A Weaver's Heart

The King's Weaver #2

by Novae Caelum

When my mother betrothed me against my will, I never expected to find love.

I never expected to love him.

He's my king, and I'm his weaver, and we're taking our kingdom into a better future.

But weavers are going missing on the borders, and our enemies haven't been quiet.

This time, their target is me.

And this time, my life isn't just mine or his but our future child's, too.

Now, with the Harvest Feast approaching, and my mother descending to renew her alliance with Barella, I'll need all of my willpower.

Because we braved the vortex side by side, but now we'll have to face the storm trying to drive us apart.

A Weaver's Heart is the sequel to The King's Weaver, with a genderfluid MC and her/his bi (not so tyrant) king, a trans pregnancy, an overbearing mother, a kingdom in peril, a best friend with a new crush, and all the willpower magic.

Genres: Fantasy

532 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2025

About the author

Novae Caelum (he/they/starself) loves royalty, cloak and dagger, and sparkly queer magic, and will unapologetically write things with all three.

Reviews

[Isa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author uses Ai :(

[Meri]

DNF, returned and refunded because I found out author uses AI in the middle of reading it. Very disappointing.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

So, one of my least favorite tropes is when people in a relationship don't. fucking. talk. to. each. other.

The first, like, quarter of this book is Caleb/Irava and Torovan are keeping secrets from each other and not talking through their respective issues. Yes, there are reasons. There always are. But it was annoying and, of course, the story doesn't really start until they finally talk to each other and we're able to move forward.

Aside from that - the pacing of this book was clunky AF.

The first book had short, snappy chapters that kept me turning pages. This one still had the short chapters... but the snappiness was gone. Instead there was so much repetition. Internal monologues just going in endless fucking circles, over and over and over again.

Far too much time spent with Caleb/Irava and their body issues and being pregnant. Like, your kingdom is in literal fucking danger - maybe figure it out on your own time?

I did like the bits with Caleb/Irava's mother. She was a lot more understanding than I expected her to be, but I also understand a loving but sometimes fraught child/mother relationship.

Also, Caleb/Irava is once again slow on the uptake about who they can trust and who they can't.

But mostly it was the pacing and the repetition that made this a slog for me.

Like, as an example, they're in a big battle at the end, right? Up against a metaphoric wall, and things are falling apart, and there are, like, three fucking chapters of Caleb's internal monologuing and his thinking about how badly everything is going, and how this needs to end NOW.

And then a chapter jumping to Torovan's POV, and then back to Caleb still thinking about how everything's going to shit, and he really needs to do something.

Like, oh dear gods - I don't want to read 30 pages of how you need to do something, I need you to figure it out and get there, ok?

I did like the ending - which is why I rounded up instead of down - and am glad that Nikolai was at least killed this time, though there's still a lot of open threads with the mother situation. But, then, even the last chapter fizzled a little after everything we went through to get there.

Also - stop using AI to write.

[Emily Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a bit to read this one. While the concept of the weaver magic has some real potential, I feel like the story It self just kinda fell flat. Definitely more drawn out than it needed to be. I get that the main core of the book is all about Caleb and their gender identity, I just feel like it was focused on in a really mundane way. It was made worse by the miscommunication trope all throughout the book. The. The ending where they face Nikolai, the whole fight just felt lackluster. It kinda felt like a my little pony friendship is magic moment. I was expecting Caleb or Tor to have some wild magic awakening but instead it was just forgiveness. Not my favorite read but def not the worst. I’ll probably still read the third one.

[Victoria Falzo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author uses AI to write & create their covers/promotional material. Their justification is (or at least used to be at one point) something along the lines of they wanted to represent minorities, but it was too difficult to attempt to try to find individuals from minorities to work with them, so they use AI to be more inclusive. Claiming that you are supporting people of minority communities and then turning to AI to make things for you is not the way to go.

[Melissa Geary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book as much as I loved the first, but it was so repetitive that I really struggled to continue to pick it up. I understand the writer was conveying the fears and anxieties of the characters but most of the internal dialogue was just the same sentiments repeated or rephrased throughout. I’ll continue reading the series as I hope with how this book ended we’ll move on to new plot and content but this was quite the disappointment after how much I enjoyed the first book.

[Libby Beyreis · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I wasn't enjoying the story, it felt like an incredibly drawn-out anxiety attack that had very little actual plot moving forward. I got part of the way through and thought I would look on Goodreads and see what other people thought and find out if maybe the story picked up later on. That's when I found out that this author uses AI to write their books. I'm not interested in reading something that was generated using stolen work from other authors.

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like that first one
this one the gender identity felt silly. I was more 2 people in one body then two genders...
I really couldn't get over the invisible baby bump..
it's a magic universe there is no other way a magic couple that creates things out of nothing can do pregnancy????
the end was lack lust.. overall BLAAAHHHH

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Overall like the plot and the magic system. But this one felt very redundant. The mass majority of the book was spent with no one communicating with each other and nonstop questioning and doubting themselves. This would have been fine if it wasn’t the constant state of things for 80% of the book.

[Elijah Whisler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good story!

I loved the character growth and how they learn their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. The story resonates well with me as I gained inspiration from Caleb/Irava and Torovan.

[Megan Britton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like these stories. I love the representation and discussion of gender presentation. Some of the emotional, mental worries of characters drag on too much, but the overall fantasy, adventure and character interactions are great. Light romance with no spice.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not as romantically gripping as the first book, it certainly expands the world to a much more epic scale. Glad there’s more books to come

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Rounded up. It always annoys me when the main characters try to hide something from each other in order to protect them when they could've worked together the whole time instead.

[Carol Stedry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The worldbuilding started in the first book and really comes into its own in this book. I loved it!

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF…