Dark Romance

Empires Fall.
Love Doesn’t.

Mafia kings, captive hearts, morally grey villains, and the love stories that survive the empire.

Latest Release · Volume I

The Crown We Wear

Arranged Marriage Mafia Morally Grey

When the Vassari empire calls in a debt no Calloway can repay in coin, Lena Calloway is offered as the payment. The heir who will collect her — Adrien Vassari — has not been told that the bride was once supposed to be his sister. He has not been told a great many things.

“Empires fall. Love doesn’t.”

The Houses

Six Houses. Six Falls.

Every empire collapses differently. Choose the kind of fall that calls to you.

House of Knives Mafia kings, crime families, and the heirs who learn the names of every man in the room before they sit down. Enter → House of Locks Captives, forbidden rooms, and the towers where the door is never locked — because it never needed to be. Enter → House of Crowns Royal heirs, political marriages, and the bride who has until the end of the ceremony to decide whether to survive it. Enter → House of Vows Arranged marriages, debt collections, and the contracts signed in blood the morning after the wedding. Enter → House of Ash Enemies-to-obsession, revenge plots, and the woman who burned his empire down — and the man who proposed at the grave. Enter → House of Shadows Stalkers, obsessives, and the man who has been at the edge of the photograph the whole time — and you only just noticed. Enter →

— The Promise —

Empires fall.
Love doesn’t.

About the Author

Meet Stacey Ortel

Stacey Ortel writes dark romance — mafia kings, captive hearts, morally grey villains, and the love stories that survive the empire.

Her books are about the kind of love that does not arrive in good lighting. The hero is dangerous on purpose. The heroine is sharper than anyone in the room. The cathedral, the tower, the burning house — all of it is the setting for the same story: two people who choose each other anyway, knowing exactly what it will cost.

When she’s not writing, she is keeping a list of words she will not use in a love scene, drinking a very small glass of something that is older than she is, and arguing that the villain is, in fact, the love interest.

More about Stacey

— author — Author photo
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From the Desk