Before the Roses: A dark gothic romantasy

By: Elise Marchant

Every curse has a beginning. Thorne Hall’s began long before the fire. Adaira Harrow was twelve when she was sent to Thorne Hall with one bag, a sealed letter, and a single instruction: Watch. For two hundred years, the women of her family have kept watch over the Thornes. Ada has never been told why. Only that the old agreement between their families must be honoured—and that one day, she will understand what she has been sent there to see. But Thorne Hall is not an ordinary house. Its fires burn when no one has lit them. Its lamps answer her. Roses bloom where they shouldn’t. And as Ada grows up within its walls, the boy she was sent to observe becomes someone she knows too well to watch from a distance. Then the Hall begins to change. So does the Thorne blood. And one spring afternoon, a strange girl walks into the stable yard and Byron Thorne looks at her as though the rest of the world has disappeared. Ada sees what comes next. Fire. Roses. A curse. And a love that will leave Thorne Hall waiting for years. Before the Roses is a gothic romantasy prequel to What Thorne Hall Remembers—a story of old bargains, inherited magic, dangerous houses, family secrets, and the choices made before everything burned.