The Blade in the Angel's Shadow

She wants only peace; the angels demand her sword.

Captain Lament Evyngar has bled enough for two lifetimes. With her steadfast comrade, Sergeant Pieter Hertgers, she plots a life of commerce, unshadowed by steel. Instead, a dead merchant, a rigged accusation, and the cold reach of the crown’s sorcerer drag her back into the killing ground. Hauled before Dr John Dee—visionary, arch-necromancer, and architect of a dawning empire—Lament is bound by a pact written in arcane runes and threats. Dee’s design, a Britain ruled by Angelic command, hinges on two ancient occult artefacts lost to war and human greed, and Lament and Pieter are driven across the smoke and ruin of the Spanish Netherlands to find them. What they uncover is no mere courtly intrigue but a theatre of gods and monsters: inhuman intelligences whispering in cannon thunder, bending princes and peasants alike to wage a cosmic war that tears at the seams of reality. Each rite deepens the bargain. Each skirmish unthreads Lament from herself until time’s knot is loosened and she is cast through splintered worlds, only to be flung back into Elizabeth’s glittering court, where the miracle promised to save the realm opens like a festering maw.

Now the Tower’s stones keep her, tried and condemned for heresy and attempted regicide. On the eve of the flames, Lament sets down her confession to the man who steered her towards the stake, tracing the blade-edge choices that made her a soldier for a cause she could never have guessed at, and a midwife to a blasphemous design that has little to do with any God she could imagine. In London’s heart, something vast has nested beside the throne, fed by reverence and fear; Dee’s empire is its chapel, his angels its mask. To break the covenant and spare the world, Lament must wager the last of her name and choose whether to raise her sword for heaven’s empire or turn it against the hand that guides her, knowing either stroke may unmake her forever.

Perfect for readers of Joe Abercrombie, Glen Cook, Mary Gentle and Neil Gaiman—for those who love sword & sorcery with a grimdark soul, brutal combat, mystical horror, and gritty storytelling that slits history wide to reveal the mythic beneath.