10 Days to Win His Majesty, or Die

Erin wants to go home. She is chief appraiser at an auction house, and she has woken up inside a palace novel. The condition for getting back is that within ten days she must take the original heroine's place, win Emperor Adrian, and be made empress. She takes the job for an easy one. It stops being easy when she works out that Adrian's lovesick manner is an act. He plays the fool while he lays plans to wipe out the men plotting against him. The gentle consort in his palace is a piece placed there by the prince behind the plot, and the affection on show at court sits on top of a fight for control. The consort's people come after Erin to kill her. While she is running she swallows the Frost Toad, the only thing that can hold down the heat poison in Adrian's body. From that moment the two of them share breath and pain, and if one dies so does the other. Adrian trusts almost no one, but now he has to keep her alive, and the two of them get through each crisis by leaning on each other. The prince stirs up trouble on the border as cover for his rising. Erin sees what he is doing, and she and Adrian set traps for his people together.