THE GRAVEDIGGER'S SON

SOME MONSTERS ARE WORTH STEPPING INTO THE DARKNESS TO DISCOVER.

Every year, three hours before midnight on Halloween, the creature emerges. A carved smile wrapped in shadow.

Ember doesn’t see himself as a monster. He doesn’t know why, for the past six years, he’s drawn to the same place at the edge of the graveyard. Why, year after year, he peers out from the darkness of the trees, waiting for the boy to show his face.

Ash has lived most of his life in costume, not just on Halloween. The son of a gravedigger, he sometimes feels like his own grave is the one his father is hell-bent on digging—violently determined to protect Ash from the nameless “evil” of the world. But Ash suspects the true evil his father fears is the forbidden desire he senses growing inside his son.

For the past six years, Ember has longed to reach out to the boy, to speak to him, to know him. But every year, Halloween comes and goes and Ember returns to his world. This year, however, Ash is 18. Soon he’ll be out in the world on his own. Soon, it’ll be too late.

When Ash unexpectedly approaches Ember lurking in the woods, it sparks a connection that’s immediate, raw, and seemingly inevitable. In the strange sanctuary of Ember’s remarkable powers, the encounter turns into more than either bargained for—a sensual reckoning, a dizzying dance of discovery, surrender, and awakening.

But what happens when the evil you’ve been taught to fear becomes the object of your deepest longing?

What happens when the clock strikes midnight? Will their fated connection be enough to keep the grave from pulling Ember back to his world? Will the gravedigger’s pitchfork finally find its mark?

The Gravedigger’s Son explores the all-consuming passion of young love, the courage it takes to remove the masks of conformity, and the terrifying freedom of embracing our truest selves.

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