Crown of Hearts and Chaos Books in Order

Crown of Hearts and Chaos is Caroline Peckham's newer dark romantasy lane, built around a cursed forest, scattered spirits, and a heroine who walks straight into the danger because staying out would cost her too much. From the start, the series feels more folkloric than school-based, but it still carries the same appetite for drama and sharp romance.

The first book, Hollow, introduces Ferris Creed as the Great Hunt begins, an event that comes only once every fifty years. Champions enter the forest to try to break the curse at its heart, gather what has been scattered, and win the boon promised to the survivor. Ferris is not entering for glory. She is entering because the forest is her only chance to change what is happening to the people she loves.

The woods are not just dangerous. They are active.

Lost spirits, old oaths, wandering trees, amulets, and Hollows all make the setting feel alive in the least comforting way possible. Then there is Prince Bane, the shadowed figure tied to that threat, who gives the romance its enemies-to-lovers pull. He is not a clean hero, and the series is very aware of that.

By Lightwing, the story moves beyond the hunt and into captivity, necromancy, and the consequences of promises Ferris made inside the woods. That helps define the series tone. This is not a one-book forest challenge. It is a wider story about corruption, power, spirits, and the cost of trying to put a broken world back together.

If you like dark fantasy romance with cursed landscapes, folklore energy, and a central heroine who is brave in a stubborn, reckless way, Crown of Hearts and Chaos feels like Peckham stretching into a more gothic corner of romantasy while keeping the tension high.