The Gray Sheep: The Lochsmith Book I

by S. M. Somerset

After her father’s poor health forces him to retire, Cosette Argant proudly continues his trade, forging a reputation as Marenburg’s first female jeweler. But when Tearnan warships attack her coastal home and turn its narrow streets and ancient walled Quarters into a brutal battlefield, the rippling violence destroys nearly everything Cosette and her family have built. She fears losing her father, too, and enacts a desperate plan to cross the war-torn city to reach him.

While smuggling herself through occupied territory, she is mistaken for a spy and captured by the Tearnan army. Now a prisoner, Cosette is caught in a struggle between enemy factions intent on using her for their own ends. Her only hope of release, and of reaching her father, is to cooperate with the invaders. But as the fighting intensifies, it becomes increasingly difficult to cooperate without betraying the home—and the people—she loves, until she’s finally faced with a choice she never expected to have to make.

The Gray Sheep is the first book in the Lochsmith trilogy, a story of one ordinary woman’s intimate experience with war and the change she makes in the trajectory of a continent-wide conflict.

Perfect for fans of S. A. Chakraborty’s The City of Brass and Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller.

Kindle Edition

Expected publication May 5, 2026