Lilah's Guide to Hoyle: A Tragedy in Four Acts (Willborne Saga)

When the stakes are your soul, every hand is a gamble.

Lilah thought poker was her ticket through college.

Then one game changed everything.

Desperate and out of options, she made a bargain with a demon. Now her grandfather’s birthday gift—a seemingly ordinary deck of cards—is bound to her blood, turning every hand into a source of power she barely understands.

Her only guide is Hoyle’s Guide to Poker and Parlor Tricks, a battered rulebook she’s transformed into a personal grimoire. With every shuffle, she uncovers new abilities hidden within the deck, but each victory draws her deeper into a game she was never meant to play.

Meanwhile, two detectives investigate a growing trail of impossible crimes. The evidence points toward a single suspect, yet nothing about the case makes sense. As the body count rises and the supernatural spills into the ordinary world, they find themselves chasing something far more dangerous than a criminal.

With a demon calling in its debt and the authorities closing in, Lilah faces an impossible choice: walk away while she still has a soul left to save, or keep playing and risk becoming the very monster she’s trying to escape.

Lilah’s Guide to Hoyle is a dark urban fantasy thriller filled with occult bargains, magical gambling, supernatural mysteries, and high-stakes choices where every card turned could be the last.

Robert J. S. T. McCartney loves to write about the strange and bizarre. Lilah's Guide to Hoyle was written in collaboration with his best friend Albert Debusschere III.He currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife and kids.You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and abnormalpublishing.com.