What constitutes an environment in American literature is an issue that has undergone much debate across environmental humanities in the last decade. In the field, some have argued that environments are markedly natural or wild sites while others contend literary spaces can be both wild and urban, or even cultural. Yet, few of the works produced to date have addressed the pronounced influence the author of a text has on a literary environment. Despite exciting work on materiality and culture in conceptions of environments, critics have not yet fully examined the contributions of poetry’s language, form, and self-awareness in rethinking what constitutes an environment.By approaching environments in a new way, Nolan closes this gap and recognizes how contemporary poets employ self-reflexive commentary and formal experimentation in order to create new natural/cultural environments on the page. She proposes a radical new direction for ecopoetics and deploys it in relation to four major American poets. Working from literal to textual spaces through the contemporary poetry of A.R. Ammons’s Garbage, Lyn Hejinian’s My Life, Susan Howe’s The Midnight, and Kenneth Goldsmith’s Seven American Deaths and Disasters, the book presents applications of unnatural ecopoetics in poetic environments, ones that do not engage with traditional ideas of nature and would otherwise remain outside the scope of ecocritical and ecopoetic studies.  Nolan proposes a new practical approach for reading poetic language. Ecocriticism is a very fluid and evolving discipline, and Nolan’s pioneering new book pushes the boundaries of second-wave ecopoetics—the fundamental issue being what is nature/natural, and how does poetic language, particularly self-conscious contemporary poetic agency, contribute to and complicate that question.

She needed a miracle. He came with a contract.Katie Nolan has spent fourteen months watching her younger sister fade inside the cold machinery of hospitals, waiting lists, unpaid bills, and impossible choices. When ordinary help runs out, a mysterious private adviser offers her something no doctor can give.One year of restored health for Erin.One year and one night belonging to Ronan Quinn.Ronan is no ordinary man. He is ancient, controlled, terrifyingly beautiful, and bound to laws older than the city itself. The contract he offers is simple enough to ruin her: Erin will live, and Katie's soul will become collateral. At the end of the term, Ronan may claim her forever unless she survives three hidden conditions written into the bargain.Katie expects cruelty. She expects possession. She expects the monster who owns her contract to behave like every other powerful thing that has taken from her.Instead, Ronan becomes the one being who refuses to let the world break her.As Katie is drawn into Blackthorn House, the Obsidian Court, and the hidden economy of souls beneath Dublin, she discovers that her bargain is part of something far darker than one desperate choice. Cormac Ryan, the man who arranged the contract, has built an empire from human suffering, selling despair to ancient powers and profiting from those with nowhere left to turn.But Katie carries something rare in her blood, something that makes her worth more than she knows.And Ronan is beginning to care far more than Hell allows.Their bond begins as debt, becomes protection, and turns into a dangerous love neither of them can control. Every touch is restrained. Every look carries a warning. Every truth brings them closer to a law that was never meant to be broken.The Demon's Contract is a dark gothic paranormal romance about sacrifice, forbidden desire, supernatural debt, and the terrifying beauty of being protected by the monster everyone else fears.Perfect for readers who love:Dark paranormal romanceDemon protector romanceSlow burn forbidden loveGothic atmosphereSoul bargains and ancient contractsEmotional supernatural romanceIrish setting and occult intrigueProtective morally dangerous heroesDeep emotional stakes with sensual tensionSome bargains cost the soul. Some awaken it.

What constitutes an environment in American literature is an issue that has undergone much debate across environmental humanities in the last decade. In the field, some have argued that environments are markedly natural or wild sites while others contend literary spaces can be both wild and urban, or even cultural. Yet, few of the works produced to date have addressed the pronounced influence the author of a text has on a literary environment. Despite exciting work on materiality and culture in conceptions of environments, critics have not yet fully examined the contributions of poetry’s language, form, and self-awareness in rethinking what constitutes an environment.By approaching environments in a new way, Nolan closes this gap and recognizes how contemporary poets employ self-reflexive commentary and formal experimentation in order to create new natural/cultural environments on the page. She proposes a radical new direction for ecopoetics and deploys it in relation to four major American poets. Working from literal to textual spaces through the contemporary poetry of A.R. Ammons’s Garbage, Lyn Hejinian’s My Life, Susan Howe’s The Midnight, and Kenneth Goldsmith’s Seven American Deaths and Disasters, the book presents applications of unnatural ecopoetics in poetic environments, ones that do not engage with traditional ideas of nature and would otherwise remain outside the scope of ecocritical and ecopoetic studies.  Nolan proposes a new practical approach for reading poetic language. Ecocriticism is a very fluid and evolving discipline, and Nolan’s pioneering new book pushes the boundaries of second-wave ecopoetics—the fundamental issue being what is nature/natural, and how does poetic language, particularly self-conscious contemporary poetic agency, contribute to and complicate that question.

She needed a miracle. He came with a contract.Katie Nolan has spent fourteen months watching her younger sister fade inside the cold machinery of hospitals, waiting lists, unpaid bills, and impossible choices. When ordinary help runs out, a mysterious private adviser offers her something no doctor can give.One year of restored health for Erin.One year and one night belonging to Ronan Quinn.Ronan is no ordinary man. He is ancient, controlled, terrifyingly beautiful, and bound to laws older than the city itself. The contract he offers is simple enough to ruin her: Erin will live, and Katie's soul will become collateral. At the end of the term, Ronan may claim her forever unless she survives three hidden conditions written into the bargain.Katie expects cruelty. She expects possession. She expects the monster who owns her contract to behave like every other powerful thing that has taken from her.Instead, Ronan becomes the one being who refuses to let the world break her.As Katie is drawn into Blackthorn House, the Obsidian Court, and the hidden economy of souls beneath Dublin, she discovers that her bargain is part of something far darker than one desperate choice. Cormac Ryan, the man who arranged the contract, has built an empire from human suffering, selling despair to ancient powers and profiting from those with nowhere left to turn.But Katie carries something rare in her blood, something that makes her worth more than she knows.And Ronan is beginning to care far more than Hell allows.Their bond begins as debt, becomes protection, and turns into a dangerous love neither of them can control. Every touch is restrained. Every look carries a warning. Every truth brings them closer to a law that was never meant to be broken.The Demon's Contract is a dark gothic paranormal romance about sacrifice, forbidden desire, supernatural debt, and the terrifying beauty of being protected by the monster everyone else fears.Perfect for readers who love:Dark paranormal romanceDemon protector romanceSlow burn forbidden loveGothic atmosphereSoul bargains and ancient contractsEmotional supernatural romanceIrish setting and occult intrigueProtective morally dangerous heroesDeep emotional stakes with sensual tensionSome bargains cost the soul. Some awaken it.