Mushroom Queen

A southern port city wears the mask of quiet peace, yet madness has already cast its sinister shadow upon it. Children are vanishing. A witch grows younger with every stolen life. And beneath the city's glittering facade, something far darker is taking root. Lidia is sharp-tongued, reckless, and dangerously unstable — a private investigator with a gift for finding trouble and a past she'd rather forget. Haunted by visions of the dead and hunted by her own encroaching madness, she'll stop at nothing to uncover the truth. Inquisitor Tiffano is fresh out of the Academy — idealistic, by-the-book, and utterly unprepared for a partner like Lidia. He's also, unfortunately for him, devastatingly handsome. While he's trying to uphold the Church's sacred duties and hunt down a murderous witch, Lidia is trying to figure out how to get him alone. Her philosophy is simple: he's too beautiful to remain a virgin, vows of celibacy be damned. When the Church refuses to act and children continue to disappear, Tiffano has no choice but to trust the one woman who might be crazier than the witch they're hunting and who keeps asking if he's really, truly sure about that whole celibacy thing. As the investigation deepens, they uncover a conspiracy reaching from the city's highest halls to the darkest corners of the Church itself. And at the center of it all: a fungal horror that devours youth, a woman who refuses to age, and a truth more terrifying than either of them imagined. For fans of: morally grey character, slow-burn tension, dark fantasy, stories where the line between madness and magic is razor-thin — and female character who make saints sin.