When the Mourning Moon Rises

No one could talk about the women who disappeared from Isle Caerlin, but the island never forgot.

For nineteen-year-old Claire, the secluded Great Lakes island she calls home is beautiful—and its rules are as solid as bedrock. Logically, she trusts what can be explained and ignores the quiet pull she feels toward the island’s ancient underground river, Fír na Talún- the truth of the land. To her, whisperings about the river’s secrets are just superstitions and witch is a word for a woman who steps out of line. And on Caerlin, behavior is key because men make every decision:

who a woman marries, where she works, how much space she’s allowed to take up.

Or else she disappears entirely.

But the island has had enough.

Fír na Talún is shifting the land in ways Claire can see but cannot explain. Hairline fractures spread through the rock, echoing the unrest simmering among some of the island’s women. Beneath decades of lies is a buried history, of power stripped away and of women erased so thoroughly they never even became ghost stories. The Islanders will soon learn that what was taken from the women was never fully lost. As the men move toward a plan that threatens to shatter lives–and the island itself–Claire is forced to confront what her blood already knows.

To save Caerlin, she must reclaim what was stolen, trust what cannot be proven, and decide what deserves to survive when the ground begins to give way.

When the mourning moon rises, what will remain—and who will be left standing?