The Ravenhood
A brilliant exploration of what happens when love, desire, and deep secrets come to a crossroads.
1. FLOCK by Kate Stewart
SYNOPSIS
Can you keep a secret?
I grew up sick.β£ Let me clarify.β£ I grew up believing that real love stories include a martyr or demand great sacrifice to be worthy.β£ Because of that, I believed it, because I made myself believe it, and I bred the most masochistic of romantic hearts, which resulted in my illness.β£
When I lived this story, my own twisted fairy tale, it was unbeknownst to me at the time because I was young and naΓ―ve. I gave into temptation and fed the beating beast, which grew thirstier with every slash, every strike, every blow.β£
Triple Falls wasnβt at all what it seemed, nor were the men that swept me under their wing. But in order to keep them, I had to be in on their secrets.β£ Secrets that cost us everything to keep.β£
Thatβs the novelty of fiction versus reality. You canβt re-live your own love story, because by the time youβve realized youβre living it, itβs over. At least that was the case for me and the men I trusted my foolish heart to.β£
Looking back, Iβm convinced I willed my story into existence due to my illness.β£ And all were punished.
2. EXODUS by Kate Stewart
SYNOPSIS
Can you live a lie?
Itβs a ghost town, this place that haunts me, the one that made me. Itβs clear to me that Iβll never outgrow Triple Falls or outlive the time I spent here.
I can still feel them all, my boys of summer. Even when Iβd sensed the danger, I gave in. I didnβt heed a single warning. I let my sickness, my love, both rule and ruin me. I played my part, eyes wide open, tempting fate until it delivered. There was never going to be an escape. All of us are to blame for what happened. All of us serving our own sentences. We were careless and reckless, thinking our youth made us indestructible, exempt from our sins, and it cost us all.
Iβm done pretending I didnβt leave the largest part of me between these hills and valleys, between the sea of trees that hold my secrets. Itβs the reason Iβm back. To make peace with my fate. And if I canβt grieve enough to cure myself in my time here, Iβll remain sick. That will be my curse.
But itβs time to confess, to myself more so than any other, that Iβd hindered my chances because of the way I was built, and because of the men who built me. At this point, I just want to make peace with who I am, no matter what ending I get. Because I can no longer live a lie.
3. THE FINISH LINE by Kate Stewart
SYNOPSIS
Secrets and lies...
Iβve lived the entirety of my life wrapped up in subterfuge for one purposeβrevenge. Through the years, I lived more as an enigma than a man. For so long, I denied I had a beating heart of my own. Until her. Until she unearthed the starving vessel inside, forced me to acknowledge it, forced me to understand that Iβm capable of bleeding the same as any other.
For that, we paid. Weβre still paying.
Yet, she demands it still, the useless heart of the ruthless thief and shameless villain she fell for. My fear is, Iβm no longer that man.
With the lies Iβve told, the life Iβve led, my mistakes are beginning to catch up with me, day by day, one by one.
This is my last chance, and I have no intention of losing her again, but as the deception of my past starts to unravel and close in, shedding my humanity may be the only thing that can save us both.
Maybe itβs already too late.