The Black Swan Company
Book Details
Author(s)Luna DeMasi
ISBN / ASINB00QXTME88
ISBN-13978B00QXTME88
Sales Rank922,947
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
Melody Fields is an investigative journalist.
...Or, at least, she used to be.
It’s been four years since the United States was ravaged by an epidemic that transitioned the majority of its residents into Sanguines -- undead creatures who sustain themselves on the life force of humans. Between the Sanguine strangle-hold on the country and the world-wide foreign border closings, what was left of the classical human population was being rapidly displaced. Attempting to find order in chaos, government officials offered the classical human population a treaty (colloquially known as ‘The Divide’) which allowed them to form protected, self-sustaining Colonies throughout the country in exchange for regular donations of the Colonists’ blood -- the most potent carrier of human life force.
Having been guilted by her single father to trade in her risky, high-paced lifestyle (and invincibility complex) for safety, Melody has been marooned on Nantucket, the New England paradise turned Colony, since the onset of the Divide. Unable to turn off her vocational instincts, the tough-as-nails, Boston-by-way-of-Foxboro journalist can’t help but notice when her fellow Colonists begin to disappear.
After months of observation, Melody finds a pattern to the disappearances, and it doesn’t take long for her poor impulse control to convince her act-first-think-later mentality to follow a group of kidnappees onto a ferry. Once on the mainland, though, her seldom seen sense of self-preservation causes her to abandon her mission and flee. Desperate for a place to hide, she winds up in the home of a lonely, soft-spoken Sanguine named Bastian, who seemingly breaks all protocol with his disinterest in eating her alive and his offer of safe harbor.
A slow-growing trust developing between them, Bastian tries his best to help Melody negotiate her place in a now unfamiliar world, but she doesn’t realize how different her place really is until she reconnects with her friends (and co-workers). Melody and her friends discover that they’ve been unraveling the same unsavory story from opposite ends, and when they tie their information together, they realize they might be uncovering a scandal that could change everything if it’s brought to light. But if they fail, it could mean the end for countless lives...even their own.
...Or, at least, she used to be.
It’s been four years since the United States was ravaged by an epidemic that transitioned the majority of its residents into Sanguines -- undead creatures who sustain themselves on the life force of humans. Between the Sanguine strangle-hold on the country and the world-wide foreign border closings, what was left of the classical human population was being rapidly displaced. Attempting to find order in chaos, government officials offered the classical human population a treaty (colloquially known as ‘The Divide’) which allowed them to form protected, self-sustaining Colonies throughout the country in exchange for regular donations of the Colonists’ blood -- the most potent carrier of human life force.
Having been guilted by her single father to trade in her risky, high-paced lifestyle (and invincibility complex) for safety, Melody has been marooned on Nantucket, the New England paradise turned Colony, since the onset of the Divide. Unable to turn off her vocational instincts, the tough-as-nails, Boston-by-way-of-Foxboro journalist can’t help but notice when her fellow Colonists begin to disappear.
After months of observation, Melody finds a pattern to the disappearances, and it doesn’t take long for her poor impulse control to convince her act-first-think-later mentality to follow a group of kidnappees onto a ferry. Once on the mainland, though, her seldom seen sense of self-preservation causes her to abandon her mission and flee. Desperate for a place to hide, she winds up in the home of a lonely, soft-spoken Sanguine named Bastian, who seemingly breaks all protocol with his disinterest in eating her alive and his offer of safe harbor.
A slow-growing trust developing between them, Bastian tries his best to help Melody negotiate her place in a now unfamiliar world, but she doesn’t realize how different her place really is until she reconnects with her friends (and co-workers). Melody and her friends discover that they’ve been unraveling the same unsavory story from opposite ends, and when they tie their information together, they realize they might be uncovering a scandal that could change everything if it’s brought to light. But if they fail, it could mean the end for countless lives...even their own.
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