The Maiden and Her Monster

<p><b>The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.</b><br><br>As the healer&rsquo;s daughter, Malka has seen how the wood&rsquo;s curse has plagued her village, but the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to listen to heretics with false stories of monsters in the trees.<br><br>So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka&rsquo;s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest: bring the monster out and spare her mother from execution.<br><br>When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, but not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill an ancient promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.<br><br>But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save &ndash; and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.</p>