So this one took me a minute to piece together because it’s a bit of a sprawling mess, in a way I actually kind of enjoy? It’s about this guy, Kieran, who basically digs graves for a living at a cemetery that’s sitting on some seriously ancient and restless magic. The 'main plot' kicks off when he accidentally unearths a sealed coffin that’s not supposed to be there, and it turns out the woman inside isn’t exactly dead—she’s a witch bound in a centuries-old sleep. By waking her, he breaks a containment spell on the whole grounds.
Now the local supernatural ecosystem goes haywire. Ghosts that were placated start acting up, the land itself gets sick, and a secret society that was using the cemetery as a magical landfill shows up to clean up their mess, which includes silencing Kieran. The plot becomes this dual struggle: Kieran and the witch, Elara, trying to re-seal the magic she was part of containing, while also dodging the society’s enforcers. It’s less a straightforward quest and more a tense, muddy scramble to survive and fix something you never understood was broken.
The book spends a lot of time in the grimy, physical details of graveyard work, which I loved. The supernatural threat feels intertwined with the very real decay of the place. By the end, the resolution isn’t about a big magical battle, but a painful bargain that leaves the cemetery quiet again, but Kieran permanently changed by the magic he touched. It leaves a melancholic aftertaste.