Society, suitors, and … serial murders?

As much as she desires to please her family, gently-bred herbalist Jessa Caldwell has no intention of making a suitable match—not when she’s seeking the truth about the taint of the fae that lies within her. If she’s to escape the madness brought on by fae-touch, she must devote her energies to seeking a cure.

But then mysterious tattoos begin to appear on the citizens of Avons. None recall receiving these harbingers of death, but all die at the hand of an untraceable killer days or weeks after being marked.

When the tattoo appears on her beloved mentor, Jessa seeks the Magistry with information on the case—yet they refuse to consider her findings, so she must risk both social censure and her own safety to hunt for the killer herself.

Her one possible ally represents her greatest fear—the encroaching Otherworld consuming her mind—and may well undo all her efforts to control her fae-touch. Yet if she forsakes the offered aid, the killer will go free.

Something sinister stalks the streets of her city, and she must decide…how far will she go to stop the killing?

Book 1 of the Blood of the Fae series

Tattoo of Crimson, a gaslamp fantasy novel, is the first book in the Blood of the Fae series. If you like quick-minded heroines who solve cases with logic and intuition, beautiful yet deadly fae, and Otherworldly intrigues, then you’ll love this mystery set in a world of manners and mythical monsters.

Aspiring botanist Jessa Caldwell didn’t want to find a mystery and the Otherkind. But what can she do when her mentor is marked with the red harbinger of death that has already claimed lives all over the city? Sarah Chislon’s Tattoo of Crimson creates in-depth character questions and plot puzzles as Jessa tries to solve a mystery to prevent her mentor’s murder while navigating societal expectations. Complex relationships and social conventions tangle in this unique world inspired by Regency England and the Inquisition era, but overlaid with fae creatures.

Best for: Women who enjoy gaslamp fantasy, magic-tinged intrigue, and murder mysteries.

Discern: Violence in fights, murders, fae-creatures that use magic called “glamour.”