Of Spun Thread

Joshua dies. His second life comes with animal people, monster attacks, a suspiciously perfect village, and a goddess who does not believe in letting go.

Death should have been the end.

Instead, Joshua wakes beneath impossible stars in a world where gods answer prayers, summoned heroes carry divine power, and a blessing can be far more dangerous than a curse.

Taken in by a hidden village devoted to Ilestra, the goddess of control, Joshua is healed, fed, armed, and treated with more kindness than he knows what to do with. The villagers are welcoming. The beautiful priestess Vinette seems determined to help him adjust. Even the local animal-kin are beginning to feel less strange.

There is only one problem. Something about the place is deeply wrong.

Everyone is a little too content. Help arrives a little too easily. Questions have uncomfortable answers, divine favors come with bargains, and Ilestra seems far more interested in Joshua than he would like.

Unfortunately, surviving outside her protection is not exactly simple either.

Caught between a goddess he refuses to trust, a village he cannot simply abandon, dangerous creatures, unfamiliar customs, and relationships becoming considerably more complicated than expected, Joshua has to decide what his freedom is actually worth—and whether protection becomes something else when the one protecting you holds all the strings.

An other-world dark fantasy with living gods, animal-kin, divine bargains, dangerous romance, brutal monsters, and an increasingly complicated relationship with the concept of free will.

There are definitely strings attached...