Priestess of the Past
(2026)(The fifth book in the Ghost Coast Coven series)
A novel by M Scott Swanson
Emma has always been the practical one—the woman who trusts facts, discipline, and careful planning far more than magic. But after arriving in Savannah, the childhood stories told by her beloved grandmother no longer seem so impossible.
When Emma discovers that her emerging supernatural abilities are tied to art, mirrors, and the past itself, she gains access to something far more dangerous than ordinary magic: the power to revisit moments that shaped her life.
At first, the temptation is deeply personal. Emma has never stopped wondering what might have happened if she had made different choices with Matthew Hughes, the boy she once loved and lost. But changing the past proves far more complicated than correcting a single regret. Every altered decision creates consequences she could never have predicted, reshaping friendships, families, love, loss—and even the people who exist in the present.
Soon Emma has lived lifetimes no one else remembers, accumulating decades of love, grief, and memories inside a body that has barely aged.
Meanwhile, the Ghost Coast Coven is facing dangers of its own. Lauren has been taken, Jules has disappeared, Riverbend is revealing more of its secrets, and Emma’s growing abilities may be connected to forces far older than any of them understand.
To save the people she loves, Emma must determine which past is the one she is willing to live with—and whether some tragedies are meant to be changed at all.
The Priestess of the Past is a supernatural Southern Gothic story of friendship, regret, love, time, and the terrible price of getting the second chance you always thought you wanted.
Genre: General Fiction
When Emma discovers that her emerging supernatural abilities are tied to art, mirrors, and the past itself, she gains access to something far more dangerous than ordinary magic: the power to revisit moments that shaped her life.
At first, the temptation is deeply personal. Emma has never stopped wondering what might have happened if she had made different choices with Matthew Hughes, the boy she once loved and lost. But changing the past proves far more complicated than correcting a single regret. Every altered decision creates consequences she could never have predicted, reshaping friendships, families, love, loss—and even the people who exist in the present.
Soon Emma has lived lifetimes no one else remembers, accumulating decades of love, grief, and memories inside a body that has barely aged.
Meanwhile, the Ghost Coast Coven is facing dangers of its own. Lauren has been taken, Jules has disappeared, Riverbend is revealing more of its secrets, and Emma’s growing abilities may be connected to forces far older than any of them understand.
To save the people she loves, Emma must determine which past is the one she is willing to live with—and whether some tragedies are meant to be changed at all.
The Priestess of the Past is a supernatural Southern Gothic story of friendship, regret, love, time, and the terrible price of getting the second chance you always thought you wanted.
Genre: General Fiction