The Strangers’ Sanctuary

The cover of The Strangers' Sanctuary (art credit: May Barros). A woman in a long blue dress and a man in a cape with a sword both lean against a fence, looking out over a hilly landscape. There is a building just visible over the next hill. Around this is a faded background photo of a Tuscan landscape, with farmland, hills and trees.

Preorders are here! Links will be added as soon as they are available. The official release is on Sept. 1, 2025.

When home betrays you, build a new home

Two former classmates, faithless priest Placida and traumatized shrine guard Lunden, are tasked with reopening an abandoned shrine far out in farm country. They didn’t know one another well at the Academy, and don’t intend to start now. They just have to figure out how to run a shrine on their own, so the townsfolk don’t send them home.

Between summer bonfires and winter rains, Placida and Lunden find that they’ll have to work together to make the shrine thrive — and that they both hide painful secrets.

The Strangers’ Sanctuary is a small-scale fantasy novel about healing from dysfunctional origins, finding your place in the world, potlucks, book clubs, and true friends. It’s set in the same queernorm, low-magic world as the Healers series, but can be read without it.

Content note: Contains detailed depictions of verbal and emotional abuse, low self-esteem and other character struggles, and fictional religions. It has no world-level stakes, but high personal stakes. Full Content Notes

Sample (PDF)

Purchasing Options

All purchasing and borrowing availability may vary by location. Some storefronts may apply DRM; I do not opt into that if I have a choice to.

Ebook

Barnes & Noble (online) | Kobo | Apple Books | Amazon (US / UK / AU / others available)

Thalia | Smashwords

Print

Barnes & Noble (online) | Amazon (US / UK / AU / others available)

Available through IngramSpark for bookstore orders

Borrowing Options

Kobo Plus | Everand | Hoopla (library card needed)

(Hopefully will be) Available on OverDrive for library requests, must be approved by your library first (be nice)

The Books2Read link includes more purchasing and borrowing options.

Published September 2025

Extras

  • Author Notes (extremely long; includes further reading suggestions and playlist)
  • Character List
  • Sign up for the newsletter to get an exclusive story spun off this book, “The Shopkeeper Who Captured a Swordmaster”, a prequel/”meanwhile” story from Ivo’s point of view. 13k words, free to subscribers.

Credits

Developmental editing assessment: Dahlhouse Editing

Cover art: May Barros

Tools Used

  • Microsoft Word (writing and editing)
  • Atticus (formatting software; ebook and print formatting)
  • ProWritingAid plugin for Microsoft Word (line editing) – no “generative” AI / text suggestion or text generation features were used, but “frequently used words” searches and grammar checking features were used. All corrections and edits were made by a human, namely me. If this is outside your comfort level, that’s fine; do not purchase or read this book.
  • Kindle Create (epub formatter; formatting temporary drafts during editing)
  • Moon+ Reader Pro (epub reader; reading temporary drafts during editing)
  • Boox NeoReader (epub reader; reading temporary drafts during editing)
  • Google Drive (notes and spreadsheets)
  • Affinity Photo (Photoshop alternative; promotional images and back cover layout)
  • Calibre (ebook formatting for some stores)
  • Publisher Rocket (keyword research)

Any stock photos used in promotional images are sourced from DepositPhotos under a commercial license. I have made every effort to avoid AI-based images from that source (although they do not make it easy).

AI was not used by the cover artist. The spine/back cover design is by me, using Affinity Photo and elements from the front cover. Also without AI.