A Bed of Earth (Secret Books of Venus)

A Bed of Earth is a haunting journey to a parallel version of sixteenth-century Venice, where a fierce territorial rivalry between two noble families unearths a supernatural force from beneath the placid surface of the canals and rotting understructure of the city.

The struggle between the two families for space on the Isle of the Dead, the overcrowded burial ground for generations of Venetian nobility, boils over and a fourteen-year-old girl is forced to pay the ultimate price. As the years pass on, parties complicit in her disappearance begin to suffer the consequences in a series of shocking deaths. A humble apprentice gravedigger is left to sort out the mysteries and subdue the ancient terror that threatens to destroy the entire republic.