed with her. Evangeline confronts Jacks about this and he admits that he put a curse on Apollo to love Evangeline, and that he will lift the curse if Evangeline marries Apollo as planned. After the confrontation Jacks takes Evangeline to the Fortuna House and she finds out that Jacks wants to open the Valory Arch. The arch is believed to be the gateway to the Valory, which has either been built to lock away any dangerous magical objects of power or to lock up an abomination that the early people in The Magnificent North, the Valors, created. Fortuna House is one of the Great Houses in the Magnificent North that all turned against The Valors a long time ago.

Evangelines' second kiss (ordered by Jacks) is for the Matriarch of the house. Jacks wants to look at the Matriarch's collection of stones because it's said that four different stones with different powers can open the arch together. The Matriarch willingly lets them in after Evangeline kisses her on the cheek. When they are down in the vault the Matriarch starts talking about a prophecy which says that there is a key that can open the Valory Arch with its blood. The key is said to be a girl with rose gold hair. She says that Evangeline is the key after seeing her hair and therefore tries to kill her: She does not want the arch to open. Jacks stops the Matriarch by hitting her with a stone and they both return to Wolf Hall, where Evangeline and Apollo live.

The same evening Apollo tells her a lot of things about the Valory Arch and the prophecy and Evangeline realizes that she has to be the key to opening the arch, and that is why Jacks wanted to make a deal in the first place. On Evangeline and Apollo's wedding night he dies when Evangeline kisses her. Apollo's guards take Evangeline to a room and she gets severely injured. Jacks turns up and saves her and takes her to Lala's house. There she recovers from her injuries by being held by Jacks all night. The next day she and Jacks visit Chaos, a friend of Jacks, who has one of the four stones they need to open the Arch. Chaos is a vampire, but also leader of other vampires, who all live in an underground lair. On the way out of the lais they see Luc in a cage, about to turn into a vampire. He wanted to look pretty after he got attacked by wolves before leaving the Meridian Empire. He breaks free and bites Jacks and they have to flee again.

In order for Jacks not to turn into a vampire, he can't bite a human before dawn. The two of them spend the night in a chapel, because Evangeline trusts Jacks not to bite her. This night there is a lot more intimate tension between them than before, but it disappears as Jacks turns back to normal the next day. Due to the night'ś events, Jacks sleeps all day at his place. Meanwhile Evangeline snoops around his office and finds bottles of different poisons, as well as books on potions. She then remembers that she saw the same book on Marisolś bedside table once, puts two and two together and realizes that Marisol poisoned Luc to fall in love with her from the beginning. To prove that she, Evangeline, is right, she sneaks out and back to Wolf Hall to confront Marisol. (Earlier Evangeline read in the newspaper that Marisol was engaged to Tiberius, Apollos' brother and next in line to the throne.)

Evangeline decides to bring a truth serum from Jacks and when she gets to Wolf Hall she is able to get Marisol to confess that she did poison both Luc and Tberius. Tiberius accidently drinks the truth serum and tells Evangeline that he is one of the protectors and does not want the Valory Arch to open. He then tries to kill her but Jacks suddenly appears and saves her yet again. The guards take Tiberius to the chambers, and a new heir to the throne is on the way. Evangeline gets taken to a room by Apollo's guard and there she finds Apollo lying on a table. She learns that he never died but was put in a suspendable' sleep. Evangeline then believes that Jacks is guilty of all of this and promises herself to never work with Jacks again. She wants to save Apollo and get her happy ending.

The new heir to the throne turns out to be Luc, who is now a vampire. The last thing Jacks does before leaving Evangeline and the castle after a fight about Apollo, is to stop Marisol from going into the room where Luc is, because Evangeline knows she will not get out of there alive if she goes in. When Jacks leaves she remembers that she can open any door she wants with her blood, because she is the key to the prophecy, so she comes up with a way to save Apollo. There is a library in Wolf Hall where there are said to be books about the Valors, and the Valory Arch. No one has managed to open it since the Valors closed it, but the book ends with Evangeline finally being able to.

Major themes

Love

One of the most recurring themes in this book is love. There is love between friends, between a parent and a child, between parents, siblings and of course between two lovers. Evangeline has always dreamed of a happy ending with her true love. Her parents were happily married and very much in love, and she wants something like that. In the beginning of the book she is with Luc Navarro, a boy she secretly meets in different places around town. She believes that they can have a happy ending, because she believes in love at first sight, and that it will last forever. But after meeting Jacks, The Prince of Hearts, and everything the two of them have been through, she starts to rethink her belief. Luc is no longer the person she thought he was, and she struggles to know how she feels about Jacks. The love theme is also shown from Jack's perspective, even though the reader doesn't read anything from his point of view until the second book, he is a fate, and a fate can't really fall in love. If they do, they turn human and mortal. It is said that if he kisses someone, it can kill them, unless they are his one true love. In The Caraval Trilogy Jacks kisses someone and they don't die, and Jacks's heart starts beating. But this person, Donatella Dragna, chose to be with someone else rumored to have broken Jacks's heart. He, as well as Evangeline, now have to figure out what love is for him, and what kind of feeling he has towards Evangeline.

Magic/Fantasy

Stephanie Garber has created a whole universe where everything is magical. There are non-human people, magical creatures, curses and a lot of other magical things. The whole Caraval Universe is magical, with different people that possess different magical abilities. The whole story is about opening an Arch with four stones with different powers and a key, which is a girl that can open any lock with her blood. Even though Evangeline grew up working in her father's curiosity shop and learning about all kinds of magic and myths, she is mesmerized by all the magic in The Magnificent North. There are a lot of different things she's never seen before, such as tiny dragons she instantly falls in love with. During the novel Evangeline also finds her own magic. She realizes that she can open any door she wants with her blood. This is something entirely new to her and it benefits her in almost every situation where she needs to get through a door. Jacks also have powers, because he is a fate. Fates ruled the world centuries ago and are immortal. He can control other people's emotions and actions, which is what he does to Apollo through the book.

