Strange Grace

The town of Three Graces keeps itself safe through a bargain with a devil in the forest. No sickness, no famine and no lasting injury touch its people. In return, every seven years on the Slaughter Moon, the town sends its finest young man into the trees as a sacrifice. The arrangement has held for generations.

Three teenagers stand at the center of the book. Mairwen Grace descends from the witch who made the original pact. Rhun Sayer is gentle and adored, and the town assumes he will be the next saint chosen for the forest. Arthur Couch is an angry outcast who intends to carry out the sacrifice himself.

Then the Slaughter Moon rises years ahead of schedule. The three friends enter the forest together and meet the devil, and they begin to uncover the lies beneath the town's prosperity.

The book is a standalone fantasy with Welsh-inflected folklore and horror that works on the body. A love among the three friends runs through it, drawn with tenderness. What the town's safety costs, and who is made to pay for it, is the question the forest puts to all three.