The Goddess in the Shadows

by Monica Shantel

A pirate crew. A family of sirens. One path to choose.

When forced to marry a man she doesn't love, Lucille joins a pirate crew as a boy to escape. The other secret she has to face daily is that she can see and speak to the dead, and all thanks to the ghost who haunts the Charmaine. She hopes to start a new life on the path she's finally chosen for herself. Along the way, she learns the ropes of life on the sea and makes a few friends along the way. She just has to learn never to get too close.

Captain Oliver Shaw is a man of honor. Lucille Farrow starts to notice, too. She unwillingly wants to experience the forbidden romance every chance she gets. When pirates invade the ship and kidnap Lucille, the truth begins to unravel piece by piece. The entire crew comes to discover who she really is, and then things begin to take a turn for the worst.

Sirens attack one fateful night and the only hero is Lucille herself. All that's left of her now is uncertainty as she's forced to make choices that lead her away from the pirate life.

She has spent so much time running away, but now her past is catching up. As the events of curses, ghosts, and murder unfold, Lucille finds herself back where she started—on board the Charmaine with the captain. After getting a vision of a war that forces her past to collide with her present, she needs to confront what she's put off long enough. Love, or hiding away from the world for the monster she's become.

379 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 4, 2023

About the author

Monica Shantel currently works a full-time job outside of writing. She’s always had an interest in artistic and creative hobbies of sorts, including but not limited to: drawing, crafting, graphic design, and painting.

Although all she has is a high school diploma under her belt, she is not new to the writing community. She began at the age of twelve through YouTube and continued on with Wattpad before pursuing self-publishing. She began building stories to escape reality and find hope in life once again. Since then, she spends most of her time writing, reading, and learning to hone her craft amongst other writers.

She’s always known fantasy romance was her genre. There was never a day where she questioned what she enjoyed, and her first ever book was titled: I’m Being Haunted by My Best Friend, or IMBHMBF. It was a paranormal story with some romance thrown in, but has since been scrapped for better ideas. She may revisit it someday.

Monica’s debut novel is Beauty of a Crimson Soul. Along the same genre, she writes dark tales of mythical romance which only add more to the ever growing fantasy worlds inside her head.