'Blood is all there is.' 'What happens when the blood is no longer enough?'
The oldest and gravest of the Wild Folk laws dictates that human flesh must not be consumed. When half-eaten bodies start turning up between Old London and the North, Yannia Wilde knows the killer can only be one of her kind. When Yannia's betrothed, Dearon, insists on joining forces with her and Karrion, things get even more complicated. While Yannia tries to balance tracking down the killer with the tension between her, Dearon, and Karrion, another case in Old London draws her attention. A West Mage Council member, whom Yannia exposed as a Leech only days before, has gone missing, and his girlfriend is found murdered in his flat. Is the Leech, a master of deception, capable of murder, or has someone framed him? Caught in the web of Old London's political intrigue, Yannia must learn to play the game and to choose her allegiances with care. But to catch a predator of her kind, she must also embrace her wildness and set aside everything that makes her human.
Includes bonus short story The Doves in the Dining Room.
On the night of Samhain, the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, and ancient magic runs wild in Old London.
When Lady Bergamon is attacked in her Ivy Street garden, Wishearth turns to Yannia for help. Who could have the power to harm Lady Bergamon in her own domain? While Yannia searches for the answer, nature herself appears to be killing Mages in Old London. Yannia and Karrion join forces with New Scotland Yard to solve the baffling Mage deaths. But wherever they turn, all the clues point back towards Ivy Street.
Yannia's abilities are put to test as she races to save Lady Bergamon's life, and prevent further murders. But with the lines between friends and enemies blurring, she must decide who to trust and how much she's willing to sacrifice for Old London and its inhabitants...
The third in Laura's Wilde Investigations series
In Old London, where paranormal races co-exist with ordinary humans, criminal verdicts delivered by the all-seeing Heralds of Justice are infallible. After a man is declared guilty of murder and sentenced to death, his daughter turns to private investigator Yannia Wilde to do the impossible and prove the Heralds wrong. Yannia has escaped a restrictive life in the Wild Folk conclave where she was raised, but her origins mark her as an outsider in the city. Those origins lend her the sensory abilities of all of nature. Yet Yannia is lonely and struggling to adapt to life in the city. The case could be the break she needs. She enlists the help of her only friend, a Bird Shaman named Karrion, and together they accept the challenge of proving a guilty man innocent. So begins a breathless race against time and against all conceivable odds. Can Yannia and Karrion save a man who has been judged infallibly guilty?
Yannia Wilde returns to the Wild Folk conclave where she grew up, and to the deathbed of her father, the conclave's Elderman. She is soon drawn back into the Wild Folk way of life and into a turbulent relationship with Dearon, to whom she is betrothed. Back in London, unassuming office worker Tim Wedgebury is surprised when police appear on his doorstep with a story about how he was stabbed in the West End. His body disappeared before the paramedics' eyes. Given that Tim is alive and well, the police chalk the first death up to a Mage prank. But when Tim "dies" a second time, Detective Inspector Jamie Manning calls Yannia and, torn between returning to the life she has built in Old London and remaining loyal to the conclave and to Dearon, she strikes a compromise with the Elderman that allows her to return temporarily to the city. There she sets about solving the mystery of Tim's many deaths with the help of her apprentice, Karrion. They come to realise that with every death, more of the echo becomes reality, and Yannia and Karrion find themselves in increasing danger as they try to save Tim. Who is the echo murderer? What sinister game are they playing? And what do they truly want?
