The Gift

The North Atlantic, 14 April 1912. Amid the chaos of the sinking Titanic, a young Eleanor Annenberg meets the eyes of a stranger and is immediately captivated. As the ship buckles around them, she follows him down to the hold and finds him leaning over an open sarcophagus surrounded by mutilated bodies. She catches but a glimpse of what lies within before she's sucked into a maelstrom of freezing brine and half-devoured corpses. Elle is pulled out of the water, but the stranger – and the secrets she stumbled upon – are lost. Unintentionally, however, he leaves her a gift. One so compelling that Elle embarks on a journey that will take her across continents and consume decades of her life, to find the man who saved her that fateful night and learn the truth behind the horrors she witnessed. Elle follows a trail long gone cold to discover a shattered life lived on the fringes of humanity and, along the way, is pulled into a world of terrifying ancient evils, of vicious hunters and human prey. From trench warfare at Cape Helles in 1915 to a shipwreck in the tropical shallows off the Honduran coast, and from a lost mine beneath the towering Externsteine in a Germany on the verge of war to the gothic crypts of Highgate Cemetery in London, Elle gets closer to a truth she has sought for most of her life. But at what cost? Gifts, after all, are seldom free.

A lush historical adventure that's equal parts Gothic horror as it is tale of lost love, this first book in THE GIFT trilogy follows an optimistic yet cautious American ethnologist on her journey from St Dunstan's Prep in Michigan, to the warm tropical shallows off the coast of Honduras, and the tors of Germany's Externsteine, uncovering clues to the identity of the man who saved her from the Crimen one fateful night. All clues lead to Folkestone, England where she is reunited with the man she has sought for nearly three decades. But, is their reunion the end, or merely the end of the beginning? The North Atlantic, 14 April 1912. A night most hope to forget. But the grisly things a young Elle Annenberg witnesses, she will always remember. Among the chaos as Titanic's bow sinks deeper and deeper underwater, Elle zeroes in on a raffish individual, among the panicked passengers, shotgun muzzle protruding from under his long duffel coat. In the bottomless twilight of his eyes she discovers an intriguing ruthlessness. As he moves away, Elle follows, ever curious. Descending into the bowel of the ship she happens upon a slaughterhouse of gored bodies. But by whom or what she cannot say. From somewhere in the endless companionways comes a Banshee howl, followed by the distant call of a name: Balthasar. In No. 2 Hold – awash with mutilated bodies – she finds Balthasar leaning over an open sarcophagus. Elle scarcely has a moment to glimpse what lays within before Titanic's starboard hull buckles, and she is sucked into a maelstrom of freezing brine and half-devoured corpses. Saved from certain drowning, she unintentionally receives a gift from Balthasar. A gift so captivating, it changes her path in life irrevocably. Her new course will not only lead her to learn the true identity of the man who saved her life but of the savage Crimen she glimpsed that fateful night. From her teaching position at a prep school in 1929 Michigan, to a British shipwreck in the tropical shallows off the Honduran coast, Dr Eleanor Annenberg finds traces of Balthasar's identity. A man who purposefully exists on the fringe of humanity. From the fighting at Cape Helles in 1915 to the last station on the River Ituri in the Belgian Congo and a lost Lichtmetal mine beneath the towering Tor Externsteine in 1939 Germany, Elle follows the clues, undeterred by the years getting behind her. All clues lead to just one location. An Edwardian seaside town on the English Channel – Folkestone. Their paths rejoined, Elle gets closer to the truth she has sought for twenty-eight years. But at what cost? What she learns – much to her own horror – is gifts are seldom free, and she herself has become guilty of the same ferocious rage as the Crimen.

R A Williams lives by the Mediterranean with his wife and their one-year-old boy. "The Gift" was born in Sherman Oaks, California, sussed out in Pimlico, England, and realizado in the Costa Brava, Spain where Williams writes to this day amidst twelve cats who pay him no never mind. Eleanor, Book 1 is the first in The Gift trilogy.