Part of Series
A captivating dark gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author's All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns and The Briar Book of the Dead. A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises. Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill. Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she’s free – a rich young heiress with a world of possibilities in front of her. Then, to her horror, Violet learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet’s still-born brother was taken years ago after Hedrek sold him to a man bearing the mark of the mysterious Anchorhold. Her father’s solicitor and the city’s bishop are insistent she fulfil her duty, but Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her – and it becomes if she wants to enjoy a future free of the interference of either solicitors, bishops or assassins, she’s going to have to clean up the mess her father made. On her journey, Violet seeks the help of Miren O’Malley in the hidden estate of Blackwater, whose family once produced the purest, strangest silver; Ellie Briar of Silverton, the Briar Witch who guards the gateway to the realm of the Leech Lords; and Asher Todd of Whitebarrow, who did terrible things and found The Three Who Went Beneath. Ultimately, Violet must go alone. Into the Darklands. To the Anchorhold where it all began. Where it will all end. To do what must be done. By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter's sinister and compelling fantasy world, where blood is currency and magic is a weapon.
Author
AKA Angela Slatter Angela Slatter is the author of All The Murmuring Bones (Titan Books, purchase links below). That will be followed by The Path of Thorns in 2022. Both are gothic fantasies set in the world of the Sourdough and Bitterwood collections. In February 2021, Tartarus Press published The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales, the third mosaic collection in the Sourdough world series. In March 2022, The Bone Lantern (a novella set in the Sourdough world) will be published by Absinthe Press (an imprint of PS Publishing). Angela is also the author of the supernatural crime novels from Jo Fletcher Books/Hachette International: Vigil (2016), Corpselight (2017) and Restoration (2018), as well as ten other short story collections, including The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, A Feast of Sorrows: Stories, and The Heart is a Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories. Vigil was nominated for the Dublin Literary Award in 2018. Angela is represented by Meg Davis of the Ki Agency in London: meg@ki-agency.co.uk She has won a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, two Australian Shadows Awards and seven Aurealis Awards. Angela’s short stories have appeared in Australian, UK and US Best Of anthologies such The Mammoth Book of New Horror, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, The Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, and The Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction. Her work has been translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, French and Romanian. Victoria Madden of Sweet Potato Films (The Kettering Incident) has optioned the film rights to one of her short stories (“Finnegan’s Field”). She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006, and in 2013 she was awarded one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships. In 2016 Angela was the Established Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth. She has been awarded career development funding by Arts Queensland, the Copyright Agency and, in 2017/18, an Australia Council for the Arts grant. She teaches for the Australian Writers’ Centre. She is also the author of the novellas, Of Sorrow and Such (Tor.com) and Ripper (in Horrorology: The Lexicon of Fear).
