Throne of Secrets Summary: A Wickedly Seductive Romantasy by Kerri Maniscalco
TL;DR: A Fake Courtship, A Real Hex
The book is set in the Seven Circles of the Underworld, where immortal princes rule courts tied to the seven deadly sins.
- Prince Gabriel Axton of House Gluttony faces a dragon crisis after a century-long peace treaty breaks.
- Journalist Adriana Saint Lucent is forced to cover a fake bridal competition as an advice columnist.
- The two secretly meet at a masked club and swear a blood oath before their identities are revealed.
- Their conflicting memories of a past ball point to a Hexed Quill and a decade-old spell.
- The real source traces to Adriana’s younger sister Eden, who rewrote events as a child.
- The story ends with the hex broken, the dragons cured, and Axton and Adriana engaged.
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Characters In This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Gabriel Axton | Prince of Gluttony who hosts a fake bridal competition to distract the realm from a dragon crisis. |
| Adriana Saint Lucent | Journalist for the Wicked Daily who writes the Miss Match advice column. |
| Eden Saint Lucent | Adriana’s younger sister and a suitor in the competition who used the Hexed Quill as a child. |
| Sophie Everhart | Adriana’s stepmother, a former noblewoman focused on status and wealth. |
| Ryleigh Hughes | Adriana’s best friend and rival journalist who is wrongly accused of wielding the Hexed Quill. |
| Prince Wrath | The Prince of War and Axton’s brother who aids in dragon battles. |
| Prince Envy | The Prince of Envy who provides information about hexed objects. |
| Val | Axton’s pragmatic second-in-command and a skilled former hunter. |
| Silvanus | A massive ice dragon who becomes the primary victim and weapon of the hex’s madness. |
| Blade | The new Vampire Prince of Malice Isle who provides venom to help dragons speak. |
Throne of Secrets Summary: The Deep Dive
SPOILERS AHEAD.
The story opens in the northernmost circle of the Underworld, ruled by Prince Gabriel Axton of House Gluttony. Axton’s sin manifests not as overindulgence in food but as a hunger for danger and dragon hunting.
During a hunt with his brother Wrath, a dragon pack attacks them, breaking a hundred-year peace treaty.
The attacking dragons display red, vacant eyes and violent madness.
One of them is Silvanus, a dragon Axton once hand-raised. Fearing public panic, Axton’s brothers Lust and Envy persuade him to host a bridal competition. The goal is to distract the realm with romance instead of war.
Adriana Saint Lucent works as a journalist for the Wicked Daily. She has spent ten years criticizing Axton in print after a humiliating encounter at the All-Sinners Ball.
When Axton sues her paper for libel, he uses his power to move her from gossip writing to an advice column called Miss Match.
Stressed by work and family obligations, Adriana visits The Seven Sins, an exclusive masked club. There, glamours hide every patron’s identity.
She meets a masked stranger and feels an immediate electric connection. Unbeknownst to her, the stranger is Axton.
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They swear a blood oath to court privately for six weeks.
The oath breaks the club’s glamour during a passionate encounter, revealing their true identities.
Shocked, they must face the fact that they have been consorting with their greatest enemies.
As the bridal competition continues, Adriana’s younger sister Eden is chosen as a suitor. Axton and Adriana realize their memories of the All-Sinners Ball do not match.
Axton remembers wanting to claim her, while Adriana remembers him discarding her for a noblewoman.
They deduce that a hexed object, known as the Hexed Quill, rewrote their history.
The same dark magic fuels the dragons’ madness because the false reality demands enormous power. During the final ball, Axton publicly proposes to Adriana, but a massive dragon attack interrupts the ceremony.
Adriana discovers that Eden used the Hexed Quill as a lonely child. Eden wrote a new fairy-tale history to prevent Adriana from marrying the prince and leaving her. Adriana finds the original note glued into her father’s old ledger and burns it.
Burning the parchment breaks the hex and restores everyone’s true memories. Axton nearly dies fighting the dragons but survives because of his immortality. With the dragons cured and the fake competition ended, Axton and Adriana become formally engaged.
Axton reveals he secretly owns The Seven Sins, and the two look forward to a future of staying scandalous together.
Summary by Chapter
SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Frigid Breach (Chapters 1–7)
The novel opens with a dragon attack on Prince Axton and his brother Wrath, ending a century of peace. In the city, Adriana struggles to support her family while despising the Prince.
Axton sues her paper for libel, which forces Adriana into writing a romance advice column called Miss Match.
Disguises and Desires (Chapters 8–15)
Adriana visits The Seven Sins, an exclusive masked club where glamours hide identities. She meets a masked stranger who is actually Axton, and they share an intense attraction without knowing each other’s true identities.
Meanwhile, Axton secretly obtains vampire venom to communicate with the mad dragons while planning a fake bridal competition.
The Blood Oath (Chapters 16–23)
The bridal competition begins, and Adriana’s sister Eden is chosen as a suitor. At the club, Adriana and the stranger swear a magical blood oath to court in secret.
The oath breaks their glamours, revealing that they are each other’s greatest enemies.
Memories and Malice (Chapters 24–31)
After the reveal, Axton and Adriana realize their memories of the All-Sinners Ball from a decade ago are contradictory. They suspect magical interference.
Axton takes Adriana to a secret cave during a blizzard, where they give in to their long-simmering passion while the dragon threat grows.
The Hex Unveiled (Chapters 32–40)
The bridal competition reaches a fever pitch with a kissing contest, which Axton uses to test his connection with Adriana under a blindfold.
Adriana investigates the Hexed Quill and initially suspects her friend Ryleigh. Clues eventually lead back to her own family’s home.
The Final Ascent (Chapters 41–55)
During the final ball, Adriana learns that Eden used the quill as a child to keep her from leaving. Adriana burns the hexed parchment as dragons attack the castle, restoring the world’s memory and ending the madness.
Axton and Adriana choose each other publicly and secure a future based on truth.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Throne of Secrets have a happy ending?
Throne of Secrets ends with a happy resolution: the hex is broken, the dragons are cured, and Axton and Adriana become formally engaged.
Who ends up together in Throne of Secrets?
Prince Gabriel Axton and journalist Adriana Saint Lucent end up together in Throne of Secrets. After their memories are restored, they choose each other publicly and announce their engagement.
What causes the dragon attacks in Throne of Secrets?
The dragon attacks in Throne of Secrets are caused by the Hexed Quill’s dark magic. Eden Saint Lucent used the quill as a child, and the false reality it created required so much power that it drove the ice dragons into madness.
Is Throne of Secrets a standalone?
Throne of Secrets is the second book in the Prince of Sin series by Kerri Maniscalco. It follows Throne of the Fallen and shares the same universe as the Kingdom of the Wicked series. .
