"Coggan invites you to be with characters who, for all the magic and wonder of the world she creates, are entirely relatable - women bound by duty and justice, love and fear, trying to find their own paths in a world not of their making. It gave me hope; it made me cry. It's a fantastically good book." - Claire North, author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

In a quiet street far from the river, with an ancient tree growing through its walls and floors, is the House of the Dead. There lives the witchling: healer, midwife and conduit between the world of the living and the world below. A witchling must give up her family and friends and spend her life alone, tending to the sick and carrying the dead down dark tunnels to the underworld.

Haley was born with the gift of death-magic, and at the age of seven her mother abandons her to the witchling to be raised as her successor. But as Haley grows older and learns her craft - as invading armies pass through her town, people are born and die on her floor, and loyalties shift and dissolve around her - she finds it harder and harder to keep her vows and be the perfect and impassive healer.

But if she can't, it will be her downfall - and that of everyone she's not supposed to love . . .

"Vivid and intense. Helena Coggan had me on the edge of my seat" -- Amanda Bouchet, bestselling author of The Kingmaker Chronicles

 

"A phenomenal achievement . . . assured, frightening, action-packed" -- Observer

 

"Tense, exciting, engaging" -- Claire North, author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

 

"A pulsing, labyrinthine, emotionally visceral plot" -- Metro

 

"The plot pulses with action and the characters are beautifully complex. This is a book that sparks with adrenaline and longing, all the way to the final page" -- Rebecca Ross, author of The Queen's Rising