Her Crooked Confessor

Mother Alma Kettrin has spent her vocation repairing the windows of a saint she no longer quite believes in. When a new confessor is installed behind the grille, the sisters emerge lighter than they arrived, and sins start disappearing from the ledger. Only one name still stands: Alma's. She has confessed nothing. Father Crowe, it turns out, is not a priest. He is the abbey's oldest debt — a soul paid to the stone every hundred years so the walls keep standing, and the debt is due. To survive she must make a confession that God has no jurisdiction over, and she must make it with her own two hands. A stained-glass retelling of the oldest bargain there is, for readers who like their romance cold, sacred and quietly ruinous.