Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer

Of wanting to spread one’s wings and getting angry when they feel clipped. I decided to tell a story about being frustrated about feeling ineffective in a world gone mad, which is something highly relatable to most of us I’d guess. Miriam, her friend Jane, and Jane’s mother Nancy are all diabolists-they summon demons and traffic with them.Ī lot of that is well beyond my experience, it’s true! So, to anchor the narrative I made a few choices. Miriam, one of the co-tagonists, is a 15-year-old German Jew who has been living with English family friends for years, after her parents sent her away. * * * Writing from experience can add verisimilitude to a fantastical narrative…Ĭreatures of Charm and Hunger is set at the tail end of WWII, in the Cumbria region of England (very near the place where Beatrix Potter lived, wrote, and drew). After all, some choices cannot be unmade–and a sacrifice made with the most noble intention might end up creating a monster. Meanwhile Jane, struggling with dark obsessions of her own, embraces a forbidden use of the Art that could put everyone she loves in danger.Īs their friendship buckles under the stress of too many secrets, Jane and Miriam will come face to face with unexpected truths that change everything they know about the war, the world, and most of all themselves. When Miriam learns her missing parents are suspected of betraying the Société to the Nazis, she embarks on a quest to clear their names, a quest involving dangerous diabolic practices that will demand more of her than she can imagine. There, best friends Jane Blackwood and Miriam Cantor, tutored by the Société’s Librarian-and Jane’s mother-Nancy, prepare to undergo the Test that will determine their future as diabolists. A secluded castle somewhere in the south of Germany serves as a laboratory for experiments conducted upon human prisoners, experiments as vile as they are deadly.Īcross the English Channel, tucked into the sleepy Cumbrian countryside, lies the Library, the repository of occult knowledge for the Société des Éclairées, an international organization of diabolists.

In the waning days of World War II, with Allied victory all but certain, desperate Nazi diabolists search for a demonic superweapon to turn the tide.

Two young witches, once inseparable, are set at odds by secrets and wildly dangerous magic.

Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer