Labyrinth of Shadows: The Witch's Rebirth Part I

11-TIME AWARD WINNER THE WITCH'S REBIRTH SERIES BOOK 1

Forget every villainous witch of lore. The world's salvation rests in the hands of its most feared woman.

478 AD. The Western Roman Empire crumbles into ash. As the fierce Merovingian Franks carve a bloody path through a fractured Gaul, humanity's last hope does not lie with an emperor or an army. It lies in an ancient prophecy - and a newborn child.

Born on the night of Samhain beneath a dark celestial eclipse, infant Merona is a harbinger of both terror and salvation. Marked by a past life she cannot remember and bound by a love that spans millennia, her very existence is a ticking clock. Within her veins flows a forbidden magic capable of reshaping reality itself.

But the darkness is already hunting her. Armaeus, a sinister sorcerer steeped in soul-devouring dark arts, is determined to extinguish her light before her magic can fully ignite. From the shadows, the Morrigan - the fearsome Goddess of war and fate - watches over Merona, a mythic protector standing between her and total annihilation.

Merona must survive the labyrinth's maw. But the darkness isn't the enemy she needs to defeat. It is the version of herself she is slowly, inevitably becoming.

For fans of dark mythology who want their magic to leave permanent, agonizing marks. Perfect for readers of Ava Reid, Rachel Gillig, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Award Honors: NYC Big Book Award - Fantasy (2025) Storytrade Book Award - Fantasy (2025) Readers' Favorite Silver Award - Magic & Wizardry (2025) International Impact Book Award - Fantasy (2025) BookFest First Place - Fantasy (2025) Best Book Awards - Horror (2025) IAN Book of the Year Awards - Fantasy (2025) Literary Titan Gold Book Award - Fiction Chaucer Award (Historical pre-1750, France) - Semi-Finalist Chanticleer International Book Awards - Semi-Finalist, Series

Michaela Riley writes at the intersection of myth and memory - where the past doesn't stay buried, and survival always costs something.Based in the mountains and forests of Virginia, she has spent years tracing the threads of her ancestral heritage through genealogical research and the winding trails she hikes with her German Shepherd, Morrigan, and terrier mix, Carlos. What she found in that pursuit - the patterns of sacrifice, identity fracture, and hard-won endurance that repeat across generations - became the architecture of The Witch's Rebirth series.Her fiction does not borrow from mythology. It excavates it. The death-rebirth cycle at the heart of Merona's story emerges directly from Michaela's confrontation with what her ancestors endured, and what they passed forward - whether they meant to or not. The Virginia trails she walks are not background. They are the labyrinth.An 11-time award-winning author, Michaela also writes dark suspense and criminal thriller fiction under the same unflinching moral lens - most recently in Critics' Requiem and Dark Scales of Justice.