The Sun Eater's Bride

Once every hundred years, the villages on the cliff send a bride to the black palace by the sea, and once every hundred years she is eaten at the winter solstice. This year Maren volunteered — not for the honor, not for the crown, but because her younger sister was chosen first, and there is a way out of this, if there's time to find it. There is a way out. There are three months until the solstice, a chained man who has eaten four women who all asked to die, and a healer who has every reason to hate him and no reason at all to believe a word he says. By autumn, Maren has stopped looking for the exit. By winter, she has stopped looking for a way to kill him. This year, the bride bites first. A dark enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance of sea, sun, and a contract older than both.