Magic scattered across the globe. Wounded foe with a lethal grudge. 2nd chance to right old wrongs.
A Russian monk with a secret magic is on the run from his past. He finds an uneasy refuge among the fundamentalist Mormons in Utah. Haunted by a family tragedy he’d failed to avert, he struggles to suppress his powers—and his desires—hoping to build a new life far from home.
But the past does not stay buried.
His former seminary friend, now a Red Party boss, tracks him down to claim the monk’s magic for himself. It’s the only force that can lift a curse that is slowly killing him. Defying him means death. Giving in could unleash something far worse.
Swept into a cross-continental zeppelin voyage, a counter-revolutionary coup, a Gulag uprising, and a desperate Arctic ship rescue, the monk is torn between Russia and America, between the two loves he’d left in these countries, and between his faith and his desires. His strange magic may keep him alive—but using it could cost him his soul.
For readers drawn to Dostoyevsky’s psychological intensity, Castaneda’s mysticism, and Cormac McCarthy’s ruthless darkness, Where Magic Burns on Winter Seas blends sweeping historical drama, a complex magical system, and a high-stakes adventure.
The novel continues the Ilyusha series, which started with From the Land of Cross and Star.