Once Upon a Broken Heart Recap

Book facts

Evangeline bargains with Jacks to stop a wedding

Both of Evangeline Fox's parents are dead. She lives with her stepmother and stepsister, Marisol, and loves Luc Navarro. When Luc suddenly agrees to marry Marisol, Evangeline suspects magic has changed his feelings.

She finds the church of the Prince of Hearts and asks him to stop the wedding. The Fate introduces himself as Jacks. He agrees in exchange for three kisses that Evangeline must give to people of his choosing, at times he specifies. The recipients cannot include Luc.

Jacks marks their bargain with three broken-heart scars on her wrist. He stops the wedding by turning the bride, groom, and guests to stone. Horrified, Evangeline drinks a potion that lets her take their place. They are restored, and she becomes a statue.

She wakes six weeks later and is sent north

Evangeline returns to flesh after six weeks. During that time, the Fates escaped imprisonment and threatened the empire. Her sacrifice became a public example of courage, and she is celebrated as a hero even though she has concealed why the wedding guests were cursed.

Marisol tells her that a second attempt to marry Luc ended with him being attacked by a wolf. Luc has since left with his family. Marisol is being called the Cursed Bride.

Empress Scarlett and Princess Donatella ask Evangeline to represent them at Nocte Neverending, where the northern prince will choose a bride. Evangeline accepts and brings Marisol so they can both begin again. She also hopes to learn more about the North, where her mother came from.

The first owed kiss makes Apollo fixate on Evangeline

In the North, Evangeline meets LaLa at a royal event and finds that Jacks is already part of Prince Apollo's circle. Jacks orders her to kiss Apollo before the evening ends. He places his blood on her lips and threatens consequences if she refuses.

Evangeline kisses Apollo, who abruptly becomes intensely attached to her. At Nocte Neverending, he proposes, and she accepts. Apollo showers her with gifts and has her move into Wolf Hall.

Gossip sheets revive Marisol's reputation as the Cursed Bride. Evangeline persuades Apollo to stop those stories, but she also begins suspecting Marisol has been using spells. Her doubts about Apollo grow because his devotion has become an obsession after only a brief acquaintance.

The Fortuna visit reveals the prophecy

Evangeline confronts Jacks about Apollo's feelings. Jacks admits he caused the obsession and promises to undo it after she marries Apollo. He refuses to explain why the marriage matters to him.

For the second owed kiss, he takes her to the Fortuna matriarch. Evangeline kisses the woman's cheek, and the initially hostile matriarch becomes cooperative long enough to show them her vaults.

There, Evangeline hears a prophecy about a rose-gold-haired girl who will become both peasant and princess, be falsely accused, and willingly give her blood to open the Valory Arch. The matriarch realizes Evangeline fits the description and attacks her. Jacks stops her.

Evangeline researches the Valors, the North's former ruling family, but their stories are concealed behind a locked door in the royal library. Apollo tells her the Valory Arch may contain treasure or imprison something dangerous. The prophecy serves as its lock.

Evangeline marries Apollo, who collapses after she kisses him

Evangeline goes through with the wedding so Jacks will release Apollo from the manufactured feelings. Apollo's estranged brother, Tiberius, returns for the celebration. He questions whether Evangeline truly loves Apollo.

After the ceremony, Jacks again puts blood on Evangeline's lips, saying this kiss will free Apollo from the spell. His blood tastes bitter this time. Evangeline finds Apollo in their suite, where he has been applying oil, and kisses him. He collapses and appears to die.

Guards accuse her of murder. Jacks gets her away and says he had controlled Apollo's emotions directly: the earlier kisses themselves had not created Apollo's love.

Evangeline also cannot stop crying. Jacks realizes she has been poisoned and takes her to LaLa, who makes an antidote. LaLa is the Fate called the Unwed Bride, and her tears were used as the poison. She had sold vials in the past and does not know who used them against Evangeline.

The search for the poison leads to Chaos and Luc

Evangeline agrees to work with Jacks to find the apparent killer and clear their names. He takes her to Chaos, a vampire known as the Lord of Spies and Assassins. Chaos wears an enchanted helmet that prevents him from biting.

