The black sheep of a powerful 14th-century Irish family pursues a forbidden romance with the banshee who’s haunted his estate for generations, even as the black plague closes in.

The plague setting and doomed romance of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, the exploration of Catholicism in The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas, and the deathly attraction of Nosferatu (2024).

When Ciarán Murtagh hears the cry of his family’s banshee for the first time in a decade, he knows one of his own is fated to die. But they don’t believe his warnings—why would they? The last time Ciarán heard the banshee he didn’t tell a soul until after his younger cousin tragically died under his watch. He’s been the family pariah ever since.

Desperate for redemption in the eyes of his family, Ciarán hunts down the banshee in search of answers. She’s equal parts frightening and alluring, and in his struggle to confront her, he inadvertently triggers the banshee’s memories. Memories of when she was a servant of his household, decades ago, named Deirdre.

Deirdre claims that Ciarán’s physical touch restored her memories, and demands he give more. In hopes of learning whose death she foretold, he tenuously agrees to help Deirdre remember who she was, and they begin meeting by moonlight. With every clandestine encounter, Ciarán’s macabre desire for Deirdre grows. When the devastating bubonic plague befalls the Murtagh household, and Deirdre’s memories reveal a dark scandal in the family’s history, Ciarán must decide whether to stay by his family’s side in their final hours or embrace the seduction of the death-bringer.