

When a taster deems her blood an exquisite and rare taste, Marion is taken north to be presented as a potential new bloodmaid, where she finds herself the newest member of the notorious House of Hunger. Happening upon this strange advert is Marion Shaw, a young woman desperate to leave her current circumstances, yet with no hopes of doing so –until now. It comes on behalf of the illustrious houses of the far north, where wealthy nobles live for the finer pleasures of human blood, relying on young women known as bloodmaids to supply it. The advertisement in the paper seems almost written in blood.

She'll need to learn the rules of her new home - and fast - or its halls will soon become her grave. But when her fellow bloodmaids begin to go missing in the night, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. Lisavet is magnetic, charismatic, seductive - and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. And she takes a special interest in Marion. Loved and feared in equal measure, she presides over this hedonistic court. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery - and there, at the centre of it all is her. In a matter of days, she finds herself at the notorious House of Hunger. Though she knows little about the far north - where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service - Marion applies to the position.

Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a strange advertisement in the newspaper, seeking a 'bloodmaid'.

Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation are all she knows. Girls of weak will need not apply.Ī young woman is drawn into the upper echelons of a society where blood is power, in this dark and enthralling Gothic novel from the author of The Year of the Witching. Must have a keen proclivity for life's finer pleasures. WANTED: A bloodmaid of exceptional taste.
