Forbidden Feasts and Desire

By: Olivia J. Cross

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

A nightengails haunting songs. A noblewoman’s stolen future. A love fierce enough to burn down a kingdom.

In the mist-shrouded marshlands of Eldmarsh, Eadwyn lives as the hall’s prized entertainer—celebrated for her voice, desired for her beauty, and owned by the lord who bought her as a child. Every night she sings of heroes and battles while hiding the truth: she is little more than a gilded prisoner.

High above the feasting warriors sits Elswyth, Lord Osric’s only daughter and bargaining chip in a looming political alliance. Clever, observant, and quietly desperate, she dreams of carving her own fate rather than being traded away to secure her father’s borders.

A single shared glance across the firelight shatters the boundaries between them. When Elswyth subtly shields Eadwyn from a predatory visiting thane, a dangerous connection sparks—one fed by secret smiles, whispered stories, and a kiss stolen in a shadowed passage. Snowstorms trap the hall in tense confinement, and what begins as a quiet rebellion of the heart deepens into a passionate, forbidden love.

But Eldmarsh is tightening its grip. As marriage negotiations close around Elswyth and powerful warriors circle Eadwyn like wolves, rumor and piety threaten to expose them. The hall whispers of “unnatural indulgence,” of dishonor, of punishment. And still, neither woman can let go.

Bound by desire and united by defiance, Eadwyn and Elswyth must choose: bend to a world that claims their bodies, or burn the old order to ash for the chance to claim their own lives.

Lush, intimate, and boldly feminist, Forbidden Feasts and Desire is a sweeping sapphic romance about passion as revolution and love as a force strong enough to break every chain.