Broken Dove (2026) is a dystopian romantasy novel by Dani Francis and the second installment in the New York Times bestselling Silver Elite series. The story follows Wren Darlington, a powerful psychic operative, after she escapes the totalitarian regime of the Command to join the Uprising rebels at their hidden mountain fortress. As Wren grapples with the destructive secret that her parents were traitors to the cause, she must navigate a treacherous new world without her lover, Cross Redden, who happens to be the brother of the Command’s new general. Caught between competing loyalties and a world run on lies and secrets, Wren and Cross battle themes such as the Impossibility of Moral Purity in War, The Corrosive Effect of Deception on Trust, and Personal Survival Versus Ideological Loyalty.

Writing under the pseudonym Dani Francis, the author situates Broken Dove within the dystopian romantasy subgenre, in the vein of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games series. Dystopian romantasy combines a high-stakes military setting with a prominent romance plot and magical elements. The world of the novel is structured around a totalitarian military regime that uses propaganda techniques to maintain its power and persecute a psychically gifted minority known as the “Aberrant” or “Mods.” By depicting state-sanctioned violence, labor camps, and public executions, the novel draws clear parallels with 20th-century authoritarian states, examining how dehumanizing rhetoric is used to justify oppression and control.

This guide is based on the 2026 Del Rey edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, physical abuse, child abuse, sexual violence, death by suicide, and death.

Plot Summary

Cross Redden, the son of General Merrick Redden, the recently-retired leader of the Command, is imprisoned by his own brothers, Travis and Roe, for helping his girlfriend Wren Darlington escape the ruling regime. Cross and Wren are on the opposite sides of an ideological and social divide: Cross is supposedly a Prime (a person without psychic abilities) while Wren is a Mod, possessing special skills. The ruling Command persecutes Mods, whom it believes are aberrations. However, only Wren knows the secret that Cross, too, is a Mod. In Book 1 of the series, Merrick Redden’s mind was destroyed by Mods to stop his atrocities, deepening the war between Primes and Mods, leaving Travis the new general.

Wren flees the Command with the help of a Prime soldier, Xavier Ford, Cross’s best friend. Apart from telepathy, Wren has the rare gift of incitement, through which she can force another person to carry out her will. Wren and Xavier travel through the desolate Blacklands to the Uprising’s (the Mod rebel faction) secret base at Blue Dagger mountain. There, Wren is shocked to discover that her friend Kaine Sutler, whom she believed to be dead, is actually Grayson “Gray” Blake, a legendary Uprising pilot. Like Wren, Gray turns out to be a Mod, though the exact nature of his abilities is unknown for most of the novel. While Xavier is imprisoned for being a Company soldier, Wren is introduced to the Uprising’s leadership council, the Authority. Apart from Gray, the Authority comprises of a stern woman named Adrienne, and Kallister, the identical twin of Wren’s deceased guardian, Uncle Jim.

Wren harbors a destructive secret passed to her in a letter from Jim: Her biological parents, Marina Serrano and Jake Hess, were the infamous “Tin Block Traitors” who helped the Company (the current rulers of Wren’s society) orchestrate the Valterra Ridge massacre, which killed hundreds of Mods. Meanwhile, Cross and Wren communicate with each other telepathically, reassuring each other that they are fine. Cross hides the fact of his imprisonment from Wren to protect her. Cross’s brothers are unaware that he and Wren have been communicating telepathically as “Wolf” and “Daisy” since they were children, forming a bond long before they met in person at the Silver Elite unit.

At Blue Dagger base, Wren undergoes a “disclosure” with the Authority, revealing her abilities of telepathy, mind-reading, projection, and incitement, which are amplified by a “bloodmark” on her thigh. In private, Kallister reveals he is a “precog” (able to see the future) and knows Wren’s true identity (as Stella Haas, daughter of the Tin Block murderers) but promises to keep it secret, granting her access to her mother’s confidential file. On Kallister’s advice, Wren begins training her uncontrolled incitement abilities with Hawkins Jost, the only other known inciter on Blue Dagger, learning to harness the “gold” frequency associated with the power to physically manipulate others. After Wren successfully advocates for Xavier, he is released into her custody with a tracker.

Wren is aware that most Uprising members are suspicious of her because of her feared incitement ability, and her time as a Silver Elite member. Meanwhile, General Travis Redden broadcasts a formal declaration of war, vowing to eradicate all “Aberrant” Mods. Wren also makes a startling discovery about Adrienne: Adrienne is a “corrupter,” able to permanently rewire minds, and was responsible for destroying the minds of both the former General and his wife, Vinessa, who is Cross’s mother. Adrienne insists that she used the ability only because it was necessary for her larger cause, and would never use it on a large population of civilians.

