By night, R.A. Betzer is an author. By day, she's a scientist. Rory lives in rural PA close to the Appalachian mountains, which inspired much of her debut novel, "Winter's Teeth." When she’s not obsessively writing to the point of dehydration or religiously updating on Ao3, she can be found crocheting, watching anime, or mothering her goblin cat-child.
Rae Bennett, a morally ambiguous college student raised by the local ax throwing gym, is doing her best to assimilate into adulthood after a tumultuous upbringing set her back in every way. Then, Fox Winter crashes into her life on an ice float in the creek. He’s a frozen corpse when she finds him, only to violently wake and take off into the woods before she can figure out what’s really going on.
She finds him again two weeks later when her sister goes missing at the rustic wedding venue run by the Winter family. Dragging Fox back into her life against his will, Rae enlists him to aid in the search for her sister. He has only one rule for their tentative new relationship—don’t go into the woods—which she flouts liberally to get to the bottom of things. With a reluctant Fox in tow, she discovers the darkest parts of the forest full of centuries old legends and dangerous secrets surrounding his family.
In the dead of winter, a twisted tradition unfurls with supernatural shifters and their arranged marriages to kidnapped humans—her sister being one of them. Rae fights to rescue her sister before the tradition is complete, all while warring with a traitorous heart that begins to fall for one of the Winter villains. Somewhere along the way, she starts fighting for more than just her sister, hoping to rescue the man she loves, as well.
But in the end, she may only be able to save one of them.