She Was My Darkness - Image 2

She Was My Darkness

She was my darkness, though I knew
the night long before she came.
I had survived a hundred ghosts,
then feared forgetting one woman’s name.
— Gabriel Ashworth*

A legendary villa. A missing grandmother.
An immortal poet who knows exactly why she disappeared.

THIS SUMMER, THE VILLA HAS CHOSEN AGAIN.

Mira Hartley came to Europe looking for answers.

Years ago, her grandmother vanished while investigating a mysterious invitation connected to Villa Diodati, the infamous house on Lake Geneva where Byron, Shelley, and Mary Shelley spent the summer of 1816. Everyone else accepted the obvious explanation: she abandoned her family for another man.

Mira’s grandfather never believed it.
Neither does Mira.

A forgotten room, an old postcard, and a trail her grandmother left behind eventually bring her to Geneva, where Mira decides to see Villa Diodati for herself. She expects photographs, locked gates, perhaps another dead end.

Instead, a charming stranger lets her inside.

Gabriel Ashworth claims his family has owned the Villa for generations. He’s a successful writer, irritatingly difficult to read, and strangely interested in why Mira has come searching for a woman who disappeared nearly thirty years ago.

What Mira doesn’t know is that Gabriel has been lying about his identity for two hundred years.
History remembers him as Lord Byron. And the moment Mira enters Villa Diodati, the house remembers her.

Gabriel recognizes the signs immediately. The shifting rooms. The awakening mirrors. The old magic stirring beneath a house that has spent centuries collecting secrets. He tries to send Mira away before the Villa can claim her as it once claimed someone else from her family.

He’s already too late.
That night, a black-sealed invitation appears on Mira’s bed.

Every summer solstice, thirteen guests enter Villa Diodati for a masked storytelling ritual governed by rules older than any of them.
Thirteen guests. Thirteen stories. One truth the Villa is determined to uncover.

Mira has been chosen.
Gabriel has five days before the masquerade begins, and this time he refuses to stand aside and watch another Hartley woman disappear.

Saving Mira means letting her close enough to uncover everything he has spent centuries hiding: his curse, his past, and the reason the Villa seems to know her.
Because somewhere inside its walls, something has been waiting for Mira Hartley to come back.

And on the longest night of the year, Gabriel Byron intends to find out whether even Hell can be cheated twice.

The saga opens September 17, 2026.
Book Two arrives October 15, 2026.
Book Three arrives October 31, 2026.

BOOKS FOUR, FIVE, AND SIX ARRIVE SEPTEMBER 2027.

Author’s Note

Lord Byron was real.

His scandals, his family history, his poetry, his exile, his relationships, and his death in Missolonghi in 1824 all belong to history.
This novel does not attempt to rewrite that history as fact. It takes the known life of George Gordon, Lord Byron, and imagines what might have existed in the spaces history could never record.

Gabriel Ashworth is Byron’s fictional modern identity within this story, created for the supernatural timeline of The Cursed Poet. The opening verse attributed to Gabriel Ashworth is an original work of fiction written by me, inspired by Byron’s life, family history, and literary legacy. It is not a lost, recovered, or previously unpublished poem by Lord Byron. Other fictional verses attributed to Gabriel or Byron within the novel are likewise original works created for this story. Any genuine poetry, letters, or writings quoted or referenced remain Byron’s own work.

Historical figures, places, dates, letters, events, and details appear throughout the novel, sometimes faithfully and sometimes adapted to serve the fictional story.

Where history ends, the curse begins.

Cara Ravelli

 *THE OPENING VERSE ATTRIBUTED TO BYRON/ASHWORTH IN THIS NOVEL IS AN ORIGINAL WORK OF FICTION WRITTEN BY ME, INSPIRED BY BYRON’S LIFE, THEMES, AND LITERARY LEGACY. IT IS NOT A LOST, RECOVERED, OR PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED POEM BY LORD GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON. 

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Description

He’s cursed to forget every woman he touches. She’s the only one who makes him want to remember.

George

I know what they say about me. That I’m a monster. A curse. That I collect women like some men collect rare books—pressing them between the pages of my memory until the ink fades and all that’s left is the scent of regret.

But tonight, the Villa is restless. The storm’s crawling up the lake, thunder shaking the glass, and I can feel the old magic humming under my skin. It’s hungry. So am I.

She steps into my house like she’s at home. No fear, no trembling, just that bored, half-lidded look women get when they’re about to ruin you for sport. Mira. She’s not dressed for a masquerade—she’s dressed for war. Black dress, red mouth, eyes that say she’s seen worse than me and survived.

I want to taste her secrets. I want to drag every lie out of her with my teeth. I want to see if she’ll break, or if she’ll make me beg for mercy first.

I want to remember her. God help me, I want to remember.

Mira

The invitation said “costume optional.” I showed up in my favorite shade of fuck-you-black and a mask that cost more than my rent. Geneva’s rich love their drama, but this place? This place is something else. The Villa Diodati is all shadows and candlelight and the kind of history that makes your skin itch.

And then there’s him.

George Byron. The host. The legend. The reason half the women here are pretending not to stare. He’s beautiful, sure, but it’s the kind of beauty that hurts to look at… like staring at the sun too long. He watches me like he’s starving, like he’s already undressing me with his mind, like he knows every bad thing I’ve ever done.

I should be scared. I should run. Instead, I want to see what happens if I let him catch me.

He leans in, voice low, British, dangerous. “What are you hiding, Mira?”

I smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He grins, slow and wicked. “I always do.”

Can you fall in love with a monster… and survive?

The saga opens September 17, 2026.
Book Two arrives October 15, 2026.
Book Three arrives October 31, 2026.

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