First published 2026
Professor Sebastian Grave receives word in 1785 that the Beast of Gévaudan has returned to terrorize the French countryside. Twenty years earlier, Sebastian hunted this same creature through a winter of carnage. Armed with centuries of monster-slaying experience and aided by Sarmodel, his indwelling demon who demands human hearts as payment, Sebastian barely survived their first encounter. Now Antoine Avenel d'Ocerne, his former lover, calls him back to finish what they started. Sebastian cannot resist the dual pull of ending the Beast forever and reuniting with Antoine, who shares both a dark past with the monster and a terrible secret with Sebastian. But Gévaudan has changed. Revolutionary fervor grips France as desperate people reach their breaking point. The Catholic Church watches Sebastian's supernatural activities with growing suspicion. The Beast threatens to drag all of Europe into war. This love story bleeds across centuries of hidden history, from Imperial Rome through Joan of Arc to the brink of the French Revolution.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, fantasy, horror, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: France, Gevaudan
Period: 1785, 20th-century
529 pages · Kindle Edition · Tor Books
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence