What really happened on Dorrin Isle?
Kirra Danalustrous is the daughter of a marlord, a celebrated beautyâand a shapeshifter with magic in her veins. After a disastrous affair with a married man, she has fled to the edge of the kingdom, to a small fishing village that has become a refuge for children dying from the invariably fatal red-horse fever. Yet Kirra has discovered a radical cure. She can transform the patients into animals who can take a medicine thatâs poisonous to humans. But so many people in Gillengaria fear and distrust magic. How many parents will allow Kirra to save their children? And if Kirra saves enough of them, will she be able to heal her own broken heart?
Donnal is a peasantâs son who has been Kirraâs protector and companion for years. Although heâs always loved her, heâs always known she was destined to marry some titled lord and take her place in society. After watching her fall in love with another man, he has triedâand failedâto leave her. A shapeshifter himself, he has accompanied her to Dorrin Isle, determined not to take his human form again because he finds it too painful to be around the woman he knows he cannot have.
But Kirra needs him. So do the dying patients. And if heâs going to help any of them, he has to have the shapeâand the heartâof a man.
Sharon Shinn has published 33 novels, three short fiction collections, and one graphic novel since she joined the science fiction and fantasy world in 1995. She has written about angels, shape-shifters, elemental powers, magical portals, and echoes. She has won the William C. Crawford Award for Outstanding New Fantasy Writer, a Reviewerâs Choice Award from the Romantic Times, and the 2010 RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category. Follow her at SharonShinnBooks on Facebook or visit her website at sharonshinn.net.  â