Strange Grace

Long ago the people of Three Graces struck a bargain with a devil in the forest: their town would know no sickness, no famine, and no lasting injury — provided that every seven years, on the Slaughter Moon, they sent their finest young man into the trees as a sacrifice. For generations the bargain has held.

Mairwen Grace is descended from the witch who first made the pact; Rhun Sayer is the kind, beloved boy everyone expects to be chosen as the next saint; and Arthur Couch is the angry outcast determined to run the sacrifice himself. When the Slaughter Moon rises years too early, the three friends go into the forest together — and the devil they find, and the lies at the root of their town's prosperity, will turn Three Graces and their own hearts inside out.

Tessa Gratton weaves Welsh-inflected folklore, body-unsettling horror, and a tender, sincerely drawn love among three people into a lush standalone fantasy about the price of safety and who is asked to pay it.