by Amber Forbes
Release Date: 10/22/13
Summary from Goodreads:
Amelia Gareth's brother is a witch and the only way to save her family from the taint in his blood is to become a professed nun at Cathedral Reims. However, in order to become professed, she must endure trials that all nuns must face.
Surviving these trials is not easy, especially for Amelia, who is being stalked by shadowy beings only she can see. They're searching for people they can physically touch, because only those they can touch can see them. Amelia soon learns why she is being stalked when she accidentally harms her best friend with fire during the third trial. Fire is a witch's signature. The shadows are after witches.
Now Amelia must decide what to do: should she continue on her path to profession knowing there is no redemption, or should she give up on her dream and turn away from Cathedral Reims in order to stop the shadows who plan to destroy everything she loves?
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Read an Excerpt:
********************
The sound is a dagger scraping crosshatches on a frosted
windowpane, its echoes loud in this insensible room I’ve been locked in for the
past few days. I want to remedy my fears over the sound, but I’m more terrified
of the impending trials that will determine my readiness to be professed in the
Order of Cathedral Reims. The trials are the reason I have been locked in here.
Colette sits beside me, lost in knitting a scarf she has
been working on for a week—the amount of time we’ve been trapped in here with
minimal food, water, and sanity. Her ability to shut out the world with a click
of the needles is something I have always envied. For her, the world is
nonexistent.
But not for me.
The sound strips my nerves raw, so I tighten my shawl and
rise from the creaking mattress. My boot-clad feet meet the floor, and in spite
of my stockings, cold still shoots through the soles, hibernating in my bones.
Pulling in a deep breath of biting air, I tiptoe over to the door and press my
eye to the keyhole that overlooks a bright hallway. The air freezes in my
chest. I knew I heard those blasted shadows, the eerie, almost impossible
sounds they make whenever their black cloaks trail along the cobbled floors of
Cathedral Reims. Sometimes I wonder if they’re witches, people born of the
Seven Deadly Sins and considered worse than murderers in the eyes of the law.
Then I remember my little brother is nothing like them. They are mere shadows.
Mere shadows.
Two of them stand outside the room. I recognize them. The
tall one is Asch, and the little one is Sash. I don’t know where I heard their
names. Here, in my dreams, in nightmares, or somewhere else.
I wish they would go away. I wish, I wish, I wish. I close
my eyes. Open them. They are still there. Why must they be here? Theosodore,
our Mother Superior’s lackey, could gather us any moment for the first trial, a
trial that will test everything we are made of, and here are Asch and Sash
teasing my nerves with their cold, white fingers. But I don’t know what it is
about them. They haven’t done anything in the two months since I’ve started
seeing them, but their presence makes sharp fear burrow into my muscles and
knot them. I believe I’m the only one who can see them. This frightens me.
Perhaps waiting for these trials has made me mad.
********************
About the Author
Amber Skye Forbes is a dancing writer who prefers pointe
shoes over street shoes, leotards over skirts, and ballet buns over hairstyles.
She loves striped tights and bows and will edit your face with a Sharpie if she
doesn't like your attitude. She lives in Augusta, Georgia where she writes dark
fiction that will one day put her in a psychiatric ward...again. But she
doesn't care because her cat is a super hero who will break her out.
Author Links:
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Wow, the cover sucked me right in. So beautiful! Sounds like a good book too. Thanks for sharing!
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