Synopsis

To save both her town and the woman who loves her against all odds, a witch haunted by loss must reckon with her turbulent past, in the next magical romance in the Witches of Thistle Grove series by New York Times bestselling author Lana Harper.

Even in a family of chaotic necromancers, Daria “Dasha” Avramov has always been an outlier. An event planner at the Arcane Emporium occult megastore, Dasha is also a devil eater: a rare necromantic witch with an affinity for banishing demons and traversing the veil, the boundary between this realm and the next.

Still grieving the loss of both beloved parents years ago and plagued by a dangerous obsession with the world beyond the veil, Dasha is fiery yet guarded, an expert at dodging commitment. Her worst regret is a devastating breakup with the wise, empathetic, and sensual Ivy Thorn, her event-planning counterpart at Honeycake Orchards and probably the love of Dasha’s life. Dasha has managed to break Ivy’s heart not once but twice, so things are more than a little tense between them.

When they’re thrown together to plan the Cavalcade—a month-long festival celebrating Thistle Grove’s ceremonial founding with dazzling spectacles held by the town’s witch families—Dasha hopes that the third time might be the charm, while Ivy refuses to let herself be hurt again. As they confront the pain and passion lingering between them, Dasha and Ivy must also stand against an otherworldly threat, unlike anything Thistle Grove has faced before.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1 – The Pretender

Eating devils is thirsty work.

More than the magic itself, it was that raging thirst in the aftermath that took clients by surprise. Most of those who called on me, Thistle Grove normies and witches alike, came in expecting occult accessories of a more sinister bent. Pungent curls of henbane smoke wisping from a tarnished censer, clusters of crystal shards bundled with dried herbs and feathers, arcane mutterings. (To be fair, I was more than down for the odd bit of arcane muttering when the exorcism called for it, or when an occasion demanded a sense of heightened drama. Even an outlier like me couldn’t resist the Avramov family flair for the theatrical.)

It barely even fazed me now, the way their apprehension clouded over into bemusement once I unzipped my black Patagonia backpack to pull out a hefty water bottle, embellished with shrill exhortations to HYDRATE! in two-hour increments. Then came the parade of apple juice boxes more appropriate for a middle schooler’s backpack, followed by strawberry Pedialyte, just in case the ritual threw my electrolytes too far out of whack. And, as a last resort, those miniature liquor nips you found tucked away in hotel room minibars like guilty secrets.

Those didn’t exactly help with the thirst, but with some of the nastier specimens I came across, nothing burned away the shitty aftertaste quite like a slug of Wild Turkey tossed back sharp.

But today, the client’s unusual composure was throwing me. When I’d arrived at the Arcane Emporium and drawn back the burgundy velvet curtain that veiled this divination enclosure, secluding it from the rest of the occult store and the series of identical nooks on either side, she’d been sitting across the table from Amrita in a posture I knew well. Head bowed, tendons standing out like steel cables in her neck, thin hands clasped on the tabletop so tightly the knuckles had paled into skeletal knobs.

Fear made flesh.

Yet the appraising glance she’d shot me when I slipped in, a keenly scrutinizing sweep of my entire person, had been shrouded by only the faintest film of uncertainty. Nothing like my normal clients.

“Hello,” I said, setting my sloshing backpack down and extending my hand. I’d found that a courteously detached demeanor, the kind of brisk professionalism you’d get from a doctor, served me better than any cultivated aura of mystique when it came to setting them at ease. The worst of the haunted only wanted to feel that they were in capable hands. “Good to meet you. I’m Daria Avramov, Amrita’s colleague. Dasha, if you like.”

“Right,” the woman said, with a crisp nod that made her glossy cap of chin-length brown hair sway, its caramel highlights glinting in the candlelight. She looked in her mid-to-late thirties, a handful of years older than me. Not my type, but a fresh-faced pretty, with the kind of dewy skin that meant either excellent genes or the budget for premium skincare and cosmetic intervention. Her handshake was cool but surprisingly firm; I was accustomed to a much clammier and more tremulous greeting experience. “The . . . the specialist. I’m Emily Duhamel, but just Emily’s fine.”

I withdrew my hand, considering her more closely. Anyone who required my niche services tended to show up beside themselves with terror-and unsure of whether they should be more afraid of whatever it was that plagued them or of me, yon fearsome exorcist witch. Given the breakdown of Thistle Grove’s normie population, they were also often the love-and-light types who drove me especially batty. The low-effort, high-commitment kind who outsourced their chakra cleansings and flung indiscriminate amounts of money at the spiritual life coaches they invariably found through social media.

Alas, this insufferable subgroup came with the territory. Many Thistle Grove transplants were drawn here by the allure of living in a town steeped in witchy history, as if the act of paying property taxes in a place ostensibly founded by four witch families might awaken some dormant psychic talents of their own. Even the Arcane Emporium’s signature herb-and-incense scent wasn’t enough to mask the patchouli they seemed to emanate aspirationally rather than physically. The irony of it was, when something sly and eldritch did come creeping in at their open-ended invitation, it often turned out that these were definitively not the vibes they’d been looking for.

