The day Anne Tinning turns seventeen, birds fall from the sky. But that’s hardly the most upsetting news. She’s being dismissed from the home she’s served at since she was a child, and shipped off to become the newly hired parlor maid for a place she’s never heard of. And when she sees the run-down, isolated house, she instantly knows why:
There’s something wrong with Rosewood Manor.
Staffed with only three other servants, all gripped by icy silence and inexplicable bruises, and inhabited by a young master who is as cold as the place itself, the house is shrouded in neglect and thick with fear. Her questions are met with hushed whispers, and she soon finds herself alone in the empty halls, left to tidy and clean rooms no one visits.
As the feeling of being watched grows, she begins to realize there is something else in the house with them--some creature that stalks the frozen halls and claws at her door. A creature that seems intent on harming her.
When a fire leaves Anne trapped in the manor with its Master, she finally demands to know why. But as she forces the truth about what haunts the grounds from Lord Grey, she learns secrets she isn’t prepared for. The creature is very real, and she’s the only one who can help him stop it.
Now, Anne must either risk her life for the young man she’s grown to admire, or abandon her post while she still can.
"Cano does a fine job of setting mood and atmosphere, and her characters dance around one another with relentless industry and brooding allure, fighting their inevitable attraction." — Publishers Weekly
Rosewood Manor has been ashes for weeks.
Left with no post and no home, Anne Tinning never expected to find herself in a luxurious carriage, dressed in the finest of clothes, pretending to be the wife of Lord August Grey. The search for Miss Bellingham, however, will require them to blend into the very height of London society, a class Anne has only ever served, and which August despises. But August insists that the ruse is the only way. For although they’ve vanquished the wraith that called for August’s life, they will never be safe unless they find a way to stop the woman he scorned.
There are traces of Lily Bellingham the length and breadth of London, but when Anne and August investigate the gruesome disappearances in a factory she has just purchased, they realize that Lily is more powerful than either of them. And she has devised a new way to take her revenge.
With another curse placed upon August’s head, Anne must find a way to defeat Lily, and this time, she will have no help from the young man she has grown to love. This time, the curse is more insidious, twisting him into someone unrecognizable.
This time, August Grey is the one she must fear.
Nora Smith may be the best rat-catcher, pickpocket, and liar in gas-lit London, but her skills can’t help save her brother when he is killed in a fight.
That’s when Aleister Blake appears, a man who offers to reclaim her sibling from death. For a price.
At Aleister’s bidding, Nora leaves her life in the streets and moves into his house, one brimming with secrets. There are servants she only sees from the corner of her eyes and an entire second story she can’t access. When Aleister challenges her to help him find what he values most in the world in exchange for keeping her brother alive, she must use all of her talents to follow the only hint he has given her: the ship christened Pandemonium.
With the enigmatic Aleister at her heels, Nora chases Pandemonium’s trail right into London’s underbelly, where blackmailers and smugglers thrive.
Right to the truth that will force her to finally confront who she is and what it really means to make bargains with the Devil.
Grief leaves a stain.
Sibilla Fenoglio wants nothing more than to live with her husband in this run-down, derelict watermill. Uninhabited since the Renaissance after a mysterious disaster befell the previous owners, the mill requires extensive repairs.
But there is something sinister about the mill.
Repairs are violently undone, half-seen figures begin stalking Sibilla through the grounds, and haunting echoes of the previous owners’ lives infiltrate the present.
As the disturbances grow more vicious and her husband more secretive, she realizes that she and her child are in danger.
Born in Uruguay to Latino and Italian parents and having lived in Miami, FL, for twenty-three years, Valentina Cano Repetto has now made her home in a secluded watermill in Northern Italy.
She is the author of The Rose Master (REUTS Publications) and Sanctuary, coming from CamCat Books in 2024.
When not writing, you can find her cuddling with her dozen goats or sunbathing with her snake.
Contact Me
valca85.vc@gmail.com
News
Library Journal Review of Sanctuary:
“Fans of Isabel Cañas’s The Hacienda and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic will breathe in this book’s brooding atmosphere, even as its emotional punch of a climax leaves them breathless.”