The Sweetest Fiend — Played by the Piper, Book One

Preview — not a finished-book review. The Sweetest Fiend releases September 22, 2026 from Avon and is available to preorder. This page previews what we know ahead of publication, drawn from the publisher’s announcement and Raven Kennedy’s body of work. We’ll update it with our full review once we’ve read the finished book.

A New Series From the Author of Gild

Raven Kennedy turned a gold-soaked reimagining of the King Midas myth into one of the great dark-romantasy phenomena of the BookTok era. The Plated Prisoner series, beginning with Gild, built an intensely devoted following on the strength of lush, sensory prose, a morally complex captivity narrative, and a slow burn patient enough to span an entire saga. The Sweetest Fiend is Kennedy’s next major undertaking — and for fans who have been waiting to see what she’d do after Auren’s story, it is one of the most anticipated romantasy releases of late 2026.

According to the publisher, The Sweetest Fiend launches a new series called Played by the Piper: a dark fantasy romance of fae magic and captive romance, inspired by the legend of the Pied Piper. After mining the Midas myth so memorably, Kennedy turning her attention to another piece of folklore — the piper who lures away what a town holds most precious — is a tantalizing premise, and exactly the kind of dark fairy-tale retelling her readers crave. It also signals her commitment to the fairy-tale-reimagining space she helped popularize, rather than a move away from it.

What the Premise Suggests

The Pied Piper is a story about debt, enchantment, and the terrible price of a bargain — themes that sit squarely in Kennedy’s wheelhouse. Her work has always been interested in possession, power, and the slow, fraught movement from captivity toward agency, and a Piper retelling offers rich ground for all of it. The promise of “fae magic and captive romance” signals that The Sweetest Fiend will carry forward the morally complex relationship dynamics and the dark, immersive atmosphere that made the Plated Prisoner series so addictive.

As the first book in a new series, it also offers something the Plated Prisoner saga no longer can: a ground-floor entry point. New readers can begin here without catching up on five-plus prior books, while longtime fans get the pleasure of watching Kennedy build a fresh world from the first page.

What We’re Anticipating

Based on her track record, readers can reasonably expect The Sweetest Fiend to deliver Kennedy’s signature strengths: gorgeous, sensory prose; a richly drawn dark-fantasy world; a slow-burning, morally gray romance; and a heroine whose arc bends toward reclaiming her own power. The fairy-tale framework should give the series a strong mythic spine, and the Piper premise hints at enchantment, bargains, and danger from the outset.

A note for new readers: like the Plated Prisoner books, this is dark romantasy. Expect mature themes and a captive-romance premise that trades easy comfort for tension and catharsis. That darkness is the point — it’s the register in which Kennedy does her best work.

For Plated Prisoner Fans

If you loved Auren’s story, The Sweetest Fiend is the most natural next read on the horizon. While you wait, our Plated Prisoner series in order guide and our roundup of books like The Plated Prisoner will keep you in the lush, dark corner of the genre that Kennedy helped define. And if you haven’t yet read the saga that made her name, Gild is the place to start.

The Dark Fairy-Tale Retelling Trend

The Sweetest Fiend lands in the middle of one of romantasy’s most reliable veins: the dark fairy-tale retelling. Readers have shown an enormous appetite for familiar folklore reimagined with adult stakes, morally gray love interests, and a heavier, more sensual atmosphere — from Midas to Hades and Persephone to Beauty and the Beast. Kennedy helped define that space with the Plated Prisoner series, and a Pied Piper retelling is fertile, comparatively untapped ground. The Piper is a darker, stranger figure than most fairy-tale romantic leads — a stranger who collects debts in children and music — which suggests Kennedy is leaning into the genuinely unsettling rather than the merely brooding.

That positioning matters for where the series might sit among its peers. Fans of lush, dark romantasy like Carissa Broadbent’s Crowns of Nyaxia or Jennifer L. Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash are the natural audience here, alongside Kennedy’s existing readers. A new fairy-tale series from an author with this track record doesn’t arrive quietly — it arrives with a built-in readership watching the announcement feeds for every cover reveal and release date.

Why It’s One to Watch

The anticipation around The Sweetest Fiend is a measure of how much goodwill Kennedy built with the Plated Prisoner series. Readers trust her to deliver the specific cocktail they fell for — beauty and darkness, slow burn and high stakes, a heroine worth rooting for through real discomfort — and a fresh fairy-tale series is the most exciting possible follow-up. A Pied Piper retelling from the author who reinvented the Midas myth is precisely the kind of release dark-romantasy readers preorder on announcement. September 2026 can’t come soon enough. We’ll follow up with a full review once the book is out; until then, a preorder locks in a release-day copy of what is poised to be one of the fall’s standout romantasy launches.

Explore More

• Browse our full guide to the best romantasy reads.
• Plated Prisoner Series in Order: Raven Kennedy’s Gild to Gold