Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber Book Summary
Check out a summary of the the first book in the new series by Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart. This fairy tale takes place after the Caraval series, so check out that series first. This is just a summary of the main plot lines of the book, so I highly recommend reading the whole book if you haven’t yet.
Refresh yourself on what happened to the wicked Prince of Hearts in Legendary and Finale before you read this summary.
Part 1 Tale of Evangeline Fox
Chapters 1-2
In the city of Valenda, Evangeline Fox finds the hidden door to the church of the Prince of Hearts, and asks him to stop the marriage the love of her life, Luc Navarro, to her stepsister, Marisol. Suddenly, the tall, handsome but tragic Prince of Hearts, Jacks, is behind her and says he’ll stop the wedding in exchange for Evangeline kissing three others at the time and place of his choosing. Evangeline is hesitant to make a deal with a Fate, magical beings known to take more than they give in bargains.
But Evangeline is sure her stepmother, Agnes, put Luc under some kind of spell because Luc definitely loved her and now hasn’t talked to her at all. Evangeline agrees to Jacks’ deal, and then he disappears. When Evangeline makes it back to the wedding, Jacks has turned them all to stone.
Chapters 3-5
Jacks says this was done by another Fate, Poison, who owed him a favor, and the only way to undo it was drink the goblet of poison nearby to take their places. Jacks tries to convince her not to be the hero, but Evangeline drinks it. Then, she turns to stone.
Chapters 6-7
When Evangeline wakes up in Poison’s laboratory six weeks later, he warns her to stay away from Jacks even though she’ll feel a magnetic pull to him because of their bargain. From Marisol, Evangeline finds out that she was stone during the Week of Terror when all the Fates came back and tried to take over the city. Then, Luc got attacked by a wild wolf when him and Marisol tried to get married again two weeks later.
Then, Evangeline finds out Luc left the city in search of a healer after the wolf attack, and her stepmother sold her beloved father’s curiosity shop in the city. When her step mother tries to find suitors for Evangeline because of her newfound fame, Evangeline refuses. Her stepmother also shows Evangeline a very real love letter Luc wrote to Marisol making Evangeline think maybe Luc never loved her.
Chapters 8-10
Evangeline gets a letter from the empress, Scarlett Dragna, asking her to come for tea. At tea, Scarlett and her sister Donatella ask Evangeline to attend Nocte Neverending, a ball in the Magnificent North where Prince Apollo Acadian will pick his bride, as a representative for them since neither of the sisters can go. Since her mother was from the Magnificent North, Evangeline agrees and chooses to take Marisol with her.
Part 2 The Magnificent North
Chapters 11-13
After a two week journey by sea, Evangeline and Marisol reach the Magnificat North, and Evangeline finds it just as magical and charms as her mom said. That night, just Evangeline attends a dinner to meet the prince, and she runs into Jacks, who’s one of Prince Apollo’s confidantes. But when Jacks notices Evangeline, he says the first person she has to kiss for her first kiss of the deal is Prince Apollo tonight at the party or she’ll die as part of their bargain.
Chapters 14-16
When Evangeline gets her private audience with Apollo, she kisses him which turns out to the best kiss she’s ever had. Then, Jacks pulls her away before it goes on too long. The next day she’s exploring the city when it starts to get dark and a handsome soldier she met at the party last night shows up. He seems friendly, but tells her that it’s not safe for her to be here, and then suddenly he’s gone when Evangeline turns her back.
Chapters 16-18
The newspaper writes that Marisol is the Cursed Bride to avoid who’s trying to put a spell on Evangeline, but Evangeline convinces her to go to the ball anyways even though Evangeline starts doubting Marisol’s intentions. At the ball, Prince Apollo dances with Princess Serendipity, a childhood friend, and Evangeline makes friends with another girl fighting for the princes attention named LaLa. Then, Apollo comes over to Evangeline and proposes, so she accepts.
Chapters 19-24
The next morning, Marisol tells Evangeline she danced with Jacks at the ball. Then, Apollo shows up thinking Evangeline is in danger because the newspaper reported the other girls wanted to hurt Evangeline for winning Apollo so fast. Apollo has Evangeline move into his palace and gifts her a wedding dress, a bathtub of jewels, and a stable of horses.