Betrayal

Towards the end of the book, Evangeline is betrayed by her step sister Marisol. The first thing she does is to give Luc Navarro a love potion she created, to make him fall in love with her. Marisol knew Evangeline was in love with her. She then does the same to Evangeline's husband's brother Tiberius. She makes him fall in love with her and turns on Evangeline. Even though Evangeline helped Marisol get away from her evil mother, she betrays Evangeline. Jacks betrays Evangeline as well. After building up a relationship in which Evangeline thinks she matters at least a little bit to Jacks, she realizes that the night Apollo died Jacks had poisoned him to be in a suspendable sleep. He did it so that Apollo would be his bargaining chip to make Evangeline open the Valory Arch with her willing blood. Another betrayal by Jacks is that he lies to Evangeline about the three kisses she has to give to whoever Jacks wants. He makes Evangeline believe that she affects them when she kisses them with Jack's blood painted on her lips, but it's really Jacks controlling the feelings of the ones Evangeline kisses.

Genre and Style

This is a fantasy young adult novel written from a third person point of view. The book consists of 54 chapters and approximately 400 pages.

Development History

Stephanie Garber described, in an interview with Publishers Weekly, wanting to keep writing about Jacks and the Caraval Universe as "As soon as I created him in Legendary, he kind of stole the show, and I knew I wanted to write a spin-off book with him". She recalls her waking up with the idea of Once Upon a Broken Heart and wanted to start writing immediately. On the theme of love and heartbreak, Garber said in the same interview, "Also, I was feeling heartsick when I started this book, so I wanted to write a story about heartbreak, and the desperate lengths that people will go to because of broken hearts, and because of love." As to how many books would be in the trilogy and how that would work out, Garber said, in the same interview "With Once Upon a Broken Heart, I made a point of figuring out how many books I thought the series should be, and writing with that in mind."

Once Upon a Broken Heart is the first book in the Once upon a broken Heart Series. It is followed by The Ballad Of Never After (2022) and A Curse For True Love (2023).

Publication History

• This book was first published in Great Britain in 2021 by Hodder & Stoughton, A Hachette UK Company.
• 2021, USA, Flatiron Books, ISBN 9781250268396, September 28th, Hardcover
• 2021, USA, Flatiron Books, ISBN 9781250268389, September 28th, Kindle Edition
• 2021, USA, Flatiron Books, signed Barnes and Noble Exclusive, ISBN 9781250838056, September 28th, Hardcover
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 9781529380903, September 30th, UK Edition Hardcover
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, September 30th, Kindle Edition
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton Fairyloot Exclusive Edition, September 28th, Hardcover
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 9781529380910, September 28th, Paperback
• 2021, Great Britain, Flatiron Books, ISBN 9781250841339, September 28th, International Edition, Paperback
• 2021, Great Britain, Macmillan Audio, September 28th, Audible Audio
• 2021, USA, Flatiron Books, ISBN 9781250845634, September 2021, Indigo Exclusive Edition, Hardcover
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 9781529380446, October 2021, Fairyloot Signed Exclusive Sprayed & Stenciled Edges Edition, Hardcover
• 2021, Thorndike Striving Reader, ISBN 9781432892272, October 27th, Large type / Large print, Library Binding
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, September 30th, Paperback
• 2021, Great Britain, Macmillan Audio, ISBN 9781250818348, September 28th, Unabridged, Audiobook
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton,ISBN 9781529385304, Never Make a Deal with a Fate (Paperback), Advanced Readers Copy, Paperback
• 2021, USA, Flatiron Books, ISBN 978125084729, October 2021, Owlcrate signed exclusive, Hardcover
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 9781529370539, September 30th, Waterstone Exclusive, Hardcover
• 2021, Great Britain, MacMillan Audio, ISBN 9781250818331, September 28th, Audio CD
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, October 7th, Goldsboro Exclusive Edition, Hardcover
• 2021, USA, Flatiron Books, International Edition, Paperback
• 2021, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton,, ASIN B08WHXBBV9, September 30th, Audible Audio
• 2021, Great Britain, Hoddescape, ASIN B08WHVWVM3, September 30th, Audible Audio
• 2022, Great Britain, Hodder Paperbacks, ISBN 9781529380941, June 30th, Paperback
• 2022, Great Britain, Hodderscape, ISBN 9781529380958, August 2022, Kindle Edition
• 2023, USA, Flatiron Books, ISBN 9781250268402, March 28th, Paperback
• 2023, German, Cbj, ISBN 9783570167069, November 1st, Paperback
• 2022, Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton,ISBN 9781399711678, June 30th, Waterstones Exclusive Edition, Paperback
• 2023, Great Britain, Hodderscape, ISBN 9781399730518, September 14th, Hardcover

Literary significance and reception

Cassandra Clare, New York Times bestselling author of the Mortal Instruments, described Once Upon a Broken Heart as "A sugar-crusted, poison-spiked romp through a vibrant world of fairy tale intrigue, tangled romance, and forbidden magic".

Awards and nominations

Once Upon a Broken Heart was on the New York Times bestseller list for Young Adult Hardcover from October 7 to December 12 year 2021. Stephanie Garber was listed Number 1 Sunday Times bestselling Author with her 2022 Paperback Edition Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2021)