Winterdim: A Seaborn Novel

Theodora Viran has a way with forests, blossoms, creeping vines, composting, paranoia, and sudden death. She sees deception in every shadow, a trap in every word, and the universe has always been someone else's manipulative game, but when she makes a promise to save a childhood friend, it becomes a promise she can't break without breaking her view of the world.

Dryad shares some characters and takes place almost a hundred and seventy years after the events in the Seaborn Trilogy (Saltwater Witch, Seaborn, Sea Throne), but is a stand-alone story.

Dryad is the story of Theodora Viren—"Thea"—and her reluctant search for the meaning of trust and friendship. Thea has a way with forests, blossoms, creeping vines, composting, and sudden death. She's half dryad with a hosted demon named Shirley, an anthropologist father, and a goddess mother—Thea's mother spends six months of every year in her treeform and has trouble recognizing her own daughter every spring. Dryad's the story of the death of Thea's confidence in anyone or anything, and the road she travels to recreate a sense of trust, to discover what living really is, how much it depends on trusting others and allowing others to trust her. In Thea's view, the universe is someone else's manipulative game, but when she makes a promise to save the life of a childhood friend, it becomes a promise she can't break without breaking her view of the world.