Maiden and Her Monster

The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark . . . As the healer`s daughter, Malka has seen how the forest`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. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the woods and Malka`s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings him the monster, he will spare her mother from execution. When she ventures into the blood-soaked woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only after Malka helps her fulfil an ancient promise by freeing the imprisoned rabbi who created her. 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 - and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.