ravaged hearts

SYNOPSIS

THREE YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP VANISHED IN SECONDS. SEVEN YEARS LATER, THEIR PATHS CROSS AGAIN. TWO RAVAGED HEARTS, ONE MISSION.

Iolanthe Mi is done running from her past. It's time for her to go back, return to the life she used to live. And when the children of a prominent, upcoming politician are kidnapped, she knows she's the right person to retrieve them. She just didn't expect the case to have an uncanny link to her, or that the boy who broke her heart all those years ago to be working on it too.

Louis Sanchez had spent the past seven years living in varying degrees of guilt. Ever since that fateful day, he'd almost barely caught a single glance at her. And after a year of radio silence from Io after the war ended, he was almost starting to lose hope. But then, there she was: in all her glory, working on the same case as he was.

The war may have ended, but the grudges and blood debts hadn't been paid yet. And as they investigate deeper and deeper into this strange web of lies, deception, corruption and blackmail, old secrets and skeletons long buried slowly rear their heads.

History was always doomed to repeat itself, isn't that how it goes?

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

AUTHOR'S NOTE

ravaged hearts is book 3 of 3 in the lady kuroki's school for girls series, coming after where river meets sea, and is a spin-off/sequel to the sable sisters series, but it can be read as a stand-alone. this series is the second in the silk and steel universe/chronicles.

the story takes place in a world based off our own, and i feel the need to clarify that the beliefs my characters display do not reflect my own.

here we goooooo! io's story, finally. unlike the other books, this one is set chronologically after the end of the war, seven years after the events of the last book, where river meets sea. there are some flashbacks and the like sprinkled throughout.

PLEASE NOTE

this world is based closely off our real one, and this includes the history and politics of each country. while much of it remains similar, please note that it is not meant to be 100% accurate, and i have added, omitted and edited as i felt necessary, especially regarding topics i feel like i haven't done enough sufficient research to tackle/i do not believe i could portray accurately/i personally do not feel is necessary for my world. neither do i personally agree with all the "counterparts" of more modern political issues that the characters within this story believe in. hence, please do not go after me if you disagree with what my characters believe in!

another major part i changed in, is the titles/ranks of saian (chinese) characters. i've taken a heavy western influence for them, using the lord/lady of (location) template instead of the historically accurate chinese ones. one of the reasons for this is because the titles and ranks of ancient china were visibly explicitly for men (the chinese character for a baron is literally the character for 'male'), and i found it difficult to fit them into a story where many titled females exist. also, I'm taking inspiration mainly from the Qing dynasty, which has an extremely complicated ranking system, so it's very difficult to research and understand.

as this is a story that heavily features espionage, the overlying arch of this entire series would involve a war between countries. hence, i've had no choice but to make one of the counterpart countries the general "enemy" of the story (melique). i do not view either the country it's based off or the people of the country poorly. i've done my best to mix multiple countries of various different cultures into one for melique in order to not offend anyone. currently, melique is geographically based off south american countries and inspired by meiji-era japan and french revolution and napoleonic-era france.

there is strong language and hints at explicit content within the story, though none of it is clearly shown. read at your own risk!

13/10/2021-25/12/2021
(daily updates)