J.T. Geissinger’s 2025 standalone novel, Blackthorn, is a Gothic dark romance that follows protagonist Maven Blackthorn as she returns to her estranged family’s ancestral home in the mysterious town of Solstice, Vermont, after a 12-year absence. With her young daughter, Bea, she arrives for her grandmother’s funeral, only to be drawn back into a generations-old feud with the powerful Croft family and a fraught, unresolved history with her first love, Ronan Croft. As Maven untangles the truth about her mother’s death and her family’s dark secrets, she is forced to question her own worldview in a town where reality itself is under constant threat.

A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Geissinger is known for writing across the romance genre, from romantic comedies to intense erotic thrillers, and she has received multiple awards and nominations for her work in contemporary and paranormal romance. In Blackthorn, the author blends the atmospheric suspense of classic Gothic literature with the conventions of contemporary dark romance in order to explore The Inextricable Link Between Desire and Past Trauma, The Unreliability of Memory and History, and Matriarchal Power as a Form of Resistance.

This guide refers to the 2025 Bramble/Tor Publishing Group edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, sexual violence, rape, sexual content, cursing, child abuse, child death, bullying, and illness or death.

Plot Summary

Maven arrives in Solstice, Vermont, with her young daughter, Beatrix, or Bea. Maven has returned after a 12-year absence to attend the funeral of her grandmother, Lorinda. At the train station, they are met by Quentin, or Q, the family’s ancient, nonspeaking caretaker. He drives them to the imposing and chaotic Blackthorn Manor. Inside, they are greeted by Maven’s aunts, Esme and Davina, who have long, fiery red hair like all women in the Blackthorn family, (although Maven dyes hers black). Maven sees a tall figure in black watching the house and recognizes him as Ronan Croft, a man with whom she had a tumultuous relationship in high school.

The next day, at Lorinda’s viewing, the family is confronted by Ronan’s father, Elijah Croft, who uses a wheelchair. Elijah keeps being attacked by ravens, and he blames the Blackthorns, referencing a centuries-old feud that began when Levi Croft sentenced Megaera Blackthorn to death for witchcraft.

That night, unable to sleep, Maven confronts Ronan at the gate. Their exchange is tense and filled with allusions to their past sexual relationship. The following morning, the family is shocked to learn from the funeral home that Lorinda’s body has vanished from its casket, despite no signs of a break-in on security footage. Ronan calls, already aware of the situation, and offers his help. At the funeral home, Maven finds Lorinda’s clothes neatly folded on the ground beneath an open window.

Ronan confronts Maven, insisting that Bea is his daughter. Maven lies, claiming that she miscarried her child with Ronan and that Bea is her nine-year-old daughter with a Los Angeles surgeon named Dr. Brett Lattman. Ronan is skeptical.

Maven formally ends her current relationship with her boyfriend, a scientist named Ezra. Later, she encounters Ronan at a local restaurant, where he points out that Lorinda’s body, which was not embalmed, should have shown signs of decomposition at the viewing but did not. As Maven leaves, a chunk of the building’s façade falls, and Ronan saves her life.

Back at the house, she calls the undertaker, Mr. Anderson, who clarifies that Lorinda’s body was kept refrigerated. Later, Maven watches Bea remove her green contact lenses, revealing pale, icy-blue eyes that are identical to Ronan’s, hinting that he is indeed Bea’s father.

Meanwhile, Maven has a nightmare of being burned at the stake as a witch. She later goes to Ronan’s house, where he demands that she unbraid her dyed-black hair. The tension between them escalates until he kisses her, causing her to flee.

At the courthouse, she researches her family history and discovers a centuries-long pattern of female ancestors dying in bizarre accidents, and she learns that only daughters have ever been recorded in their lineage. Ronan calls, having tracked her phone, and threatens to trap her in town if she tries to leave. After visiting her family’s cemetery plot and seeing a mysterious red fox, Maven finds Ronan keeping a nightly vigil at her gate. On the third night, she confronts him, and their exchange leads to a passionate kiss. Overwhelmed, she goes to his house, where they have intense sex. Afterward, she leaves while he is sleeping.