That was when they came running to Avramov diviners at the Arcane Emporium-the only game in town that cut their teeth on shadows, specialized in dealing with manifestations from the other side of the veil.

But this woman wasn’t so easily rattled. And I didn’t catch so much as a whiff of figurative patchouli drifting off her, only the sweet, floral notes of some top-shelf perfume by a designer I’d never recognize, much less be able to name.

“Thank you for coming out for this, especially on a weekend,” she added, with a light laugh and a semi-incredulous shake of her head, as if the absurdity of her circumstances-the fact that the “specialist” in question was an alleged witch, with the alleged power to banish whatever monster it was that lurked under her bed-hadn’t escaped her. “I, uh, I’m looking forward to your expert opinion.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said, even more taken aback. For one of the haunted, this Emily had her shit impressively together, I decided, revising my estimate of her upward by several more notches. Despite the deceptively soft, flower-embroidered cashmere sweater over a preppy collared shirt and distressed jeans, I suspected she did something high-powered in her weekday life. The kind of demanding work that left her encased in an enamel shell that never really chipped off. “And happy to help with your problem, of course. I assume Amrita has discussed our rates with you?”

“Oh, yes.” She suppressed a tiny smile, as if she found our hourly rate laughably low but didn’t want to offend. I felt my first twinge of annoyance with her; whatever it was she did, not all of us were in the business of fleecing people by overcharging for essential services. “It won’t be an issue.”

“Perfect. In that case, let’s get started. Amrita?”

I glanced over at my half sister, who, though her everyday role was store manager, was bedecked in the clichéd fortune-teller regalia we all wore for our divination shifts-plummy lipstick, a cascade of gauzy maroon shawls shot through with shining thread, elaborate earrings, stacked rings on every slim finger. With her huge, thickly kohled dark eyes and lacquered spill of black hair loose over her shoulders, Amrita looked like my polar opposite, as if the entire palette of decadent color that should’ve been split between us had somehow ended up hers alone. Her hair inky dark to my white-blond; skin a warm golden brown to my year-round pallor; clothes a bright riot of color to the black cowl-neck sweater, black jeans, and black knee-high suede boots that comprised my fall uniform.

Compared to her, sometimes I thought I looked like a shade myself. A living ghost.

Appropriately enough, maybe.

Unlike me, Amrita blended seamlessly into the arcane décor. Three wooden chairs sat around a small table draped with a silky altar cloth, styled after the tarot starter deck we all grew up using, the one that had been designed by Oksana Avramov two centuries ago. On the tabletop, an ornate silver platter held a gray pillar candle with a high-licking flame, anchored by a dried pool of its own wax-along with an onyx scrying plate, a bowl of black salt, and a scattering of crystals mostly for appearances’ sake. A maroon damask canopy swooped over the tops of all the cubicles in the divination area, to blot out the Emporium’s brighter overhead fixtures. In here there was only candlelight and the soft bluish glow of a Turkish mosaic spiral lamp tucked into one corner, its azure glass-chip globes swaying on their brass chains every time one of us shifted in our chair.

“Catch me up on the details?” I said to Amrita. She’d summoned me by text once she realized Emily had a problem more in my wheelhouse than hers, but she’d been vague on the specifics.

My sister gave a smooth nod, though I caught the flicker of concern that flitted across her delicate features, the same disquiet I often saw in the mirror. Sometimes her expressions were unsettling replicas of mine, a side effect of us both having inherited most of our father’s face. “This is the tainted object,” she said, sliding a velvet jewelry pouch to me across the table, touching it as gingerly as she could. “I believe it’s the locus for whatever has attached itself to Emily.”

“So it’s definitely an entity, not a curse?” Sometimes our clients came in with heirlooms that had, either by accident or ill intent, become infused with malign spellwork that affected the wearer. The effects could appear similar to a haunting, but unpicking that kind of nasty tangle was a completely different undertaking, and not my forte.

“An infestation for sure,” Amrita confirmed, with a shudder so faint that someone less familiar with my sister’s poise wouldn’t even have caught it. “A pestilential one, too, I’d guess.”

“There’s no need to put it that way,” Emily cut in with a startling edge of reproach, a flash of temper flaring in her brown eyes. Under closer scrutiny, she looked worn-out beneath that tasteful makeup, the skin under her eyes the tender, predawn hue of purple that came from more than one restless night. Something was disturbing her sleep. “So crudely. Like she’s evil. An affliction. I told you, it isn’t like that. I’m not afraid of her.”

She, I noted. Her. So Emily thought she already knew what had taken up residence inside her jewelry.

Also unusual.

Excerpted from Rise and Divine by Lana Harper Copyright © 2024 by Lana Harper. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. 

About the Author

Lana Harper is the New York Times bestselling author of the Witches of Thistle Grove series. Writing as Lana Popović, she has also written four YA novels about modern-day witches and historical murderesses. Born in Serbia, Lana grew up in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria before moving to the US, where she studied psychology and literature at Yale University, law at Boston University, and publishing at Emerson College. She lives in Chicago, where she spends most of her time plotting witchy stories and equally witchy tattoos.

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