Purification Ceremony

by Mark Sullivan

First published 1997

Diana Jackman carries the blood of Micmac shamans and hunters. Her father and great-uncle taught her to read the wilderness like a book. She learned to sense what others cannot see. Now she writes environmental software and lives apart from her family. Loss and betrayal built walls around her heart. Eight hunters gather at a remote estate in northern British Columbia. They seek record white tail deer where the Sticks and Dream rivers meet. Snow blankets the vast wilderness. Diana joins the hunt, drawn by ancient power flowing through her bloodline. Something watches them from the frozen landscape. A killer moves through the blinding white. The hunters become targets. One by one, they fall to a predator more deadly than any animal. Bodies are found gutted like the deer they stalked. Diana faces terror she has never known. Every instinct screams at her to run. But escape means certain death. She must turn hunter herself. Her father's teachings become her only weapon against a force of pure violence stalking the Canadian winter.

Genres: adventure, mystery, contemporary, thriller

Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful

Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fish-out-of-water

Setting: British Columbia, Canada, Micmac

Period: Contemporary

335 pages · Hardcover · Avon Books

Content warnings: violence

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