Scandal! Gossip! Romance! Queer love triangles! What more could we ask for in the New Year? Fortunately, author Erin Cotter’s latest novel, A Traitorous Heart, promises all of that and more.
Think Bridgerton meets The Three Musketeers as the novel’s protagonist, Jacqueline “Jac” d’Argenson-Aunis becomes swept up in the scandals of the French court amid the vibrant culture of 1500s Paris. Forbidden love? Check. Political intrigue? Yes, please!
As France faces an international conflict that could cripple the country, the only thing to possibly save the nation is a marriage alliance between Princess Margot and King Henry. Enter Jac, the matchmaker. Not an easy task when your best friend (and ex!) happens to be the aforementioned royalty, and Henry doesn’t look too shabby, either.
INTO obtained an excerpt to offer a peek inside one of the most anticipated YA novels of 2025.
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A Traitorous Heart is available for pre-order with a release date of January 7, 2025.
Margot’s salon invitation arrives by eagle.
The bird screams down the hallway, bronze dust motes eddying in the wake of its flight, and drops the gilded envelope at my feet. The royal falconer beckons the bird back with a whistle. The nobles nearby clap as though they’ve witnessed a marvelous trick.
The envelope is not addressed to Jac, but to Artemis, goddess of the hunt and wild animals.
Suddenly the eagle makes sense. It’s a nod to Hermes, the Greek god of messengers and, of course, his winged sandals. I bite the inside of my cheek.
So this is to be a masque as well.
Margot’s salons are renowned for their intellectual rigor as much as her masques are known for their splendor. I have spent many evenings watching the candles melt to puddles as Margot plans them. It’s a dazzling fiction, members of court bringing the story to life.
My teeth sink into my bottom lip. I have no doubt Henry is getting one of these invitations this very moment. Knowing Margot, she ordered it sent during one of his endless meetings with her brother, so all the men of court would know and see that she willingly invited the king of Navarre somewhere.
Which means Henry and I will be together for the first time since we kissed.
And it won’t happen again.
A buzz in my veins grows louder and louder as the night draws closer, the rumors surrounding it growing more and more fantastical. The princess has had ice sculptures of winged horses dragged in from the Alps. She has summoned the pope’s personal musicians from Rome. The notorious professor of philosophy Petrus Ramus himself will lead the symposium dressed as Apollo, the god of education.
When the rumor goes around that Margot has decreed all invited should wear as little as they please to honor both the ripening summer and the goddesses of fertility, I finally crack and ask her what’s true and what isn’t. The mere memory of Henry’s chest crushed against mine still leaves me breathless: the sight of it might be enough to undo me entirely.
Except Margot only laughs merrily and pats my head like I’m one of her dogs. “All shall be revealed, my dearest Jac. I especially hope that you like it!”
I swallow, remembering how vital orgies are in the symposiums.
When the night arrives, I’m strung tighter than a new crossbow as I follow the flickering candles to the Tuileries Garden.
Soaring faux marble, crafted from God knows what, rises from the ground. Bright bursts of laughter and the heady perfume of roses waft from the Olympus hidden beyond high hedges. Two guards flank an elegant arch, their pikes strung with gold ribbons.
“Is the answer . . . God?” Lady Hélène says cautiously.
The guards slam their pikes on the ground. Their faces are hidden by Sphinx-shaped helmets. “That is not the answer, mademoiselle.”
Hélène laughs, snapping out a fan to hide her reddening face behind it. “Why, you can’t keep me here all night! I don’t know the answer and the princess invited me personally.”
“I’m afraid the princess said that no one can enter unless they can answer their riddle.”
I snort and clap a hand over my mouth lest Lady Hélène notices me laughing. Of course Margot has made this a test, locking out everyone too dull to hold their own at the salon.
Maybe Henry won’t get his riddle right, I think wistfully. Then he won’t torment me all night with his sweet, wicked mouth and midnight eyes. Then the chances of me embarrassing myself would go from very high to very low.
The other guard takes my invitation. “It is greater than God and more evil than the devil. The poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it, you’ll die. What is it?”
I tilt my head, considering. “Why, it is nothing.”
The guards step aside to let me pass. Lady Hélène’s envious groan follows me in.
Margot has indeed brought Olympus to Paris. The Tuileries Garden is lit with so many lanterns it appears as though all the stars have tumbled from the sky. Rugs and blankets, everything a pristine white, softly drape over chaises and chairs. Hidden musicians play a lilting, ethereal melody, and the air is already syrupy with honey cakes and the tang of wine. No fewer than a hundred servants must have sweated all night and all day to bring Margot’s vision to life.
The princess herself is like a beacon at the garden’s heart. She reclines on a chaise flanked with golden swans and an obscene number of roses. Her bare feet peep out from the hem of a petal-pink gown so diaphanous, it leaves little to the imagination. She catches my eye and winks. It hits me like a punch. I don’t know whether to be more struck by her beauty or by her boldness. Margot has cast herself as Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty.
I suddenly feel childish in my own Artemis costume, a plain, pale green length of linen wrapped over my body and secured with so many knots, Madame Dupont has already told me to wake her when I return to our chambers so she can help me untie them.
The Valois court, promiscuous enough on its own, needs only the flimsy excuse of a masque and everyone pretending to be someone else for a night to toss away all modesty. Too late, I recall Artemis is also a virgin goddess, and the thought of the sly looks and comments this will bring me all night already makes me flush.
“My attraction to men and women both is a puzzle I cannot solve.”
Jac from Erin Cotter’s “A Traitorous Heart”
My attraction to men and women both is a puzzle I cannot solve. I envy Oncle and Margot for how easily they know themselves. Neither of them understands why I can’t explain what makes my heart gallop for one person and not another.
Margot only blinked at me, bewildered. “But why do you feel anything for men when the world is full of women?”
“Preferring men would make your life simpler,” Oncle told me in his blunt, pragmatic manner when I stammered I was both like and unlike him. “Have you tried not kissing girls?”
I’ve tried to convince myself that it’s a good thing. That I can have whoever I wish and isn’t that delightful?
But it never feels good in moments like these, when the freedom to embrace whomever I want without consequence hangs before me like a gloriously ripe plum, and the longing in my breast grows near painful. At moments like these, it feels like reaching for anyone at all is impossible.
“Mademoiselle, may I tempt you?” A servant offers me a tray of a sparkling wine. Nodding furiously, I seize two glasses and down both at once.♦
Excerpt from A TRAITOROUS HEART by Erin Cotter. Text copyright © 2025. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Between cultural criticisms, overdue homages to history-makers, and hilarious testaments from the world of gay dating, this season is ripe with books by Black LGBTQ+ writers rising to the occasion by telling our stories, forging our representation, and keeping us captivated page after page.
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