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A STORYHOUSE NOVEL

The Carnival of Dreams

BOOK ONE OF THE CURSED HEARTS SERIES

Imagine, Dear Dreamer, forgetting you were ment to wake....

A gothic ROMANTASY OF desire, illusion, and the dangerous moment when the life planned for you no longer fits.

Arabella Hawthorn has spent her life becoming exactly who she was supposed to be.

Then the Carnival of Dreams appears.

Beautiful. Impossible. Strangely familiar.

Inside its gates, desire becomes dangerous, memories refuse to stay buried, and a man bound to the carnival’s curse seems to know exactly what Arabella wants—even when she doesn’t.

The carnival does not simply tempt its guests.

It learns them. Then it keeps them.

STEP PAST THE GATES

Enter the carnival at the forest edge

Imagine spending your life becoming exactly who you’re supposed to be.

Then the Carnival of Dreams appears just beyond the edge of town.

Its tents bloom beneath tall, moss-draped trees. Performers smile as though they have been waiting for you. Mirrors return memories you may not remember losing. And at the center of it all is Sebastian—a man bound to the carnival’s curse and far too familiar with the desires you’ve spent years learning to ignore.

The deeper you venture inside, the harder it becomes to tell where enchantment ends and choice begins.

Because the carnival does not offer escape.

It offers permission.

And sometimes the most dangerous thing you can discover is that the life you were taught to want is not the only one available to you.

 

The Carnival of Dreams is a gothic romantasy of forbidden attraction, memory, illusion, dangerous bargains, and the terrifying freedom of choosing for yourself.

For readers who love: atmospheric fantasy, haunted romance, dark fairy-tale worlds, morally complicated desire, mysterious curses, and stories that feel like stepping through a mirror after midnight.

The Cursed Hearts Series

Darkly romantic. Lush with danger. Unsettling by design.  

 

 

The first door into The Cursed Hearts series

The Carnival of Dreams begins a gothic romantasy series about cursed love, fractured memory, hidden worlds, and the choices that won't be ignored.

Each book descends deeper into a different corner of the same mythology—where desire has consequences, love rarely arrives cleanly, and becoming yourself may require losing the version of you everyone else understood.

 

 

 

Book One opens the gates.

What waits beyond–will not let go

From StoryHouse.ink

Stories for people who have always understood themselves better through fiction.

StoryHouse.ink is an independent literary and intellectual property studio creating immersive fiction, original worlds, and story-driven experiences for people who have always understood themselves a little more clearly through fictional lives, metaphor, and story than through the self-help aisle.

Choose your door and discover an entire world waiting just beyond the threshold.

About the Author

Sasha Myrom is the author of The Carnival of Dreams and the founder of StoryHouse.ink. Raised in the Pacific Northwest among deep forests, rushing rivers, and the raw Oregon coastline, she now lives in San Diego with her husband, two children, their dog Moose, and an orange tabby named Cheese—who firmly believes he co-authors everything she writes.

Sasha writes from life, turning memory into metaphor and lived experience into story. Her work often follows the descent: the woman willing to enter darkness, whether internal or external, in order to better understand her own light. Through gothic worlds, complicated desire, mythic echoes, and women standing at the edge of becoming, she writes stories that make room for the parts of ourselves we sometimes recognize first in someone fictional.

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