Death Card - Softcover

Smith, Jasmine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593858298 ISBN 13: 9780593858295

Verlag: Putnam Pub Group, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A dark contemporary fantasy featuring witchcraft, tarot, death, and a bit of romance that's perfect for fans of Immortal Dark and Cinderella Is Dead.

The paperback edition features stunning stenciled edges!

On an ordinary Monday morning, eighteen-year-old Mikaela Broussard receives the shock of her life. During a customer’s tarot reading at her family’s occult shop, she turns over the Death card and envisions the beautiful stranger stabbing her in the heart.

In order to determine why the girl, Joelle, wants to kill her, she’ll have to keep her close. But the more time Mikaela spends with her soon-to-be murderer, the more irresistible she finds her.

As if imminent death isn’t worrisome enough, witches are turning up with their magic stolen. And it’s clear some very dark magic is at work. Mikaela, as the next Witch Queen of her coven, is tasked with figuring out who’s behind the horrific acts—a mystery that will put her and her power to the test.

Death Card is a dark, pacy, and romantic fantasy about one witch’s journey to find the strength to fight for herself, her future, and her beloved community.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jasmine Smith has been daydreaming of new worlds and characters since she learned to hold a pen. Born and raised in North Carolina, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in English from North Carolina State University. When she isn’t writing, Jasmine can be found with a camera in her hand or her nose in a book. Death Card is her debut novel.

