The Guilt of the Good

Adult Upmarket Fantasy | ~91,500 words | Where grief, machinery, and myth collide

Jacob Hardwyn has spent thirteen years believing one thing: he killed his mother. His nightmares return every year in the days before his birthday—the flames that burst from his skin, the scream that he can't forget, and a father who has never let him speak of it.

Still living in the same cabin they all shared while she was alive, everything William has built for Woodland Falls was meant to protect it. Everything he's hidden from Jacob was meant to do the same. When William sends him up the mountain before the town's annual festival, the truth Jacob has been chasing since he was six finds him first—and what it sets in motion, not even his father can contain.

THE GUILT OF THE GOOD is an adult upmarket fantasy about the wreckage that love leaves behind when it refuses to let go, blending the buried family secret and braided viewpoints of Peng Shepherd's THE CARTOGRAPHERS with the family-driven quest and quiet wonder of Samantha Sotto Yambao's WATER MOON.

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