Chaos reports that a woman recently sought a rare magical oil. Evangeline also recognizes a dangerous spell book disguised as a cookbook: Marisol had a copy.

In the vampire cages, Evangeline finds Luc. He says he came north seeking vampire venom to heal his wolf injuries. He also says Marisol used a love spell on him and later abandoned him.

Evangeline helps release him despite Jacks's warning. Luc immediately attacks her. Jacks takes the bite and breaks Luc's neck, leaving him incapacitated. Evangeline stops Jacks from beheading him. The bite has infected Jacks with venom that will turn him into a vampire if he feeds before dawn.

Evangeline keeps Jacks from completing the transformation

They hide in a mausoleum protected by angel's tears flowers. At Jacks's instruction, Evangeline uses her blood to open a locked gate. She realizes she has an ability connected to the prophecy.

During the night, Jacks tells her about Donatella, whose survival after his kiss made him believe she was his true love. She chose someone else. Jacks also points out that Luc never took Evangeline's place as a statue, although the means of saving her would have been available to him.

Jacks breaks out from behind the gate and comes close to biting Evangeline. She keeps him distracted until sunrise, and the venom's transforming effects pass. He is then overcome by exhaustion.

Evangeline gets him into a hidden residence that turns out to be his. There, she reads that Marisol is about to marry Tiberius, who is now expected to rule after Apollo's death.

Marisol admits cursing Luc and betrays Evangeline

Evangeline finds a love spell whose ingredients explain the oil inquiry and the disastrous wedding attempts. A truth serum can break that kind of enchantment. Suspecting Tiberius has been bewitched, she brews it and leaves it in his room while Jacks sleeps.

Marisol encounters her before she can leave the palace. Marisol admits using a love spell on Luc but denies poisoning anyone or enchanting Tiberius. Evangeline believes her and admits that her own bargain with Jacks caused the original wedding party to turn to stone.

Marisol responds by calling the guards and presenting Evangeline as Apollo's killer. When Tiberius arrives, his behavior confirms Evangeline's suspicion that he is under a love spell.

The truth serum exposes Tiberius's attack

Tiberius drinks the serum and questions Evangeline. He reveals that he belongs to the Protectorate, a group committed to keeping the Valory Arch closed. He wants Evangeline dead because she is the prophesied key.

As the serum takes effect, he becomes unable to lie. Evangeline persuades him to summon guards and state the charges against her before having her killed. He cannot truthfully accuse her and instead confesses that he killed Apollo.

Tiberius explains that he used a Fate's tears intending to poison Evangeline, believing they would affect only women. He thinks Apollo died by mistake. The guards hear the confession and arrest him. His enchantment toward Marisol breaks, and she is confined to her room.

Evangeline is cleared and restored to her position as Apollo's wife and the North's princess.

Apollo is alive, and Evangeline suspects Jacks's larger plan

Before Evangeline can meet Jacks, Apollo's guard Havelock takes her to a concealed chamber with Phaedra of the Damned. Phaedra can read the secrets of the dead, but could not read Apollo's. That failure helped them discover that he is alive in a suspended state.

Evangeline kisses Apollo, but he does not wake. She realizes that his symptoms were different from her own poisoning. Tiberius's confession does not explain everything.

She suspects Jacks used his bitter blood to suspend Apollo, turn her into a fugitive, and fulfill another condition of the prophecy. Keeping Apollo incapacitated would also give Jacks a reason to demand her willing help with the arch.

Evangeline resolves to seek a cure without giving Jacks what he wants. The last scene returns to the long-locked, wolf-marked library door as it begins to stir.

Where the main characters end up

Continue the series

Next: The Ballad of Never After recap.

Series guide · Reading order · All book recaps

Plot references: SuperSummary's overview and chapter guides, including the bargain, the prophecy, the wedding, Chaos and Luc, and the ending; Book Series Recaps; Recaptains. Published October 27, 2026.