Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom she calls home—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.
But nothing comes for free, especially magic.
When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King’s own nephew, Captain of the Destriers…and guilty of high treason.
He and Elspeth have until Solstice to gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.
For fans of Uprooted and For the Wolf comes a dark, lushly gothic fantasy about a maiden who must unleash the monster within to save her kingdom—but the monster in her head isn’t the only threat lurking.
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Atmospheric dark fantasy and romantasy novels featuring intricate magic systems and gothic tone have established The Shepherd King series as a standout entry in modern speculative fiction. Author Rachel Gillig gained widespread popularity with her debut novel One Dark Window, which quickly expanded into a major fantasy success across international bestseller lists and book recommendation communities.
Rachel Gillig was born and raised along the California coast. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Literary Theory and Criticism from the University of California, Davis, a academic background that informed her approach to narrative structure and speculative worldbuilding. Before pursuing full-time novel writing, Gillig worked as an artist and a preschool teacher. Her transition into adult fantasy writing led to immediate commercial success with her debut duology, achieving placement on the #1 New York Times, #1 Sunday Times, and USA Today bestseller lists. Today, she continues to write from coastal California, where she lives with her husband, son, and their poodle, Wally.
Gillig's writing is characterized by atmospheric setting, dark folklore influences, and slow-burn romantic tension. Combining elements of classic fairy tales with high-stakes magic systems, her narrative approach leverages her background in literary theory to construct immersive settings and layered characters. Strong social media word-of-mouth and viral momentum on platforms like BookTok helped drive her novels to broad readership and hundreds of thousands of high ratings on Goodreads. When not dreaming up her next novel ensconced in blankets, she draws creative inspiration from her garden or outdoor walks along the Northern California coastline.
The Shepherd King
