Among the Lesser Gods

Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life. Instead, she is confronted by reflections of her own troubles wherever she turns—the recent widower and his two children adrift in a changed world, her own mysterious family history, and the interwoven lives within the town itself. Bit by bit, she begins to question her understanding of cause and effect, reexamining the tragedies she's held on to and the wounds she's refused to let heal. But when the children go missing, Elena's fragile new peace is shattered. It's only at the prospect of fresh loss and blame that she discovers the truth of the terrible burdens we take upon ourselves, the way tragedy and redemption are inevitably intertwined—and how curses can sometimes lead to blessings, however disguised.