A girl sells her heart to a demon to escape abusive parents, unwittingly signing up for more than she bargained for.
Mixed-race white/Latina high school student Dee Moreno (she has her father’s light brown skin and textured hair) attends a prestigious boarding school in Portland, Oregon, keeping necessary distance from her alcoholic, abusive parents. A tough home life has wrung any belief in fairy tales out of her even though demons announced themselves as real to the public via press conference when she was only a child. The demons emerged in order to make deals—humans can trade body parts (their own) for a wish. When Dee’s scholarship is suddenly revoked, she finds herself back in the market for fairy tales; she refuses to go back home. She trades a two-year lease on her heart for tuition money. As a new member of Portland’s “troop of heartless,” Dee follows her demon’s biddings directly into battle with other, truly horrifying monsters. She and the other heartless work to close the voids that periodically open all around the world to keep the monsters that issue forth from overrunning the planet. As the danger ratchets up, so do her feelings for another member of the troop. Dee’s never felt more alive—yet never been possibly so dead. The slowly revealed lore of the demons coupled with Dee’s adventures make for a whirlwind of a page-turner. Readers will devour this romantic, Faustian fable.
A dark fantasy brimming with passion and peril.
(Paranormal suspense. 15-adult)