Publication Day for The Witch's Lens!

The Witch’s Lens, the first book in The Order of the Seven Stars series, is out!

Petra is a young newlywed living in Prague in 1915, and for the last ten years she’s given up using her magic, afraid of being discovered for who she really is. But after her husband goes to war, she gets recruited to join a band of misfit witches tasked with ridding WWI’s eastern front of its curses before the fallout spreads beyond the battlefield. Of course, things are never as straightforward as they seem as Petra and the others get drawn into a tangle of intrigue and betrayal. Soon, events force Petra to confront her painful past and reconnect with her lost magic…but there’s always a price to pay.

Thank you for reading!

Another Trade Review for The Witch's Lens!

Thank you to Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association, for their wonderful review of THE WITCH’S LENS!

And thank you to all the Amazon Prime readers who’ve downloaded and reviewed the book so far during the First Reads pre-publication promotion!

“The Witch’s Lens launches Smith’s (The Raven Song, 2022) newest historical urban fantasy focusing on Petra Kurková and a team of witches who are recruited to combat undead at WWI’s eastern front. When the countries went to war, their magic users went with them, unleashing vile forces that mortals cannot fight on their own. Petra, whose husband, Marek, enlisted without sending home his wages, is scraping by doing tarot readings for her landlady and others, using any extra cash to fund her photography habit that allows her to see souls of the dead on film. This and her other long-suppressed magical abilities lead to her recruitment by the mysterious Josef Svoboda, a mortal who is fighting a terrible curse. Teamed with witches who either avoided the wartime draft or were rejected by the military, Petra is forced to reexamine the limits she has placed on her own magic as she stumbles through encounters with other occult foes. Smith’s thorough descriptions make this first novel in the Order of the Seven Stars series an immersive experience for readers.”

— BOOKLIST

New Trade Review

Much thanks to Library Journal, a trusted trade publication for American librarians, for this delightful review of The Witch’s Lens!

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“In this haunting, supernatural twist on World War I fiction, Petra Kurkova has a magical secret, one that filters out into the real world, with her ability to capture photographs of the souls of the dead. A recruiter, Josef Svoboda, uses that knowledge to bring Petra onto a ragtag team of sorcerers to fight their own battles in the Carpathian Mountains. The war has stirred up terrible, dangerous creatures, and with the help of an ancient organization, the team is tasked with trying to subdue the foul things. But something is amiss; there is power behind the resurrections, and a world balance that has been maintained is set to be ripped apart. Petra must learn to wield her more powerful magic in order to counteract the dangerous magic—before all is lost.


VERDICT A delicious foray into a new series that melds history with the supernatural, from the author of The Raven Song. Smith’s fans, as well as new readers, will delight in the heady mixture of historical fiction, fantasy, and horror.”

Out October 1st from 47North

Ghosts

How could a witch not want to photograph ghosts in a city like this? THE WITCH'S LENS begins in my fantasy version of Prague during WWI, then moves to the eastern front after Petra is recruited to battle the undead who are stalking soldiers in their winter camp.

In THE WOLF’S EYE, book two of The Order of the Seven Stars series, the story will return to Prague and spend time in all the wonderful secret, magical locations invisible to the mortal eye.