The Moss King and the Briar Crown
(2026)(The first book in the Verdant Expanse: The Four Season Kings series)
A novel by Carlotta Hughes
When the Thing calls for you in the moonlight from the mist-shrouded woods, only the Four Tenets will save you:
Dawn breaks on Samhain and the bloody aftermath of the Thing's visit. White Briar's kin deals with the cops and MeeMaw calls a gathering of the cunning folk to do a work of warding on their holler. Briar escapes to the woods, knowing that the nightmare made flesh would be back for them. Holed up in their childhood hiding place, a tree split by lightning, they play a song on their banjo from a book belonging to their mother, a strange longing making their chest ache.
When night falls and the full moon rises, the Thing comes for Briar, as does the strange elk satyr with the sprawling antlers that had haunted their dreams for months. Even if the dream monster they summoned saves them, what could they offer him in exchange? Would his demands be as carnal as the dreams they shared, or could he demand something everlasting?
This is a novella that's dark fantasy, monster romance, and Appalachian horror with a witchy banjo-weilding NbMC, a protective ancient fae cervyr MMC, an opossum familiar who struggles to eat grapes, an eldritch terror older than hunger and thirst, summoning magic, fated mates, love that lasts lifetimes, spicy dreams, and found family.
Content information can be found in the book and on the author's website.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
- If you hear a whistle in the dark, no, you didn't.
If you hear a baby or woman crying out in the woods, no, you didn't.
Never open the windows and doors at night, especially if something asks you to.
If you hear your name spoken by a loved one from the shadows, you definitely didn't.
Dawn breaks on Samhain and the bloody aftermath of the Thing's visit. White Briar's kin deals with the cops and MeeMaw calls a gathering of the cunning folk to do a work of warding on their holler. Briar escapes to the woods, knowing that the nightmare made flesh would be back for them. Holed up in their childhood hiding place, a tree split by lightning, they play a song on their banjo from a book belonging to their mother, a strange longing making their chest ache.
When night falls and the full moon rises, the Thing comes for Briar, as does the strange elk satyr with the sprawling antlers that had haunted their dreams for months. Even if the dream monster they summoned saves them, what could they offer him in exchange? Would his demands be as carnal as the dreams they shared, or could he demand something everlasting?
This is a novella that's dark fantasy, monster romance, and Appalachian horror with a witchy banjo-weilding NbMC, a protective ancient fae cervyr MMC, an opossum familiar who struggles to eat grapes, an eldritch terror older than hunger and thirst, summoning magic, fated mates, love that lasts lifetimes, spicy dreams, and found family.
Content information can be found in the book and on the author's website.
Genre: Paranormal Romance