[QCrit] Adult Romantasy - THE MOON'S WRAITH (93,000 words/First Attempt)
THE MOON’S WRAITH is a 93,000 word romantasy novel with the unhinged romance of BUTCHER AND BLACKBIRD, the seafaring found family of THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SARAFI, and the slight cozy tonal leanings of HEMLOCK & SILVER.
For ten years, Jules believed him to be a monster. When the soulless she once abandoned abducts her to the Moon’s Wraith, she thinks he’s proved her right. The business she spent years cultivating, the graves of family gained and lost in that time, her careful abandonment of all the ghosts of their past—all stolen under the force of his whims, his desires.
Worst of all, the soulless carries all the memories of the boy she once loved and wears his adult face. He knows her too well to underestimate her powers, stripping the song from her lungs and magic from her veins. He remembers all the patterns that brought them comfort as children and uses them to cloud her resolve to escape. He keeps her from her cauldrons like he could ever forget how much she needed them.
Slowly, Jules accepts that he didn’t return to punish her for past sins. His obsession wants her bound to his side, under his protection and control.
Without her magic, she can never feel truly safe there. Not when her own nature bucks against obedience no matter how threatening the command.
As the soulless introduces Jules to more of his world and the crew he built around himself, her inner dissonance rises to a fever pitch. Some of the crew are people she somehow actually likes, and the nymph in her blood strives to fully reconnect with the songs of the ocean. Jules wants to stay, an impossibility until she has the power to decide that for herself. She wants to connect, but her track record shows that connection only ever leads to loss.
The mother ocean’s dangers won’t wait for Jules to ground herself. Before she can sort out what she can dare to dream for their future, she’ll have to survive rival captains, vengeful demons, and the soulless himself.