Set in Gilded Age New York, Pearl Bound is a gothic historical novel blending psychological horror, sapphic desire, and supernatural power within rigid class hierarchies and inherited bloodlines.

Eve Kelly, an Irish immigrant servant, is drawn into the opulent, dark —and dangerous—world of Greythorne Manor, where wealth, secrecy, and predation govern every interaction. When Eve becomes entangled with Saskia Rennard, the privileged daughter of the house, their forbidden, increasingly fraught connection ignites a chain of events involving inherited power, violence, and reckoning.

As Eve’s latent supernatural abilities surface, the novel traces the tension between survival and resistance, desire and danger. Power is inherited, transferred, and claimed through blood and proximity, forcing Eve to confront what it means to escape a system designed to consume her—and whether freedom can exist without sacrifice.

Blending lush historical atmosphere with escalating psychological and supernatural horror, Pearl Bound explores power imbalance, queerness under constraint, and the cost of autonomy inside institutions built to erase it.

The novel will appeal to readers of gothic fiction and literary horror drawn to morally complex characters, slow-burn sapphic relationships, and dark historical settings.

Early recognition includes a glowing Kirkus review and spotlight in the January 15 2026 issue, and strong early reader response.

Recommended for:

• LGBTQ+ and sapphic fiction collections -
• Gothic and literary horror readers -
• Historical fiction readers seeking darker, transgressive narratives
• Libraries and reviewers interested in genre-crossing queer work