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Deluxe Edition
Poisoned Pen Press
June 2026
On Sale: May 26, 2026
368 pages
ISBN: 1464239800
EAN: 9781464239809
Kindle: B0FTJWY2CV
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Hardcover (June 2026)
Fantasy Urban | LGBTQ | Fantasy Dark
Bram Stoker Award–nominee and USA Today bestseller Johanna van Veen unveils a sapphic folk-horror tour de force—perfect for fans of The VVitch and The Salt Grows Heavy. A skull's grin is eternal… The year is 1635. Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint. It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing truth: the magic they seek comes at a cost. At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.
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