To clear her dead husband's name, a widowed locksmith and her non-human lover must out-scheme their own town.

For twenty months, locksmith Ida Venn has held her grief together with tea, brass filings, and the fierce solidarity of the five women widowed alongside her. She also keeps a secret: her lover, Kerr, a massive, six-legged river salvage diver who speaks with dry wit, takes six socks to go out in the frost, and curls his great, furry bulk across her kitchen floor. In the company ledger, he was filed away as mere company property. In Ida's bed, he is home.

When an anonymous note slides under Ida's door offering her husband's last recorded words in exchange for her strongbox key, the widows uncover a sickening truth: Tom didn't cause the river lock collapse that drowned six men. He was framed.

The only recording that can prove his innocence is locked inside an iron chest behind six distinct deadbolts—one key held by each grieving woman. But someone in power is stalking their doorsteps, hunting their keys to swap the recording before Friday's city inquest.

Armed with decoy keys, green wax, and bakery-table resolve, Ida and the widows band together to guard the truth. But saving Tom's name means stepping out of the shadows—risking the town's scandal, dangerous rising waters, and the fragile, hard-won future Ida is building in the arms of a monster.

The Widow Keeps a Monster is a cozy gaslamp fantasy mystery featuring a deeply competent heroine, a tender and explicit monster romance with a non-human lover, working-class camaraderie, and the healing power of love after grief.

The Widow Keeps a Monster

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