Blood and Roses

"She was a fire, burning our house to the ground; but the fire was warm, and all I knew was the cold, and I could not leave the flames."An ancient castle, a blood-soaked carriage, and a guest who refuses to leave.Nineteen-year-old Laura's life in the forest was simple, solitary, and predictable, until the night a horrific carriage accident occurred at the castle gates, bringing her face-to-face with Carmilla: a pale, breathtaking girl who survived a slaughter she refuses to explain.Carmilla is everything Laura has ever yearned for: brilliant, passionate, and completely devoted to her; but Laura soon comes to learn that the ultimate bond demands the ultimate sacrifice.Drawn in by Carmilla's presence, Laura finds herself caught between a consuming love, and a rising tide of horror. Across the valley, a mysterious draining illness begins to claim the local village girls. Meanwhile, inside the castle, locked doors offer no protection against ancestral secrets, shifting portraits, and terrifying nightmares. Laura begins to waste away herself, waking exhausted from deep, heavy sleeps filled with strange visions of a coiling shadow. Yet even as the unanswered questions begin to pile, Laura cannot bring herself to pull away. As the lines between dream and reality begin to dissolve, Laura must face a devastating truth: Carmilla is not a guest, but a ghost of the past.In this dark, lyrical reimagining of a classic Gothic tale, two lonely souls are bound across three centuries of Blood and Roses.