The Red Winter

A dark, queer historical fantasy framed as a memoir written by the ancient warlock Sebastian Grave, recounting his hunt for the Beast of Gevaudan, the real man-eating creature that terrorised the French countryside in the 1760s and killed more than a hundred people.

In 1785, Professor Grave is recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d'Ocerne, the estranged lover he cannot bring himself to refuse. Grave first fought the Beast two decades earlier with the aid of Sarmodel, a demon he hosts within himself, and now he is drawn back by the twin lures of final victory and reconciliation.

But some monsters refuse to stay buried. Split across two timelines and steeped in blood, longing, and the price of power, this is a story about redemption and the ruin we chase in the name of purpose.