In haunted Napoleonic France, banshee Elspeth battles deadly secrets and ghostly forces to protect her soul and hold onto her faith amid darkness.
My Kick-Ass Back Cover Description:
In a world where death whispers through the trees… can one girl hold onto her soul?
Set in a darkly re-imagined Napoleonic France, this Christian gothic fantasy unfolds in the shadow of Ravenswolde, an elite assassin’s academy hidden deep within a haunted wood. Here, the most gifted (and most ruthless) young people are trained to serve Emperor Napoleon, who has a chilling plan to raise an army of ghosts and conquer the living.
For Elspeth, a banshee who foresees death through her uncontrollable screams but can do nothing to save others from death, Ravenswolde is a prison of temptation and terror. Fresh from the shelter of a nunnery, her strong morals clash with a brutal curriculum where students are taught seduction, deception, and assassination. Each refusal to participate brings her closer to punishment… and eventually, death.
Lucian, the tormented son of the school’s cruel headmistress, is drawn to Elspeth’s purity… and her supernatural power. He wants to possess her gift, but she refuses to yield, even as the shadows press closer and the ghosts of Ravenswolde whisper secrets no one dares speak aloud. As Elspeth faces the ultimate choice, to sacrifice her soul, or lose her life, she must uncover the truth behind Napoleon’s ghostly ambitions and the sinister history of the forest that surrounds them.
Perfect for fans of gothic romance, supernatural suspense, and Regency-era fantasy, Ravenswolde blends Christian allegory, historical intrigue, and paranormal mystery into an unforgettable tale of darkness, faith, and forbidden love.
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The Story Behind the Story
This is one of my craziest stories, if you ask my mother. I get it. It’s not the genre she loves to read. It’s the sort of thing I want to read.
I had a brilliant idea of thrusting a deeply moral girl into a magical assassin’s school in France, surrounded by a haunted wood that wants to mislead you, and of pitting her against a dark soul named Lucian. I have a thing for bad boys with mommy issues, and Lucian fits the bill. He is brooding, dangerous, and amoral, a man who wants to possess Elspeth so that he can benefit off her magic. But she thwarts him at every turn, trying to retain her purity in a world determined to rob it from her.
You can’t imagine how much fun I had writing this book. It drips with sinister atmosphere. The students get points for killing each other, since the school just resurrects you. There is a library full of shadows and secrets and books that write themselves, and Napoleon makes an appearance. But I think mostly I was wrestling with questions about good and evil and the divine; of remaining moral and pure in a world set against you, where it would be advantageous to surrender your values and go along with the culture you are in.
Originally, these two characters came from a novel I wrote in my teens. Like most of my early projects, I had terrific ideas and not a lot of plot, so I had to fashion a new one around them. And it resurrected into a Regency-set tale of life, death, the outer reaches of heaven, and a banshee who can’t save people from their fate, even if she wants to. I love it. This is my creativity at its absolute finest.
