THANK YOU FOR reading Ravaged Hearts! This book concludes the Lady Kuroki's School for Girls trilogy, but Io's story doesn't stop here—if you want more of her, she features as a prominent character in the Court of Bones series as well, which is set in the eight years between this book and Where River Meets Sea.
If I must be honest, I feel like this is the weakest book in the series I've written so far? Therefore, I most definitely will do some kind of editing for this book within the next while.
I pretty much wrote this series for Io. In my mind, she's the real protagonist of the Silk and Steel Chronicles—we follow her from the age of twelve into a young woman of twenty-five, from a girl who seems naively optimistic yet is so painfully realistic in her view of the world, to a jaded, cynical person who'd been hurt one too many times. She shows up in almost every single book of the series, and is one of my favourite characters to write. Her psychology fascinates me—the craving for love and care, yet inability to let herself receive it when it is offered to her because she thinks it's always going to be fleeting. Because she knows when it's gone she'll just be left with another scar. But that wish for affection and attention is a drug she can't stop taking so it's the same cycle for her, again and again, as she pushes more and more people away until she inevitably runs away.
Which is where Louis comes in. Half the source of the problem, a major part of the reason why she is the way she is now. And he wants to make up to her for all these years of loneliness and pain she'd suffered.
This is a story of forgiveness, going full cycle, facing the things that destroyed you. Throughout the story Io faces the things that caused her to make the decisions she did—Louis' neglect, her father's cruelty, her mother's death. And she overcomes them all, or makes peace with them. She lets go. She accepts it instead of carrying it around as a reminder, a burden.
I really hope you enjoyed this story, and I'm glad to tell you that I'm currently almost done with the second book of the Court of Bones series. When I finish it, I'll begin posting chapters of Where the Thorns Grow, Rhys' book. Do keep an eye out for it if you want to continue reading this series!
THE SILK AND STEEL CHRONICLES CONSIST OF: (with the most updated titles)
THE SABLE SISTERS
The Sable Spy (Cassalyn Diao)
Hawk & Sable (Cirinique Diao)
LADY KUROKI'S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
The White Fox (Asteria Lu)
Where River Meets Sea (Daneira Pang)
Ravaged Hearts (Iolanthe Mi)
COURT OF BONES
Where the Thorns Grow (Rhysa Jiang)
Of Iron and Crowns (Irina Gu)
Of Copper and Blades (Justine Lan)
Of Mist and Power (Myrina Mai)
CITY OF SINS
Bleeding Flowers (Naeva Li)
Fallen Gods (Darynne Shangguan)
Weeping Flames (Fayette Mi)
YOU ARE READING
ravaged hearts
Historical FictionTHREE 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 ch...
