Cooking for the Dark Lord

The most feared warlord on the continent has a problem. His cook just quit. Again.

Winnie Fothergill had the finest kitchen in the capital until one wrong dish ended her career in front of everyone who mattered. Now the only post that will take her sits inside Stonemaw Keep, seat of the Dark Lord of the Ashfell Reaches, a man whose name makes armies reconsider their travel plans.

The pantry is cursed and lies about its contents. The goblin line cooks duel with ladles. The poison taster retired on principle. And the warlord upstairs has been living on bread, black coffee, and spite, because someone in his own court keeps trying to poison him.

Winnie does the one thing nobody in the fortress has dared to do. She treats the Dark Lord like a customer.

Feeding him properly means tasting everything. Tasting everything means catching what the poisoner slips into the sauce. And catching it, course after course, drags a chef with a ruined name into court politics played with real knives, at the side of a man who is nothing like his reputation and exactly as dangerous as it promises.

He conquered nine provinces. She runs a kitchen. Only one of them has ever commanded a goblin brigade through a state dinner, and it shows.

Cooking for the Dark Lord is Book 1 of The Dark Lord's Kitchen: a complete story with no cliffhanger, a slow-burn closed-door romance, found family, real stakes, a villain who has earned his reputation, and a baby dragon who lives in the bread oven because it keeps the sourdough warm.

Low spice. High simmer. Dinner is served.