Author, story consultant,
and educator based in the Columbia Valley.

Sometimes you have to leave things behind to become who you were meant to be, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences.

Private Investigator Riukh “Ri” Saangpo spends her days solving everyone else’s problems in avoidance of her own, namely the Empress she left pregnant and the magic she was denied. When called to investigate a murder where the victim’s heart has been ritually removed, Ri thinks it’s just another day on the job. But with a little help from a brilliant but morally grey mechanist and an anxious gunslinger, she uncovers the truth: the killer wants to topple the Empire, and their weapon of choice is Ri herself. If she hopes to survive, Ri must confront the people she left behind before they fall to the killer’s blade.