Shrouds of the Uncanny
In a town ruled by fire and fear, the most dangerous secret is a monster with a gentle soul.

A corpse that refuses to decay. A seamstress hiding from her past. A forbidden sanctuary in the shadows of a moss-choked crypt.Rowena Roseblood survives by keeping her head down. As the mortuary seamstress for a settlement choked by freezing fog and the fanatical dogma of Priestess Mia Montgomery, Rowena knows that defying the church means burning at the stake. She tends to the dead in solitary silence, using her craft as penance for a past act of cowardice.But when a terrified villager brings a shrouded, unnatural body to her door—a man whose cold flesh shifts and pulses with a terrifying, predatory power—Rowena makes a choice that will alter her fate forever. Instead of surrendering him to the pyres, she hides him.Beneath the ruins of an abandoned, moss-choked chapel, Draven Darkmoor awakens. He is a "grave-born," a creature of terrifying strength, obsidian claws, and silver eyes. Yet, within this shifting, monstrous form is a deeply vulnerable soul terrified of his own hunger. As Rowena risks everything to feed him, bind his transforming flesh, and soothe his panic, an intense and undeniable bond forms in the dark.Shrouds of the Uncanny is the atmospheric, pulse-pounding first volume in The Covenant of Quiet Beasts. Blending sweeping gothic horror with heart-wrenching dark romantic fantasy, John Newbill spins a masterful tale of dangerous mercy, oppressive zealotry, and a love forged in the very margins of the world.