In 1816, summer vanished—and something else took its place. Northamptonshire, 1816. The sun is veiled in a spiderwebbed red haze. Frost settles where wheat should ripen. Famine creeps through manor and village alike. And beneath it all—something stranger still: a red fungus that seals windows, invades cellars, and feeds on silence.Marcus, the second son of the Earl of Penderbrook, returns from the Napoleonic front expecting a hero's welcome or at least a stiff drink. Instead, he finds his brother missing, his ancestral home overtaken by decay, and his father unraveling into something brutal.Marcus is no one's idea of a savior. He'd rather gamble away his title and chase other men's wives than shoulder any legacy. But Penderbrook isn't letting him go. Not yet.As disappearances mount and the estate reveals grotesque secrets—cellars that whisper, a folly that shifts in the corner of your eye, and something pale that watches from the pond—Marcus uncovers a truth soaked in blood, spores, and betrayal.Whatever is happening at Penderbrook didn't begin with him. But it might end with him.And if the corruption is in the land……it may already be in his blood.For fans of Frankenstein, crumbling empires, and stories that don't flinch from the monstrous within the civilized.
