Day: July 22, 2020

I was born to hunt. I was born to protect.

But this is the one creature I wasn’t trained to kill.

The fae are sneaking into our little town. They stole my sister. They stole my sight. And now they’re going to steal everything else … unless I stop them. Isn’t that so charming?

I don’t care that they’re pretty. I don’t care that to them lies are truth, power is sustenance, and every action ripples into violence. I’m not going to let their glamor fool me. I’m going to use it to fuel me as I bring them down.

But the town is turning against me, and I’m losing allies one by one. I need a secret weapon to use against them and I need to be brave enough to use it … whatever the cost.

Can one mortal girl stop all of the Faewald?

I’m going to have to try.

Allie Hunter thought all she had to do was make an exchange to buy back her father’s life. She was wrong. Mortals are so often wrong about the Faewald. Usually, that kills them, or mires them in bargains that will suck their life out sip by sip.

With Allie caught in a cage and the Fae she had once tormented her new captor, can she strike the right bargain to save everything she loves?

But though the town she left has changed, some things – the worst things – remain exactly the same.

As Allie battles conflicting loyalties, the censure of the town, and her own broken family, she begins to realize that she might be the only one standing in the way of a war between fae and mortals.

Can she possibly craft a trap good enough to stop the coming fae army?

Allie thought she was saving her own mortality and stopping the Fae incursion when she killed the Balance – one of four Fae roles – and took a particularly essential Fae as her captive.

But Allie didn’t think through the consequences. Now, she has one of the four roles of the Faewald. A role she must fulfill by force of magic.

Worse, the Blood Moon has risen in the Faewald and that means it is the time of the Wild Hunt.

Can Allie find a way to save her people while fleeing the Wild Hunt and fighting against a magic that seeks to control her?

It’s still just one mortal girl against the Faewald, but now the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Allie had an army, allies, and a plan, but with all of those things slipping through here fingers she is being driven further and further toward a path she hadn’t planned to take and a choice she didn’t want to make.

How selfless is Allie, really? Would she give her own life to save her people … and her new husband?

Or will she have to carve out another way forward? And what might that way cost her?

Cowbird Creek has its share of troubled souls. For Tom, a farmer’s son, losing his leg felt like losing his future. Jenny, a young prostitute at Madam Mamie’s parlor house, has never thought she had much future to lose.

But the job Tom is able to get leads him to rediscover a long neglected talent. And both Tom and Jenny have a knack for hitting on new possibilities. Can they, together, find a better path?

This novel, second in a series, returns to the small town of Cowbird Creek, Nebraska, in early 1876, a few months after the conclusion of What Heals the Heart. Several favorite characters from Book 1 make return appearances.

“Truly a romantic tale . . . . Wonderful characters, many with hearts of gold, small-minded characters that truly showed their ignorance and dreams that couldn’t be broken . . . from an author who lets her words feed our imaginations.” – Tome Tender review

“Magnificent story . . . a remarkable historical romance . . . great chemistry between the characters . . . It is always a joy to read this author’s stories.” – Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews