And So The Breaking Begins: Mindbreaker Duet, Book 1 (An Age of War and Prophecy 3)
Lacey Lehotzky
4.2
Forsake: In the Beginning II
by Phoenix Drake
About this book
She is no longer the woman they tried to save.
Yara Fortune is gone. In her place is a woman who captains a pirate fleet through the southern isles of a realm that should not exist. They call her Golden Queen. There's a bounty on her head written in fae gold, and she is the worst enemy the slavers have ever crossed.
A barefoot Irish seamstress dragged through a rift on Samhain night. A healer in plague-blackened Constantinople, branded profana femina and burned for her gift. A wraith stalking boardrooms, slipping serpent venom into the blood of patriarchs who thought themselves gods. Every silenced woman in every century is hers to remember. Every betrayal is hers to answer.
The men who loved her have come undone.
A jaded billionaire whose blood is no longer human.
A scarred killer with bare hands and no idea what to do with them.
A sun-drunk Viking losing the war with the god inside.
A dark-winged angel stripped of his wings by the goddess he once served. Grounded. Betrayed.
Across the realms, the last remaining goddess pulls the strings. Inside America, a theocratic regime, known as Eden, regulates women's bodies. And above them all, the Divine Feminine remembers what was stolen from her.
She will take it back.
Forsake is Book Two of In the Beginning: a multi-life, multi-POV mythopunk epic of past lives, fae thrones, and the rage of every silenced woman. Darker than Book One. Bigger than the world it broke out of.
For readers who came for the spice and stayed for the sovereignty.
Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas's most brutal arcs, Genevieve Gornichec, A.K. Koonce, and any reader who's been waiting for the goddess to avenge.
Tropes:
Past-life reincarnation across centuries Divine feminine awakening / villain era Why choose / reverse harem (4 male love interests, separated) Pirate queen heroine in fae waters Hidden royalty / fae court intrigue Fallen angel love interest Norse god / Jormungandr ascending Multi-POV (heroine, hero, angel, vigilante) Theocratic dystopia subplot Brutal cliffhanger, series continues
Reader advisory: explicit on-page content, on-page violence including burning at the stake in past-life sequences, sexual violence as theme, theocratic regime themes, body horror, and a final-page setup that hurts. This book is darker than Genesis.
In the Beginning, Book Two. The reckoning continues.
Also from Phoenix Drake: Jezebel, a standalone dark gothic romantasy. Out now.
- Publication Date
- May 25, 2026
- ASIN
- B0DSTV9P3M
Reader Reviews
October 30, 2025
The bookvoice is like a living entity with the key parts of the book operating like a sentient aperture, a kind of portal into many lifetimes experienced and living by the main characters Yara,Nick, Keller, Hank and Euberl. I had to pause a couple of times to digest moments and reflect on this author's ability to write so big strategically, ruthlessly and sweetly to trick me along to unrelenting dark corners. Getting swept into Forsakes surreal and universe-spanning adventure that tantalises...
October 7, 2025
The first quarter of Forsake tells us more about our mysterious and powerful divine female, Karmastra – or Yara as we know her from book one. We are thrown into an Irish woman's world, far, far back in time and watch her being pulled in a thousand different directions as she tries to understand who she is, who she has been and most importantly, how she's supposed to live with all the information thrust onto her. We learn some hard truths about our faithful dark angel, in all his pain and...
FORSAKE, is book two of the In the Beginning Series. I have such a book hangover from this book. It is up there as one of my favourite series ever. Book one left us with a cliff hanger. Enter Forsake, where it brings us to a time before Yara meets Nicky, Hank and Keller; a beautifully written past life set in the West of Ireland in the 1800's. Irish Yara, (Ellen), is feisty, strong-willed and determined. I love this version of Yara as it shows where she gets her grit. The tension between her...