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1
Alarm bells echo off the walls of my skull, reverberating throughout my body as I sit up in bed. A sense of utter dread settles itself in my chest as my heart thuds against my rib cage.
The energy in the air ­is . . . off. The only way I can explain it is to conjure up an image of a gentle breeze on a warm day and that moment when the wind shifts direction, picking up speed, letting you know that a storm isn’t far.
Slowly, I tuck my bookmark into my library book and strain to listen. Besides the low ocean sounds from my noise machine,the house is silent. Eerily so. There’s no arguing between Grampsand my brother, no music from the radio in the living room. I don’t even hear the usual creak of the floorboards as the old bones of the house settle.
Something’s wrong. I just don’t know what.
Gran was the one who taught me to trust my gut. As leader of our coven and the strongest among us, she could practically see the future. Between her skills in tarot and a sharp intuition, there was nothing my twin brother and I could hide from her.
The difference between Gran and me is that she respected the order of things. According to her, the universe isn’t meant to be changed by human hands, so she viewed herself as powerless to stop the tidal wave of life. Sure, she could sense when something was coming, but she didn’t take any steps to change or prevent it.
That’s never been my way, though, especially now that Gran isn’t here anymore.
Sleep won’t come with a feeling like this, so I slip on a pair of socks and creep to my bedroom door. The hinges whine as I peer into the hallway. Shadows from the ­night-​­light splay across the walls, but there’s no movement.
I drift down the hall to Orion’s room. My brother doesn’t have a knack for this sort of thing at all, but I’ll feel less creeped out with him around.
A draft of wind cracks his door before I even have a chance to knock. I push it open farther and peer inside. Empty. Of course it is.
In the year since we lost Gran, Orion’s spent fewer and fewer nights at home. He’s either out drinking at a party, kissing his latest fling, or smoking weed in our cousins’ attic.
It’s frustrating the way he’s shut me out, as if he’s the only one who lost her. You don’t see me sneaking out in the middle of the night. Gramps has enough on his plate. He doesn’t need to deal with the constant fallout of my brother’s ­self-​­destruction on top of leading the coven and running for city council. Orion doesn’t seem to care or even notice the extra wrinkles in Gramps’s face, but I do.
I’m halfway back to my room when the doorbell rings, shattering the silence.
Air whooshes from my lungs.There it is.
Nothing good can come of a midnight house call. If it’s one of my brother’s latest hookups, I’m going to strangle him.
With a sigh, I stomp down the stairs and throw open the door to find Theresa LeBlanc standing on our front porch with her young daughter wrapped up in her arms.
Theresa is my third or fourth cousin; honestly, when you’ve got an extended family as large as mine, no one really knows the­specifics of how we’re all related to one another. She’s in her midthirties, but the grimace etched into her skin ages her by a decade. She hasn’t been involved much in the coven since she got married; I actually don’t know if I’ve seen her at all in the last two years.
We stare at each other as my mind attempts to calculate what she could be doing here. The silence is broken when her daughter lets out a pained moan.
“Please,” Theresa begs. “You have to help us. She needs healing.”
My mouth drops open and shuts again before I find my words. “I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I don’t know how we can help.”
Gran was the healer of this coven. She tended to the sick until she fell ill herself. Since her death, other members have tried to take her place, but no one else’s magic has proven to be as strong as the former Witch Queen’s.
The little girl writhes in pain, and Theresa winces at every whimper. “Get Ezekiel,” she begs, stomping her foot in frustration. “He’s gotta try. I can’t lose my Marian!”
Guilt sinks in as Gran’s voice echoes in the back of my mind:The coven is family. We never leave a fellow witch out in the cold.
“All right. Come in.”
She sweeps into the house and sets Marian down on the couch. When Theresa pulls the blanket away from her daughter’s face, I get my first full look at the little girl.
Marian’s breathing is labored and heavy. Crystals of sweat glisten on her forehead. Other than the occasional moan and the air wheezing out of her lungs, she’s silent and still. Her eyes remain firmly shut. It’s clear the girl is gravely ill.
More importantly, when I look at her, I can sense the utter wrongness of her situation. Marian’s the shift in the wind I felt.
“What happened to her?” I ask.
“I’m not sure.” Theresa wrings her hands while pacing beside the couch. “She was perfectly fine all day, but then tonight, she didn’t touch her dinner at all. She went to bed right away, but when I checked on her an hour ago, her eyes ­were . . . Well, you’ll see.” Theresa rests her hand on Marian’s forehead, and a sob escapes her throat as the girl’s eyes flutter open.
Marian’s irises are the color of molten lava, and the whites of her eyes are stained a radioactive shade of blue. I stagger backward, nearly tripping over a cord.
“Now you see why we couldn’t go to the hospital,” Theresa cries. “Nothing about this is natural!”
I’ve never seen anything like this before. I stagger to the stairs and grip the banister. “Gramps!  I could use some help down here!”
The stairs creak as Gramps descends. He comes into view just as the ancient grandfather clock in the corner strikes midnight. Standing well over six feet tall, Gramps commands any room he walks into. Not only with his height but with the magic that rolls off him in waves. Those without magic don’t know what it is they feel, but even they can tell he’s a confident, powerful man.
He’s ­dark-​­skinned with closely cropped white hair. While he may be a few months shy of seventy, the way he carries himself makes him look decades younger.
Theresa’s head swivels toward him and her eyes widen slightly. “Zeke,” she murmurs. “I know I haven’t been around, but you’ve gotta help my girl. ­Please—­”
Gramps holds up a hand to silence her. “It’s water under the bridge.” He turns his gaze on me. “What’s the matter?”
I lead Gramps over to the couch, where little Marian grows weaker and paler by the minute. Her brown skin has taken on a sallow complexion, and her breath hitches in her throat. “Something’s wrong with her, Gramps. Her eyes are these weird shades of blue and orange.”
Gramps rests a hand on Marian’s forehead, and it comes away slick with sweat. “Unwrap the girl. She’s overheating.”
I do as he says, nearly cringing from how thoroughly soaked the blankets are. Dumping the soggy fabric on the ground, I gasp when the full extent of her mysterious illness is unveiled.
Her veins glow in the same shade as her irises. Golden streaks of light shimmer beneath her skin as her limbs violently twitch.When I reach out to touch her, a burst of electricity shocks me. Iinadvertently take a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Putnam Pub Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593858298
• ISBN 13: 9780593858295
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar