The Princess and the Odium

Maeve’s quiet life of isolation has kept her from the outside world—as a gorgon, she has to protect herself and others. Princess Keeva Glantor is proud to be a member of Uterni’s royal family. But her mother’s health is failing quickly, and Keeva’s life of ease is turned upside down.

On a hunt for the key to keeping Uterni’s queen on the throne, Keeva meets Maeve. The princess is intrigued by the lone woman in the fen, but she has her own mission to complete and no time for anything, or anyone.

Maeve yearns to believe she has a chance at a regular life and is curious enough to push the boundaries of what she’s always known, revealing a deception that has kept her a pariah in a world she fears as much as it fears her.

Both must unravel lies and come face-to-face with the truth to create a future they can call their own, perhaps even one that includes each other.

Jastyn Cipher hated the royal family until she met Princess Aurelia. But the princess continuously surprises her, like when she unexpectedly joins Jastyn on a dangerous and harrowing journey to find the cure for Jastyn’s ailing sister.

Princess Aurelia Diarmaid knew she was meant for more than a life trapped inside the castle in the Kingdom of Venostes. But she never anticipated the price of her freedom would be the tragic death of her brother at the hand of their closest friend.

Fate brought Jastyn and Aurelia together, but their budding relationship is tested as obstacles both fae and human stand between them and the cure they desperately seek. Will their new love be enough to carry them through what lies ahead?

Princess Aurelia’s dreams of a life full of love and adventure become even more alluring when she meets village outcast Jastyn. Aurelia refuses to deny her attraction even after an unexpected attack on her family catapults her into the center of the Kingdom of Venostes’s sinister intrigues.

Jastyn Cipher despises the royal family. After all, they are responsible for the exile of her mother and their life at the bottom of the social rung. She refuses to acknowledge her attraction to Princess Aurelia even when she is forced to seek help from the royal family when her sister falls gravely ill.

While the circumstances of birth might keep them apart, fate seems determined to bring them together. When Aurelia is kidnapped, she and Jastyn must face their enemies, fae and human, if they want to survive.

Book One of the Odium Trilogy

Suri Daniels, a beautiful and troubled woman, is the descendant of a family of supernaturally gifted women, known as the Blessed, and literally holds keys to gateways between the earthly plane and seven powerful gods. A series of tragic losses and a stipulation in her grandmother’s will has her returning to the family’s home in New Orleans, unaware that she will need to step into the role of Orisha priestess and escape the attention of a powerful demon. To top it all off, she must accept the help of a Cambion—Lyla Jefferies, a dark supernatural being she has spent her life avoiding. What’s worse? She can’t help being drawn to Layla in ways she doesn’t understand.

Being the child of a top-tier demon and a human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For the past two hundred years, Layla Jefferies has lived a life of quietude. When an unknown force draws her out of seclusion, the pull is too strong to ignore. Layla is tasked to assist with protecting the gateways and saving Suri from becoming a vengeful demon’s avatar. Falling in love with her is definitely not part of the plan.

Layla and Suri are brought together by fate to defeat the darkness threatening to tear their world apart. What they don’t expect to discover is a love that might set them free.

Content advisory: Opening chapter includes a depiction of sexual violence and rape.

Dear Reader,

I wrote The Blessed to honor the resilience, strength, and faith of my community’s ancestors. To tell a story, in my own way, of their survival in a world that treated them as less than the lowest of creatures. A world that continues to methodically strip away our sense of selves as humans and our culture as a people. Layla is the embodiment of all People of Color, particularly Women of Color, in this country and the suffering they have endured, which was violent, painful, and has lasted for generations. I choose to honor all those women like Layla, her mother, and grandmother who survived and rather than turn to violence themselves, chose to stand tall and lift their community up.

The Blessed begins with an act of physical violence to represent how some People of Color were brought into the world. Just as we survived our violent past, so does Layla. Just as we did not allow what was wrought upon us to break us, to take away our capacity to love and cherish others the way we were not, Layla also does not let her circumstances break her. She turns that violence into the resolve to help her community. In the process, she finds a love that strengthens her even more.

You may feel discomfort when reading Layla’s beginnings as it mirrors the pain of the past. Atrocity and its generational impacts should not feel comfortable or easy. But her story is ultimately an uplifting one of family, faith, culture, and love that I believe you will enjoy. I hope you see The Blessed as honoring the struggles of my ancestors and accepting the blessing of life, faith, and love that they have bestowed upon me as a result of their survival.

Forever thankful, always grateful, abundantly blessed,

Anne Shade

To the community, Aradia Burke is the premier dog trainer and breeder of Anatolian shepherds in the region. Whether it is training the family pet or a top-tier working K9, Aradia is the go-to person. The truth is buried beneath centuries of closely held secrets. Aradia’s birthright and duty is to train the Guardians, those special dogs that keep the world safe from demons. When pre-cognitive Mercy Burroughs has a vision and Aradia arrives on her doorstep, her careful life unravels. Demons are close to breaching one of the portals and will threaten the Western Washington Guardian team and K9, Clemons. It’s up to Aradia, Mercy, and the K9s to stop them before darkness falls over the world.