"...we are all Death’s pupils, we practitioners—students of the great healer."
When magic broke free in my blood, I chose to follow our ancient family path and become a practitioner. I'm learning to heal, and to protect innocents. I dip into minds, stalk vampires, and set wards by the light of the moon. I can hear the children of the night calling.
But there are other families...and other paths. Families with twisted ambitions and frightening powers. On the frontier, folk whisper that one clan is the most dangerous of all.
Chief among those dark sorcerers is a man known as the Keeper of Souls.
And now he wants to keep mine.
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REVIEWS:
"With a clear, distinctive voice, Katharine Kimbriel invents and re-invents magic on America’s frontier"
--Jane Yolen, the award-winning author of Briar Rose
“…once in a very great while I find something I wish I’d read thirty years before it was ever published.…These books do not let you rest. Allie is constantly in heart-thumping danger, being tested by benevolent and evil forces, by her human teachers, by human enemies, and by adult-sized moral questions, though she begins at age eleven."
—Sleeping Hedgehog
"charming...unusual...delightful...definitely worth checking out"
-- Locus Magazine
"It is good to see this back--the Alfreda stories are one of the reasons YA is so dynamic today. ...Little House on the Prairie meets Harry Potter, with a dash of Stephen King."
--Sherwood Smith, author of Crown Duel
"This is one of the best historical dark fantasies I’ve ever read. ...If you’ve not read any of Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s books yet, what’s stopping you?"
--Shiny Book Review