A Thorn Between Us

Her magic reveals every lie. His silence hides the deepest one.

Isley Anselm has spent her life making herself small. In House Anselm, beauty is prized, obedience is expected, and kindness is treated as weakness. While her glamorous siblings command attention, Isley tends humble buttercups, protects her beloved younger brother, and finds comfort in the cryptic messages left by Flicket, her dazzling wasp familiar.

Then Queen Elphame arrives with an impossible challenge. Capture the essence of a flower that never fully blooms and never truly fades. To solve the riddle, Isley must leave the safety of everything she's ever known and journey across the realm with Stellan, a disgraced fauna captain haunted by the choice that cost him his future—and the familiar he loved. Stellan wants nothing to do with hope, destiny, or the gentle flora fae who looks at him as though he is still worth saving.

But, some truths refuse to stay buried. As Isley's strange buttercup magic begins revealing secrets hidden in smoke and shadow, old wounds reopen, dangerous enemies stir, and the mystery surrounding the impossible flower becomes tangled with secrets far closer to home than either of them realizes.

Some flowers bloom brightest between thorns, and some warriors only heal when love is on the line.

A Thorn Between Us is a standalone novel with "a hint of Cinderella meets A Court of Thorns & Roses". Set in the lush and beloved world of The Scented Court, a completed epic romantasy series by A.L. Knorr, Thorn can be enjoyed without having read any of the other novels in the series.

For readers who crave:

A grumpy/sunshine dynamic with a slow-burn romance built on trust and shared struggles.

An original magic system where flowers reveal the truth and react to lies.

A world of scheming fae queens, dangerous politics, and cursed magical objects.

Sweet romantasy with high emotional stakes and intricate worldbuilding.

A complete standalone story set in a larger, enchanting universe.

Compelling animal familiars with their own unique magical abilities.