Wren finally meets Cross in secret with Gray’s help. They enjoy a passionate reunion, though Wren is horrified to see the bruises on Cross’s body, revealing that he was beaten up in the custody of his brothers. Cross also tells Wren that he has been stripped of his command of Silver Elite and is now under his brother’s constant surveillance. Wren entreats Cross to come to Blue Dagger with her, but Cross tells her he cannot leave his mother, whose mind has been corrupted. Wren and Cross argue, each convinced of the righteousness of their “side.”

After returning to Blue Dagger, Wren forms new friendships with the Mods Saint, Mako, Fiona, and Fiona’s teenage daughter Poppy, though Evlynne, a pilot like Gray, remains acrimonious towards Wren. Wren also becomes better at harboring her incitement abilities. After she receives intel from Cross that his brothers are planning to shift imprisoned Mods from a facility at a salt mine, but not before culling their numbers to a suitable population, Wren plans a rescue mission. Cross is on-site at the mine and secretly provides Wren with an override code to free Tana Archer, her best friend, also imprisoned at the facility. During the chaotic extraction, an essential piece of intelligence proves false: A force field is active, resulting in the death of an operative named Neema.

Cross and Wren meet briefly before Wren flies out, but their interaction pushes their relationship to breaking point. Cross warns Wren that the Uprising is not the morally unassailable force she believes: he has discovered secret hospital wards filled with Primes, including children, whose minds have been corrupted, and he suspects Adrienne is responsible for doing this on a mass scale. Cross thinks a section of Mods are using their abilities to decimate the Prime population. Once again, he asks Wren to flee the Continent with him so they can pursue a life free from politics. Wren refuses to believe that Adrienne would corrupt innocent civilians en masse. She tells Cross that she cannot accompany him, choosing her loyalty to the Uprising, and they end their relationship.

Heartbroken and isolated, Wren finds solace in a new, tentative romance with Gray. She often thinks of Cross but is unable to communicate with him telepathically, only mentally picking up snatches of his conversations with other people. The thoughts she overhears suggest a new ability, but Wren does not know of any such power. Meanwhile, in retaliation for the Salt Mine rescue, during which sixteen Prime soldiers were killed, Travis Redden publicly executes sixteen civilian Mods in a live broadcast.

Sometime later, Adrienne arranges a secret parley with Travis at Bramble Base, another Uprising facility, to broker peace. Wren is highly suspicious of the parley. True to her fears, the meeting proves a trap. Silver Block forces ambush the base, and Evlynne, Neema’s grieving friend, is revealed as the traitor. She traded the base’s location to Travis in exchange for his promise to protect their son, Fisher, a young boy with telepathy and other powerful, undisclosed Mod abilities. The ambush is a catastrophe, resulting in numerous casualties, including Authority Member Fiona. Teriq, another Mod captain, is captured.

Blaming Adrienne’s reckless pursuit of peace for the disastrous mission, Kallister invokes “Order Five,” a protocol allowing a vote to disband the Authority and grant him sole leadership. The vote passes, and Kallister’s first act is to sentence Adrienne to death for treason. Kallister also betrays Wren’s confidence and tells Gray she is the daughter of the Tin Block murderers, who ordered the massacre of his parents, amongst others. A temporary wedge is drawn between Gray and Wren, further isolating her.

Meanwhile, before Kallister can carry out Adrienne’s death sentence, Adrienne commits suicide by drinking heartroot poison, making Wren her unwilling witness. As Adrienne dies, Kallister’s men drug and abduct Wren. Kallister takes Wren to the ruins of Valterra Ridge, the site of her parents’ treason. He reveals that he has been secretly working with Hawkins, who is not just an inciter but also a corrupter, to break the minds of Prime citizens. Wren realizes that Cross was right about the wards of corrupted children, although it was not Adrienne who was behind the corruption. Kallister confesses to orchestrating the entire chain of events—including allowing the Bramble Base disaster to happen. Believing Wren is a threat to his new regime, he prepares to execute her. At that moment, Cross arrives in a stolen helicopter. He explains that his lifelong telepathic connection to Wren had suddenly vanished months prior, leading him to believe she was dead, but an instinctual pull drew him to her location. Wren, however, reveals that she can still feel his energy signature. As Cross’s helicopter descends, Kallister shoots Wren in the arm and flees in his own hovercraft. Cross pulls Wren from the cliff edge, but the helicopter has been damaged in the fight. It quickly leaks fuel and crashes into the ocean.

Clinging to the wreckage in the churning water, Cross and Wren survive the crash They are left with the terrifying mystery of what, or who, has the power to sever their connection and why Cross was deliberately led to believe she was gone.