The Vale calls her traitor.
Gareth knows what they call her. He goes after her anyway.
Today, November 3, marks the Kindle release of Vow of the Forsaken, the fourth book in The Vale Series, and I finally get to invite you into Gareth and Tamlin’s story.
Come closer. You have been warned about this place often enough to know that standing near the door offers very little protection.
If you have followed the Vale through Thorns of Ash, Hunter’s Mark, and Echoes of the Broken, you already know how fiercely its people can love, and how much damage they can do when fear, loyalty, and power collide. You have walked beside Azara and Darian through the consequences.
Now Gareth and Tamlin must face their own.
He Goes After the Woman They Condemn
There is something about a rescue that makes us want to believe the worst will be over once someone reaches the person they came for.
A hand extended. A door broken open. That first breath when hope becomes possible again.
I love that moment.
I also want to know what happens when the person being rescued has left wounds of her own.
Tamlin carries a past that reaches beyond her. Other people have had to live with its consequences, and their pain deserves room in the story. Bringing her forward meant allowing those wounds to matter while giving her choices weight.
And Gareth? He crosses the laws left standing to reach her.
A sensible man might have considered the consequences at greater length.
Fortunately for those of us who enjoy dangerous devotion, sensible men rarely make this sort of story worth losing sleep over.
A Place Beside Someone
What draws me to Gareth and Tamlin is the space between wanting to save someone and learning how to stand beside them.
Love becomes terribly complicated when both people still have decisions to make, wounds to answer for, and something left to lose. Devotion can bring a person to your side. What you do when they arrive belongs to you.
That is where this story lives for me.
In the choice that costs something. In the courage it takes to let another person choose. In the hope that survives long enough to become dangerous.
I wanted you close enough to feel those moments, to understand why a decision might be foolish and still ache for someone to make it.
Vow of the Forsaken cover beside “Gareth and Tamlin’s Story Begins,” framed by gold thorn vines against a deep plum background.
Your Next Journey into the Vale
Vow of the Forsaken is book four in The Vale Series, following Echoes of the Broken. Reading the earlier books first will let you carry the history of this world into Gareth and Tamlin’s story.
If you have been waiting for them, thank you for staying with me.
The door is open.
I would advise caution, but we both know how we arrived here.
Find Vow of the Forsaken on Amazon
Tell me, reader: what gets you first, the dangerous rescue or everything two people must face afterward?
With love and a little trouble,
Zoey