Chapters 25-26
Evangeline begins to feel like there’s something unnatural about Apollos love for her, so she confronts Jacks. After he admits that Apollo is under a spell, he also admits Apollo will die from grief if Evangeline breaks off the engagement. Because Jacks needs the wedding to happen but won’t say why, he promises to take the spell off Apollo after the wedding that’s happening in a few days.
Chapters 27-28
As they pull up to a large house, Evangeline tells Jacks to stay away from Marisol, but he says that Evangeline should stay away from her, too. When they enter the house, Jacks says as part of the deal, Evangeline has to kiss Lady Fortuna (whose daughter Thessaly was a favorite to marry Apollo) on the hand or cheek. Inside, Lady Fortuna starts threatening them, but as soon as Evangeline kisses her cheek, she turns sweet.
At Jacks instructions Evangeline gets Lady Fortuna to show them to the family vault which contains a magical arch that Jacks says was supposed to be destroyed. The arch was made by the Valors, the first magical rulers of the North, who were beheaded when the people thought they were growing too powerful. Inside the arch is the vault where Jacks admits he’s looking for a collection of stone, but Lady Fortuna’s spell starts wearing off when she starts ranting that Evangeline is someone from a prophecy who can open the Valory Arch.
When Lady Fortuna tries to kill Evangeline because the arch should never be opened, Jacks knocks Lady Fortuna out.
Chapters 29-30
Back at the palace, Evangeline learns that all the information about the Valors and the prophecy are behind a locked door that no one’s been able to happen, so she asks Apollo about it. He tells her in the first version of the story the Valors made the Valory arch as a gateway to a prison of sorts holding in something magical they made that’s very dangerous. The key to open the arch is the words of a prophecy coming true, but the arch was broken and pieces separated and lost.
In the second version, the Valory arch was the opening to a treasure chest of sorts that holds magical objects that the Valors created, but again the pieces of the arch are missing. Then, Evangeline feels bad the curse will lift from Apollo tomorrow after the marriage, so she lets him stay and hold her all night.
Chapters 31-33
Evangeline is nervous about the curse wearing off, but after they’re married and dancing, Apollo still seems to be madly in love with her. Then, Apollos brother Tiberius shows up, and Apollo almost fights him with his sword until Evangeline convinces him to stop. Evangeline dances with Tiberius who’s says he’ll tell her about his feud with Apollo one day.
Chapters 34-36
When Apollo wants to leave the reception with her, Evangeline finds Jacks to stop the magic on Apollo, but Jacks tries to convince her she’s making a big mistake. Evangeline meets Apollo in their room and, when they kiss, the magic on Apollo stops. At first he looks hurt, but then he turns gray and falls over dead.
When the guards hear her screaming, they come and tie her up for murdering Apollo, but Jacks shows up making the guards leave and untying Evangeline who can’t stop crying. Jacks admits her kisses weren’t magic it was just his ability as a Fate to control people’s emotions that made Apollo love her, so he thinks they have been poisoned partially with another Fate’s poisonous tears. As Jacks carries her away, he brings her to a girl for an antidote so Evangeline won’t die, but Jacks also has to hold her in his arms for twenty four hours for it to work.
Part 3 Chaos
Chapters 37-38
When Evangeline wakes in Jacks’ arms in LaLa’s flat, she finds out LaLa is also a Fate, the Unwed Bride, who’s tears are poison (she sold off a few bottles ages ago), and made the antidote for Evangeline. They see in the newspaper that they’re speculating it was Jacks and Evangeline behind the murder, so Evangeline gets Jacks to agree to partner with her to find the true murderer.
Jacks tells her they’re going to visit Chaos, another Fate called the Lord of Spies and Assassins, and LaLa warns Evangeline that Jacks’s kiss is fatal to all but one girl that he always feels the urge to look for. LaLa also warns her that Chaos is a vampire and a murderer. Before they leave, Evangeline sees Jacks reading a book that she also saw Marisol reading, and Jacks said it’s a dangerous spell book.
Chapters 39-41
In a graveyard, they enter Chaos’ place where Jacks tells Evangeline not to make eye contact with the vampires, but when she meets Chaos he’s the handsome soldier she’d met at the ball and in the city. Chaos tells them his assassins weren’t hired for this, but a woman bought an oil that becomes poisonous when combined with a spell. On the way out, they pass humans in cages who are in the process of turning into vampires, and one of them is Luc.
