Once Upon a Broken Heart

Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber takes place in the world of the New York Times bestselling Caraval series and is followed by The Ballad of Never After (2022). The book plays with fairy tale tropes through one girl’s journey through a magical land of true love, self-discovery, and manipulation. Once Upon a Broken Heart was an instant New York Times bestseller, as well as a Goodreads Choice finalist and an Indie Next pick. Stephanie Garber is the author of the New York and Sunday Times bestselling Caraval Trilogy. She lives in northern California, where she teaches creative writing. This guide follows the 2021 Hodder and Stoughton edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

The events of Once Upon a Broken Heart overlap with some of the events in the Caraval series. Evangeline Fox, the protagonist of Once Upon a Broken Heart, had a brief part in Caraval, and Garber returns to Caraval’s world to tell the story of Evangeline and Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.

At the opening of Once Upon a Broken Heart, Evangeline searches for the church of the Prince of Hearts so she can ask him to stop the wedding of the boy she loves, Luc Navarro, to her stepsister Marisol. Evangeline is sure Luc is under a curse and will love her again once it’s broken. Jacks mocks Evangeline’s heartbreak but agrees to help. In exchange, Evangeline must kiss three people who aren’t Luc at a time of his choosing. Desperate, Evangeline agrees. When she arrives home, she finds the wedding party turned to stone. Evangeline drinks poison to save them, turning herself to stone.

Several weeks later, Evangeline turns back to flesh. While she was stone, the Fates, escaped from their prison and have been wreaking havoc on the land. Evangeline is a hero because her sacrifice inspired many to fight, including the new empress and princess. Luc left, and Marisol is being shunned because people think she’s cursed. Evangeline spends the next few months hoping Luc returns, until she receives a letter from the new royals. They want Evangeline to represent them at Nocte Neverending in the Magnificent North, a ball at which the crown prince will choose a bride. Evangeline agrees and heads north with Marisol, hoping they can both start fresh.

In the North, Evangeline crosses paths with Jacks, who orders her to kiss the prince. Evangeline does, and the prince falls in love with her. Over the next few days, Evangeline feels cared for but also as if the prince is obsessed with her. She confronts Jacks, telling him to undo whatever her kiss did to the prince. Jacks will let her use the third kiss to do so, but first, he has her use the second on a prominent matriarch, who reveals a prophecy that seems to be about Evangeline. The prophecy says Evangeline will open the Valory Arch, which is rumored to hold great power, and Jacks confesses he has manipulated Evangeline because he believed she was the girl in the prophecy.

Evangeline uses her third kiss on the prince, and shortly after, he dies. Jacks rescues Evangeline from swarming guards, and the two visit Chaos, a vampire who tells them a woman came looking for poison ingredients not long ago. As Evangeline and Jacks leave Chaos’s domain, several changelings begin their hunt for human flesh, one of which is Luc. He tells Evangeline that Marisol put a love spell on him before lunging to bite her. Jacks takes the bite instead, and Evangeline spends the rest of the night trying to keep Jacks from biting her.

At sunrise, Jacks’s vampire cravings ebb, leaving him exhausted. Evangeline drags him back to the city, where she stumbles across his apartment. There, she learns Marisol is newly engaged to the dead prince’s brother, which makes Evangeline wonder if Marisol murdered the prince. Evangeline makes a truth potion and goes to the palace, where she runs into Marisol. Marisol lies to make herself look like a victim. Evangeline believes her and reveals the deal with Jacks that ruined Marisol’s wedding to Luc. Marisol reveals her deception and calls for the guards.

The guards take Evangeline to the prince’s chamber, where she gets him to drink the truth potion. Under its influence, he can’t lie and confesses he murdered his brother. The love spell Marisol put on him is also broken, and Evangeline is reinstated as the ruling princess.

On her way to meet Jacks, Evangeline is sidetracked by a guard, who brings her underground where old prince lies, unconscious but very much alive. Evangeline puzzles out the sequence of events, concluding that Jacks has been behind everything and that she can’t trust him. She resolves never to open the Valory Arch for him and to find a way to wake the prince.