From critically acclaimed, UK bestselling author M.K. Lobb comes a noir romantic fantasy set in a world in which sin is a fatal disease, and the rich hire the poor to carry out their basest instincts―until the forbidden romance between a sinner and a mysterious figure threatens to destroy everything.
THE DARK IN HER VEINS
by M.K. Lobb
Sourcebooks Casablanca, August 2026
In the gritty, glittering city of Valestadt, every crime—from the smallest infraction to the largest atrocity—leaves its mark in the form of Bloodrot, a wasting disease that slowly eats away at its host. For the poor, sinning is a death sentence. For the rich, it’s just another expensive pastime. After all, anyone can be bought.
Talin Keller is a sinner. She has learned to rely on nothing and no one—traits that have served her well as right-hand woman to the holiest man in the city, the Prophet. Talin’s job is to get her hands dirty so the Prophet’s can stay clean. It’s a job she’s frighteningly good at, and judging by her rapidly advancing Bloodrot, it might also be her last. But when a routine assignment puts Talin on a collision course with the Prophet’s most hated enemy, a shadowy underworld figure known as “the Warden,” she begins to see a future for herself that doesn’t involve a body bag. If she can get close enough to the Warden, she can trade his capture for her own freedom.
The closer Talin gets to the Warden, though, the more she finds herself falling for his sharp edges and twisted sense of justice. And as the lines between good and evil—between saint and sinner, between lover and enemy—begin to blur, Talin finds herself at the center of a conflict that could destroy everything.
M. K. Lobb is a fantasy writer with a love of all things dark— be it literature, humour, or general aesthetic. She grew up in small-town Ontario and studied political science at both the University of Western Ontario and the University of Ottawa. She now lives by the lake with her partner and their cats. When not reading or writing, she can be found at the gym or contemplating the harsh realities of existence. Her first young adult novel, Seven Faceless Saints (Little, Brown) released in 2023. It was a Kids’ Indie Next Pick and was shortlisted for the Barnes & Noble Children’s & YA Book Awards. The sequel, Disciples of Chaos, followed in 2024. Her third novel, To Steal From Thieves, released in 2025, with the sequel, To Deal With Kings, coming in March 2026. Her first adult romantasy, THE DARK IN HER VEINS, releases in August 2026.
Sascia has always loved the Dark. Six years ago, when the world she knew collided with the world of the Dark, she found it thrilling rather than terrifying. Now, she spends her days studying Darkcreatures or seeking them out in the shadows where they thrive.