Showing results for "The Assistant" in Historical Fiction

Civil war is ripping England apart. Families are divided, emotions run high. Whether on the bleakness of the moors or in snug, wood-panelled rooms, danger lurks. A body is found, its mouth pierced with thorns. The Justice of the Peace, a godly man, is certain that witchcraft is involved. Only his assistant, former cavalryman John Carne, looks for reason where others see demons and witches.

After losing his parents in the Floating Castle Incident, the sensitive and mannered Chris Buckley has spent six years raising his magically talented little sister, Rosemary, on the savings that his once-wealthy family left behind. But that money is drying up, and Chris finds himself with no choice but to seek out work in Darrington City as it spirals into a depression. The only employer willing to consider his empty resume is Olivia Faraday, the manic Deathsniffer.

"The dead can't hurt you. Only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies - and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer's shortcomings.

Mrs. Ava Southerly, apothecary assistant and widow, lives in fear. She’s become an expert at hiding to keep second-sight visions at bay. In the year 1885, such things as witches surely don’t exist anymore, regardless of her ancestry. If she doesn’t emotionally engage her heart, those otherworldly powers will stay dormant and the people she cares for won’t be hurt, but she longs for acceptance and romance.