Black Feathers: A Novel

Sixteen-year-old runaway Cassie Weathers is utterly alone, living on the streets as winter sets in. Then she meets Skylark, a young girl who introduces her to a community of street-dwellers and runaways. As Cassie settles in to the community, the city is rocked by the news that a number of young prostitutes have been murdered.

Cassie grows closer to Skylark, but the night terrors and sleep paralysis Cassie suffered as a child begin to return, and the mystery as to why she ran away from home deepens. While it seems she ran to escape abuse, the actual reason might be more terrifying: helpless to resist her dreams, did she kill her father and leave home to protect her mother and sister?

In the camp, Cassie's dreams take another turn: she dreams of killing one of the members of the community, a woman whose body is found nearby the following morning after an apparent suicide. When Cassie dreams of killing Skylark, she tries to run again only to find herself drawn back into the new home she has found. When Skylark disappears, Cassie is left alone, spiralling into complex dreamworlds where her past blurs with her present and nothing can be trusted.

Inspired by authors such as Stephen King, Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman, Black Feathers is a novel that straddles genres, incorporating elements of literary fiction, urban fantasy and horror. It’s a coming of age story, a love story and a mythic thriller.