The Briar Book of the Dead

More about the book

Set in the same universe as the acclaimed All the Murmuring Bones and The Path of Thorns, this beautifully told Gothic fairy tale of ghosts, witches, deadly secrets, and past sins follows Ellie Briar, the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations. The Briar family of witches runs the town of Silverton, caring for its inhabitants with their skills and magic. In the usual scheme of things, they would be burnt for their sorcery, but the church has given them dispensation in return for their protection of the borders of the Darklands, where the much-feared Leech Lords hold sway. Ellie is being trained as a steward, administering for the town and warding off the insistent interest of the church. When her grandmother dies suddenly, Ellie's cousin Audra rises to the position of Briar Witch, propelling Ellie into her new role. As she navigates fresh challenges, an unexpected new ability to see and speak to the dead leads her to uncover sinister family secrets, stories of burnings, lost grimoires, and evil spells. Reeling from one revelation to the next, she seeks answers from the long dead and is forced to decide who to trust, as a devastating plot threatens to destroy everything the Briar witches have sacrificed so much to build. This is an intricately woven tale of a family of witches struggling against the bonds of past sins and persecution.