Still seeking answers about the disappearance of her grandmother’s body, Maven hires a private investigator, Cole Walker, to find Lorinda and investigate the strange deaths. Meanwhile, Ezra confirms for her that an exclusively female lineage for over 300 years is almost a mathematical impossibility.

Ronan calls and admits to having a genetic disorder that affects the male members of his family; he also offers to fund her investigation. Cole Walker soon reports that Solstice has the highest rate of unsolved missing persons cases in the US. Separately, the cemetery caretaker informs Maven that all exhumed Blackthorn coffins, including her mother’s, are empty.

In his own investigation, Ronan confronts his father, Elijah, about his past with Maven’s mother, Elspeth, and based on his father’s furious and evasive answers, Ronan wrongly concludes that he and Maven must be half-siblings. Believing this, he tells Maven a veiled story about a friend in an incestuous relationship, and when she advises that the supposed friend end the relationship, he reacts angrily, perceiving her response as an indirect rejection of him.

On Halloween, Maven is heartbroken to see Ronan with a date. Later, Bea gets lost in a haunted house, and Ronan saves her from a falling mirror. Bea has a nightmare that she cannot remember the next morning. When Maven talks to her aunts about their dreams, which they recently recounted to her, they deny having had those dreams, making Maven question her own memory. She wanders to the old Croft church where her mother died and finds a hostile Ronan, who orders her to leave. As she departs, she hears an agonized scream from the church basement.

An old voicemail from Ezra leads Maven to an article reporting that Croft Pharmaceuticals have been funding research on animals with transformative abilities. She theorizes that the Crofts are conducting illegal human trials on the missing people of Solstice in an attempt to cure their own genetic disease; she also suspects that her mother was murdered for discovering this. She returns to the church at night, hears screams, and is knocked unconscious. She wakes in Ronan’s bed, and he tells her to either leave Solstice in three days or agree to be his forever. In the now-empty church basement, she finds a giant black claw and wheelchair tracks.

Ezra arrives unannounced at Blackthorn Manor and makes a bizarre marriage proposal to Maven. That night, Ronan appears in the greenhouse. He and Maven have passionate sex, during which Ronan transforms into a winged, horned demon. Maven passes out and later awakens feverish, with gaps in her memory. Her reality begins to unravel as her memories of her life no longer align with the memories of those around her. She is further unsettled when she has a vision of being covered in flies. Upon following the sound of a child’s cries, she is lured into the cellar, where she finds a massive cavern filled with the skulls of male Blackthorn infants. Suddenly, she is knocked out and chained to a stone slab.

Davina appears and reveals the truth: that the Blackthorn women are a coven of witches. Their ancestor, Megaera, cursed the Croft men to transform into monsters monthly. The Blackthorn women are reincarnated as animals upon their deaths. Davina admits that she murdered Maven’s mother to stop her from breaking the curse on the Croft men. Also present with Davina are Esme and Q; the three then ritually sacrifice Ezra. As they prepare to initiate an unwilling Maven into the coven, Ronan appears in his demonic form, rescues Maven, and flies her to safety.

Maven and Bea wake up in a hospital. Ronan watches over Bea, who agrees to have Ronan be her father. A former Croft groundskeeper, Silas Hawthorne, arrives and reveals that he is Maven’s biological father and that Elspeth’s death was a tragic accident that occurred when she slipped from the church roof. Realizing that he and Maven are not related, Ronan goes to her room, professes his love, and vows to protect their new family. In the Epilogue, the private investigator, Cole Walker, asks about the fire. A police officer suggests a rational explanation for Maven’s experiences: severe carbon monoxide poisoning from the old house, which caused hallucinations. However, as Cole leaves the ruins, he glimpses a monstrous winged form in the sky, leaving the true nature of the events ambiguous.