A spellbinding, edge-of your seat thriller, Ink Blood Sister Scribe follows a family tasked with guarding a trove of magical but deadly books, and the shadowy organisation that will do anything to get them back . . . even murder.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs, which is out July 4th.
SOME BOOKS SHOULD NEVER BE OPENED.
Joanna Kalotay lives alone in the woods of Vermont, the sole protector of a collection of rare books; books that will allow someone to walk through walls or turn water into wine. Books of magic.
Her estranged older sister Esther moves between countries and jobs, constantly changing, never staying anywhere longer than a year, desperate to avoid the deadly magic that killed her mother. Currently working on a research base in Antarctica, she has found love and perhaps a sort of happiness.
But when she finds spots of blood on the mirrors in the research base, she knows someone is coming for her, and that Joanna and her collection are in danger.
If they are to survive, she and Joanna must unravel the secrets their parents kept hidden from them – secrets that span centuries and continents, and could cost them their lives …
The water in Nicholas’ wine glass was beginning to bubble.
Around him, the other guests — each clutching their own identical glasses — broke into excited murmurs, and Nicholas had a brief bird’s-eye appreciation for the strangeness of the scene: a group of twenty people in dinner jackets and cocktail dresses standing amongst the sleek white leather sofas and black lacquer cocktail tables of this penthouse drawing room, the red damask walls boasting a Rothko, an Auerbach, and a splendid view of the glittering London night outside — yet everybody in attendance was staring with rapt attention not at the art or out the window or at one another, but into their wine glasses.
Everybody except Nicholas.
At the front of the room, posed dramatically in front of the black marble hearth, the host of the evening, Sir Deacon, stood with a book in his hands, droning on and on in his florid, phlegmy voice. The guests’ murmurs changed to gasps of delight and awe as the bubbles in their water turned from clear to turbid, taking on first a brownish, mineral cast and then deepening in hue as the host kept reading. People had begun lowering their noses to their glasses, inhaling the now-tannic bite and whispering foolish things like, “Red! It’s really turning red!” and “My god, it smells like wine!”
From just over Nicholas’ shoulder came a long, inelegant snort, and he glanced around to see his bodyguard leaning to sniff his own glass, clearly trying to imitate the other guests and doing a poor job of it. For one thing, Collins was the only person in the room holding the wine glass by the bowl rather than the stem. For another, despite the decent suit Nicholas had picked out for him, he still looked like a last-minute extra in a film about the Boston Irish mafia, someone’s daughter’s pugilistic boyfriend maybe. Quite at odds with the smart milieu.
Sir Deacon ended the reading, finally, letting the last word ring out in a sort of squawking triumph, and the guests quieted down, raising their eyes from the liquid in their glasses — now a dark, nearly violet burgundy — to their host. Sir Deacon took his time shutting the book, clearly savoring the anticipation of his gathered crowd, then he held the volume aloft in one hand. His butler, who’d been standing to one side with a small, slightly-bloodied dish of powdered herbs and a full wine glass on a tray, took a step forward. Sir Deacon took the glass and put the book in its stead and the butler stepped back again.
“My dear friends,” said Sir Deacon. “You hold in your hand the founding vintage of one of the finest winemakers in the world — a glass of wine that no one living can claim to have tasted.” He paused, eyes sweeping the room. “No one, that is, except for us. It is my absolute pleasure to share with you tonight this 1869 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.” He paused again and everyone gingerly applauded, mindful of their glasses. “As many of you know, this project has been years in the making, since I first dreamed it up in the limestone vineyards of Burgundy — and I could not have realized that dream without the cooperation and collaboration of Richard Maxwell and Dr. Maram Ebla.”
Richard was across the room from Nicholas but easy to see because of his height, and Nicholas felt his jaw clench as he watched his uncle incline his head, smiling, to accept the light applause. Maram was probably doing the same at his side, but she was obscured from Nicholas’ view by a particularly broad man in a last-season Tom Ford jacket.
“And now, let us raise our glasses in a toast.”
All around Nicholas, elegant arms were lifted, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Cooperation and collaboration, what bollocks. Sir Deacon might’ve had the idea, just as Richard might’ve brokered the deal and Maram might’ve sent people to France to gather grape leaves and vineyard soil, but Nicholas was the one who’d spent nearly six months drafting the actual book; he was the one with the barely-healed scar still pulling at the crook of his elbow; he was the one down nearly two pints of blood.
The toast had ended and now everyone was swirling their wine and raising their glasses to their lips, sipping, exclaiming, congratulating, patting Richard on the back, shaking Sir Deacon’s hand — and not a single one of them would be in this room if it weren’t for Nicholas, and not a single one of them knew it.
He turned to Collins, who had a mouthful of wine and did not seem happy about it. “I’m getting air,” he said. “Don’t follow me.”
Collins spat his wine back into his glass.
“That is disgusting,” said Nicholas.
“Agreed,” Collins said. “It tastes like socks.”
