This Ravenous Fate
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller!
The first book in a decadent fantasy duology set in Jazz Age Harlem, where at night the dance halls come to life—and death waits in the dark.
It's 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family's thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise's mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead.
Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she'll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.
But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can't refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city's underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two Black girls' destinies are intertwined in this bewitching novel in which once-human vampires called reapers are taking over 1926 Harlem. After spending five years studying music in Paris, Elise Saint, the 18-year-old daughter of a reaper hunter who specializes in manufacturing enchanted steel, has returned to Harlem. Though she's set to inherit her father's steel manufacturing empire, Elise can't help but want to escape the ominous atmosphere that permeates her neighborhood, exacerbated by the conflict between gangsters and reapers. As she reacclimates, she's forced to confront the reason she left in the first place: her former best friend Layla Quinn, who is now a reaper. Layla's plans for revenge go awry, however, when someone starts hunting down Saint family members and their associates, jeopardizing Layla and her reaper clan. Teaming up with Elise, Layla attempts to clear her name, but the longer the girls work together, the more their feelings—a mixture of fear, hate, and all-consuming love—interfere. The importance and power of music, particularly jazz and R&B, features heavily throughout this well-researched Jazz Age mystery. High stakes and bitter romantic tension culminate in a delicious historical fiction fantasy that uses the Harlem Renaissance as a rhythmic soundtrack. Ages 14–up.