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The Fool's Crown
Paperback
Publisher: Jennifer Poliwoda
Published: Oct 20 2026
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.76
Height: 0.58 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In a medieval inspired kingdom ruled by a cold, deteriorating monarch, Princess Josephine grows up suffocated by duty, etiquette, and political expectation. Her only escape is the Cobbles beyond the palace walls-where she meets a sharp-witted common boy named Frederick.
Their childhood friendship begins in secret: equal parts curiosity, rivalry, and reluctant admiration. But the court is not a place where bonds like that survive unchanged.
When Frederick is forcibly taken into the royal household and reduced to the role of court Fool, the relationship fractures into something far more complicated-love tangled with guilt, power imbalance, and unspoken resentment. Josie believes she is responsible for his fate. Frederick believes he has been stolen from his life and repurposed into humiliation.
Years pass inside the palace's suffocating hierarchy. Josie is pushed toward political marriage, while Frederick survives through performance, sarcasm, and emotional detachment. Yet their connection never fully dies-it shifts into something secretive, dangerous, and deeply intimate, defined by stolen moments, coded affection, and emotional dependency.
As court politics darken and the King's health declines, Josie becomes increasingly radicalized by grief, injustice, and her growing belief that the system itself is rotten. Meanwhile, Frederick struggles with identity erosion-caught between who he was and what the court has made him.
What begins as a forbidden childhood friendship evolves into a volatile romance set against a collapsing royal structure, where loyalty, morality, and love constantly clash with survival and power.
At its core, the story builds toward a question rather than a simple resolution:
What happens when love exists inside a system built on control, cruelty, and hierarchy-and how far will it push two people trying to escape it?
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