Tempered Illusions

Arden Finch's big dreams for her future risk becoming nightmares. After stopping the Wild Hunt and preventing the end of the world, Arden thought she could take a break. But the mundane backlash against supernaturals is getting worse, and Otherside abhors a power vacuum. When someone dumps a vampire-bitten corpse at the North Carolina governor's mansion, tensions boil over. With rioting humans on one side and invading vampires on another, Arden must decide how far she'll go to secure her authority as Arbiter. A step in the wrong direction will bring war to the Triangle and threaten everything Arden has built. And with the trickster gods stirring, all her illusions about power will be tested to see if they can stand the weight of this new world—or if they'll shatter under the pressure. Arden, Troy, Maria, and your other favorites are back in the first book of the Shadows of Otherside Trickster Cycle. The stakes are higher and the danger is greater than ever before, forcing Arden to lean into new powers and leave the Triangle to deal with new threats. This book is set a year after the epilogue in Eternal Huntress and continues Arden Finch's story in the Otherside universe. If you'd like to start at the beginning of the series, read Elemental. Content warnings: This book contains strong physical violence and gore, on-page death, swearing, slurs (not toward any real racial or ethnic group/identity), alcohol use, knife violence, threat of sexual violence, mention of past abuse by a guardian, deadnaming, kidnapping, state-sanctioned violence, blood-drinking, and consensual on-page sex scenes.