A spellbinding story of truce and trickery from the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Paper Magician series.

Enna knows to fear the mystings that roam the wildwood near her home. When one tries to kill her to obtain an enchanted stone, Enna takes a huge risk: fighting back with a mysting of her own.

Maekallus’s help isn’t free. His price? A kiss. One with the power to steal her soul. But their deal leaves Maekallus bound to the mortal realm, which begins eating him alive. Only Enna’s kiss, given willingly, can save him from immediate destruction. It’s a temporary salvation for Maekallus and a lingering doom for Enna. Part of her soul now burns bright inside Maekallus, making him feel for the first time.

Enna shares Maekallus’s suffering, but her small sacrifice won’t last long. If she and Maekallus can’t break the spell binding him to the mortal realm, Maekallus will be consumed completely—and Enna’s soul with him.

Enna’s mother was killed by monsters, known as mystings, from the Deep so she is constantly on guard against meeting the same fate. When she is attacked and almost killed by a mysting she takes a huge risk and summons a mysting from the Deep to kill the others that are hunting her. But things go wrong when she and her summoned mysting, Maekallus, are attacked and it results in Maekallus being literally left bound to her, trapped in the mortal world, unable to go back to where he belongs but slowly dying. A kiss will save him but as kiss allows him to take her soul. When Enna kisses him in a desperate attempt to keep him from dying he does take her soul but, strangely, this time he does not get her whole soul, just small bits, leaving them bound in ways neither fully understands.

Almost all the action is Enna or Maekallus alone or with each other, the other characters such as Enna’s father or the boy in the village she has a crush on are really minor players in what is very much a doomed romance set in a fantasy realm of magic and monsters.  This is, in reality, mostly an intriguing character study of both Enna and Maekallus as their bond changes each of them as they fight their growing attraction to each other knowing fully well that neither can live in the other’s world. Maekallus perhaps changes the most as the increasing bits of Enna’s soul see him becoming more human and growing a conscience.

Ms  Holmberg reveals in the afterword that this book is the result of a strange dream she had one night which sheds light on a strange but enchanting book.  Recommended ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

For more titles by Charlie N. Holmberg click here