Gothel (Paperback or Softback)

Before the tower, she was only a woman who had already lost too much.

Serilda did not mean to steal a child.

She meant to save her family.

In a kingdom that once bound a secret in amber and called it mercy, grief lingers like a second shadow. Years after betrayal carved its mark into her life, Serilda makes a desperate wish… and something ancient answers.

The light finds her, but it harbours a deadly secret.

Hidden deep within a lonely tower, she raises a long haired girl on lullabies and half-truths, weaving stories strong enough to keep the world outside away. She tells herself it is love. She tells herself it is protection.

But love, when shaped by fear, can become something else.

Beyond the forest, the sky fractures once a year in silent remembrance. The kingdom waits for a daughter it believes lost. And the Sun… patient and watchful, remembers what was taken.

As the child begins to question the walls around her, Serilda must confront the truth she has buried beneath devotion:

Some cages are built from tenderness.

Some monsters are made slowly.

And some mothers do not realise what they have become until it is too late.

A dark and emotionally devastating reimagining of a classic fairy tale, told from the woman history chose to call a villain.