Southern England, 1735. Emelyn Morley, the eldest daughter of well-landed gentry, is expected to marry for wealth and rank to secure her family's decaying fortune, though she shows little interest in her overbearing mother's choices.

Hastelbrook Hall is her home, a vast manor built to uneven grandeur by a mad ancestor, and surrounded by whispers. Emelyn has been lately troubled by recurring dreams of a pale woman in black, who leads her to some dark place she never reaches before waking.

One evening, after escaping a repugnant suitor in the high garden maze, Emelyn encounters the woman in black, proving she is no dream. Stirred to investigate, she learns that an ancient seal of stone beneath Hastelbrook began to unlock on the hour of her birth, marking the first sign of an ominous prophecy.

Caught between the pressure to preserve her family through marriage and the encroaching world of night, Emelyn discovers that centuries-old tales of SAUNMOOR, the silent hidden city ruled by its cold immortal queen, are more than myth. B.

Lawson Hull has always been a storyteller, fueling his imagination on worlds of historical fiction, fantasy and adventure. In college he pursued a creative writing minor, studying acting, art and literature, ultimately receiving his degree in Renaissance and Enlightenment history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Emelyn Morley and the Waking Dark is his debut novel, an immersive story of supernatural mystery, harrowing drama and social politics, seasoned with romance, warmth and wit. .