Gemma Cassata lives with her mother in an isolated antiques shop in Michigan, near a seductive patch of woods concealing an enchanted gateway to fairyland. Gemma knows she’s not supposed to go into the woods—her mother, Virginia, has warned her multiple times about the monsters that lurk there—and yet she can’t resist.

As a witch in the walled city of Chernograd, Kosara has plenty of practice treating lycanthrope bites, bargaining with kikimoras, and slaying bloodsucking upirs. There’s only one monster she can’t defeat: her ex, the Zmey, known as the Tsar of Monsters. She’s defied him one too many times and now he’s hunting her. Betrayed by someone close to her, Kosara’s only choice is to trade her shadow—the source of her powers—for a quick escape.

After losing both their parents, Bristol Keats and her sisters struggle to stay afloat in their small, quiet town of Bowskeep. When Bristol begins to receive letters from an “aunt” she’s never heard of who promises she can help, she reluctantly agrees to meet—and discovers that everything she thought she knew about her family is a lie. Even her father might still be alive, not killed but kidnapped by terrifying creatures to a whole other realm—the one he is from.

The Great Betrayal changed everything for the Allied Realm. Long ago, the kingdom’s noble houses rose up against the goddess … and for their treachery, the firstborn of each noble family was cursed. One with perilous beauty. One with destructive knowledge. One with insatiable bloodlust. But the royal house Mortara received the worst affliction of all. For while the king exists during the day, he fades into nothingness at night … until his twenty-first birthday, when he will be lost to the shadows forever.

Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms—there are no secrets in this house—and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.