The Phoenix

Sixteen-year-old Callie Valentine is no stranger to loss. Her military father killed and abandoned by her mother, Callie is sole caregiver for her younger brother and sister. Facing the world alone, Callie is certain the safest thing to do is to trust no one. Especially the kindly yet mysterious mortician, Victor Delamorte, who offers them a place to live when the are evicted from their apartment. Starving and pursued by an unsavory opportunist in her apartment complex, Callie agrees to move into Delamorte's mortuary. She suspects he will ask her for something in return for this alleged act of kindness. Will it be slave labor or something more personal?

Rules and forbidden rooms, an ancient device with an unknown purpose, and an elegantly dressed but creepy mortuary beautician named Lucy, all feed Callie's misgivings but also pique her curiosity. She is determined to unravel the secrets of Victor Delamorte, Lucy, and the funeral home. Just as her mistrust hits a boiling point, she falls ill and Delamorte must nurse her back to health. Callie thinks: "He who cleans up my puke deserves the benefit of the doubt." The funeral home, she decides, can be a place of new beginnings.

Life goes on until Delamorte's own health declines. Callie cares for him as he did for her, but she worries he is losing his mind when he speaks of being resurrected from the dead. Late one night, Lucy introduces herself as Death incarnate, the Grim Reaper. She confirms the existence of a "cursed" device that has deprived her of Delamorte for two millennia and warns Callie that Delamorte does, in fact, intend to ask for something. But what he wants from her is unlike anything she can imagine.

Will Callie believe a dying man about the magic of an ancient device to restore life to the dead? Can she trust the words of the Grim Reaper? With the clock ticking, can she resurrect enough love and hope from the ashes of her heart to perform the task Delamorte sets for her? In the balance, a chance for a normal life for herself and her siblings.