For generations, the superstitious townsfolk of S— have been lighting bonfires to banish the spirit of their former Laird. 

Rumours about her husband have reached his widow, Isabel, though she alone is the keeper of their private affairs. Many decades have passed since she left her sorrowful Portuguese home to search for her father. Little did she know, as her quest brought her to Scotland’s unforgiving landscapes, that a dark presence would eventually win her heart…

With inspiration from Scottish folklore, Santos guides readers into the core of a profoundly unholy union and into the soul of a woman shedding her husband’s mythologized eclipse to share her story. The result is a gorgeously terrifying novel, as hypnotic as it is elemental, a gothic tale of love and alienation, saturated with loneliness and desire. 

"Alchemical and utterly mesmerizing, In Your Heart a Devil is a stirring Scottish fable. Vanessa Santos writes her folktales with a rare, uncompromising beauty that ooze with gothic terror."

Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb