Miles Cameron - Soulstealer: The Soulflake Conspiracies: Volume One - Published by Gollancz - Publication date: 8 Oct. 2026 - Hardback
Bekka Trevelyan is an arcanist and the first woman to be made a Gentleman Scholar of Arcany at the University of Kabakak. Her graduate work was in refining a device to measure the potency of the winds of magic. Over her Yule holidays from teaching, she travels east on a field trip to test her theory about the Winds in the true Wyld. Instead, she finds herself swept up in the investigation of the kidnapping of an indigenous woman and her child by a demon that has possessed the body of a tracker.
Tam Warden was a war hero and then a sort of government enforcer. He gave up rank and fame to marry across class lines. But the government isn't done with him yet. He's called back to action to investigate Bekka's claims - discreetly. This is delicate work, because the truth could unbalance the nation.
Essa Bateman is a mercenary spy, a hard woman with no attachments and very few ethics. Few, it turns out, is more than 'none.' She sees the ripples of unrest from the underbelly of society, but deciding what to do about them is a different beast entirely.
In a world where gunpowder is manufactured from the souls of executed criminals, and the ultra-rich seek immortality at any price, where children labour in factories and the desperate poor turn to vampirism, where slavery is rampant and gangs rule the streets...
A few people are about to be heroes. They just don't know it yet.
But maybe, just maybe, the Revolution is coming.
Out on the moor, in the snow, a house stands beneath a pylon.
It is a house full of memories and full of old things. And, in the dark, when the pylon sings in the wind, it is a house full of ghosts and fading memories . . .
The house, Kirkhill, has a new occupant - just moved in, fresh from a bitter divorce and looking for a fresh start. The moor is the perfect place for it: isolated, beautiful in the changing seasons, peaceful, and with just enough of the previous owners' belongings that it's a perfectly self-contained and cosy home.
Only as nights start to draw in, and the weather takes a turn, so does the house. The cosy isolation becomes menacing, animals begin acting strangely, and it seems someone could be watching the house. Soon, the diaries of the previous owners begin to reveal a terrible tragedy which befell Kirkhill - one which its new occupant may be unable to escape . . .