Chapters 42-43
While he’s stuck in the cage, Luc tells Evangeline that Marisol put him under a spell to love her, and he doesn’t want to be a vampire it was just the only way to heal his scars. Because she feels bad about everything that’s happened to him, she gives him a sword off the wall that he uses to break out of the cage, and he immediately tries to bite her. Suddenly, Jacks pushes her out of the way only to be bitten by Luc himself, but Jacks snaps his neck which doesn’t kill him because Luc’s a full vampire now.
As they hurry out, they realize that Jacks was infected with vampire venom and will turn into a vampire if he bites a human before dawn. He keeps asking Evangeline to run so he doesn’t bite her, but she doesn’t want to leave him like this. While Jacks uses all his strength not to bite her, Evangeline finds a way to open a magic lock in a mausoleum with her blood and locks Jacks inside until morning.
Chapters 44-45
To distract Jacks by talking, Evangeline asks about rumors she’s heard that Jacks was in love with Princess Donatella. Jacks admits that she made his heart beat again, but then she fell in love with someone else and stabbed him. Evangeline tells him about meeting Luc, but Jacks says they wouldn’t be a good match anyways.
Then, Jacks gives Evangeline his dagger before he breaks the lock and starts gently touching Evangeline’s neck. As he’s kissing her neck, Jacks tries to get her to leave, but Evangeline says she trusts him and reminds him that he still needs her for the Valory Arch. This keeps him from biting her, but he stays holding her until the sun comes up and the venom wears off.
After the venom wears off, Jacks becomes sleepy, and Evangeline has to help carry him somewhere to hide because they see a wanted poster that says she’s a murderer. When he’s half asleep, Jacks admits that he’s the one who had Poison help Evangeline and suggest to the empress to send her here.
Chapters 46-47
While wandering the city hearing a small bell, Evangeline uses a drop of her blood to magically open the door below the bell, and her and Jacks are in somebody’s private library. Evangeline feels Jacks heartbeat as he lays him on a sofa which is only supposed to happen when he finds his one true love, but he won’t wake up for Evangeline to ask about it. Looking around the library, she discovers this is Jacks’ place from all his mail here.
While she’s looking at the books, she finds a book she saw Marisol had, and inside the book is a love potion spell with a warning that the spell may cause disastrous wedding days and no happy endings. She also finds a truth spell to get rid of love spells because today’s newspaper had a headline that Marisol was getting married to Prince Tiberius, the new crown prince.
Chapters 48-50
All while Jacks is sleeping, Evangeline makes the truth potion and sneaks it into the Tiberius’ room in the palace disguised as a drink. On her way out of the hidden passages, Evangeline runs into Marisol, and Evangeline confronts her about the love potions. Marisol apologizes for Luc and tells Evangeline she was jealous of her because of all the pressure her mother put on her to marry and then didn’t know how to undo the spell.
But Marisol says she never did anything to Apollo or Tiberius. After Evangeline forgives her, Evangeline confesses that she had Jacks stop the first wedding. Marisol gets so mad that she turns Evangeline over to the guards.
Chapters 51-52
Tiberius takes her into his room for interrogation alone, and he starts drinking the truth serum that Evangeline had put in there. He ends up coming out from a love spell Marisol had on him, but also confesses he’s member of the Protectorate, the society who keeps the arch apart, that thinks she’s the one the prophecy of the Valory Arch is talking about because of her naturally pink hair. Evangeline calls the guards in, and Tiberius accidentally admits that he killed Apollo with the poisonous tears because he thought they only worked on women and was hoping to kill Evangeline.
Chapters 53-54
After the guards arrest Tiberius, Evangeline wonders if someone else used a different poison on Apollo because he never cried like she did from the tears. Then, a guard takes Evangeline to a secret chamber where she finds Apollo’s body, not dead but unable to be woken up.
Read the Full Book Review
Now that you’re reminded of what happened in the book, check out my full book review. I have even more recommendations if you liked this book or any that are part of the Caraval universe. Read this before moving on to the next book in the Broken Heart series, Ballad of Never After.
