From the author of Flights of Angels comes the fourth book in the Exit Unicorns series. It is the winter of 1975 in Northern Ireland, and the Troubles are at their darkest hour. Casey Riordan is missing and Jamie Kirkpatrick has just returned home from two years in a Russian gulag.

Desperate to find her missing husband, Pamela Riordan makes a devil’s bargain with the one man she believes can help her, forming an alliance which will have grave consequences for her and those she loves. For Pamela and her family, caught in the quagmire of eight hundred years’ worth of hate and betrayal, compromise—both that of body and soul—is inevitable.

All of them face an uncertain future in Northern Ireland—a country of shadows, where nothing is as it seems and the slightest misstep can have deadly consequences. Shimmering historical detail and masterful storytelling combine in a tale which sweeps us across continents and seas from the bloody events of the Troubles to the rough streets of post-Vietnam San Francisco, making this fourth book a journey of both turbulent intensity and heartbreaking choices.

England, 1321. The tiny village of Ulewic teeters between survival and destruction, faith and doubt, God and demons. Men cloaked in masks and secrecy, known as the Owl Masters, rule with violence, intimidation, and terrifying fiery rites.

But another force is touching Ulewic—a newly formed community built and served only by women. Called a beguinage, it is a safe harbor of service and faith in defiance of the all-powerful Church. Behind the walls of this sanctuary, women have gathered from all walks of life: a skilled physician, a towering former prostitute, a cook, a local convert.

Life in Ulewic is growing more dangerous with each passing day. The women are the subject of rumors, envy, scorn, and fury… until the daughter of Ulewic’s most powerful man is cast out of her home and accepted into the beguinage—and battle lines are drawn.

Into this drama are swept innocents and conspirators: a parish priest trying to save himself from his own sins, a village teenager, pregnant and terrified, a woman once on the verge of sainthood, now cast out of the Church. With Ulewic ravaged by flood and disease, and with villagers driven by fear, a secret inside the beguinage will draw the desperate and the depraved—until masks are dropped, faith is tested, and every lie is exposed.