Ashes Beneath the Altar

When faith burns, light shines. Finding ashen fingerprints on her window, Piper Hayes believes she’s losing her mind to grief. But when an uncanny stranger appears, she discovers that her suffering hides a higher calling. Marked by a divine seal and hunted by the Hollow Ones, she becomes a reluctant warrior in a battle between Heaven and Hell. Guided by Azrin, a fallen angel bound to her by an ancient oath, Piper must confront a legacy of sin and faith that stretches beyond mortal sight. As the veil between worlds begins to tear, the small-town of Ashaven becomes both sanctuary and tribulation. Sweeping, emotional, and fiercely imaginative, Ashes Beneath the Altar explores what it means when belief is tested by fire. Readers of Cassandra Clare, Alex Aster, and C.S. Lewis will be captivated by Hanks’s world of angels, demons, and the fragile courage of one woman who stands between them.