Lured to the Austrian Alps with Daniel, the man she loves, Emi is thrown into a perilous, mafia-like world of fueding families and a devastating curse that spans generations. As the Firstborn She, the only firstborn female in hundreds of years-only Emi can free her family from the curse that will soon afflict her as well. But for Emi to breake the curse, she must delve into her family's dark past, and she must gain the trust of those who would use her for their own evil designs. As Emi struggles to understand her destiny as the Firstborn She, she learns that everything isn't as it seems and that all choices have consequences. Can Emi break the curse before it's too late?

    Placed in the care of Dag, a forgetful but well-meaning warlock, she vows to never feel as lost and helpless as she did on the day they were killed, and turns her back on the elves and the dwarves for destroying her life. Forty years later, young dwarf Jarl Vǫrn is certain that his city, Bjargtre, is under threat from an emerging goblin King. When his fears are dismissed, he asks Astrid to help him and his adoptive son, Knud, to reach the capital of Lǫgberg safely, and Astrid finds herself pulled back into a world she never wanted to be a part of again.

    

    Handsome, charming Roman men; perfectly made cappuccino and risotto; breathtakingly beautiful antiquities and that incomparable Italian light—none of these are perhaps quite as idyllic as they might seem to the casual traveler. With a jaded eye but an always vulnerable heart, Geoghegan gives us the anti-Eat, Pray, Love, a tale every bit as atmospheric but way funnier than the runaway best-seller. This is what life in Italy really looks like when you're a 30-something woman running from grief and trying to find her way back to love. Elizabeth Geoghegan writes in English, dreams in Italian, and wishes she could remember how to speak French. She earned an MFA in fiction writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA in creative writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is currently completing a story collection, The Book of Boys, and at work on a novel called The Year of the Cock, a black comedy set in Southeast Asia. She lives in Rome, Italy, on a dead-end street between a convent and a jail. This is a short e-book published by Shebooks--high quality fiction, memoir, and journalism for women, by women. For more information, visit http://shebooks.net.