Venus Verticordia

This story is inspired by the fact that Lucifer and Venus are the same celestial object (the Morning Star). On a fateful day in the distant past, Yahweh announces the creation of a being with the blessing of this contrary and conflicted planet. Beautiful and brilliant, Brother Lucifer is hailed as Yahweh's perfect being, the culmination of His vision of Creation. But what happens when you put the soul of Aphrodite in the body of an angel? A conflict that ends up rocking the kingdom, when 'Brother' Lucifer defies God's will.

Down on Earth, our story opens in a sleepy early modern town, where the young Eleanor Stevens fears that she has been possessed by a demon. When a mysterious and beautiful stranger falls to Earth outside her window, Eleanor believes her prayers have been answered--but she soon discovers that she has found more than she bargained for, as sinister events begin to engulf the town.

In an interwoven narrative that moves across place and time, Venus Verticordia is a psychological novel that explores questions of faith, morality, love, and the freedom to choose one's own path.

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Image credits
Cover: Venus Verticordia, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1868)
Frontispiece: detail from Stellar Atlas, by Edmund Weiss (1858)