A Shadow Bright and Burning

Henrietta Howel can burst into flames. When she is forced to reveal her power to save a friend, she expects execution. Instead she is invited to train as one of Her Majesty's royal sorcerers, and she is taken into the glamour of Victorian London.

There she is declared the chosen one, the girl destined to defeat the Ancients, bloodthirsty demons that terrorize humanity. She is the first female sorcerer in hundreds of years, and everyone around her treats the prophecy as settled fact.

Henrietta knows otherwise: she is not the chosen one. She keeps up a dangerous deception while she trains beside a group of young male sorcerers, who are eager to test her power and her heart. One of them will challenge her, one will fight for her and one will betray her. She also learns that the sorcerers have secrets of their own to guard.

This is a young adult fantasy set in an alternate Victorian England, with demons, a romantic thread and betrayal running through it. Battle is coming, and Henrietta has to decide how much she will risk to save the city and the person she loves. The tone is dark, the pace quick, and the chosen-one premise is turned on its head.