The Persephanie Chronicles

by S. E. Reid

The Persephanie Chronicles
A Four-Book Series

A sweeping supernatural thriller in which ancient gods, long entombed, rise from the ashes beneath the ruins of old Byzantium. Led by their ruthless Dark Lord, they grow in strength across the decades as he plots vengeance against an unsuspecting modern world. Blending dark mythological intrigue, international espionage, and passionate romance, this epic series reveals how love, loyalty, and deception become the battleground between good and evil, as a daughter's love ties her inexorably to a soulless father who despises even the word.

Perfect for fans of rich, occult supernatural fiction.

Discover Book One

The Persephanie Chronicles

Book One

BOOK ONE OF THE PERSEPHANIE CHRONICLES
This revised and expanded edition is a re-release of the original
The Persephanie Chronicles, first published in January, 2026.

For centuries, the defeated servants of the Prince of Darkness have lain entombed beneath the wreckage of Guiste Palace in the city of Constantinople. When the Ottoman hordes destroyed the city, the Guiste family fled with their wealth, leaving their beloved home to be buried beneath what is today Istanbul, Turkey.

Seeking revenge on those who had imprisoned his servants, the Dark Lord cursed the Guiste bloodline, vowing one day to summon the old gods who served him so well: Baal, Molech, Ishtar, and all their demons—from where they lay imprisoned beneath the rubble of the fallen city.

After the First World War, the evil of mankind had become so grievous that it woke the ancient imprecation. With the birth of the future Baron of Guiste Castle, Nefas Damian Guiste, the Dragon’s curse came to life and evil claimed its own.

A ruthless genius, Nefas travels to Istanbul and frees his servants, bringing them with him to Guiste Castle, from which he releases them upon an unsuspecting world. He keeps only one, his queen, Ishtar, sequestered beneath the castle’s foundations, waiting for the perfect vessel in which she may at last walk among men.

Harnessing the dark power of these ancient beings, Nefas builds a vast empire and prepares the perfect vessel to house the spirit of Ishtar: his own daughter, a gifted genius with total recall, telepathic abilities, and otherworldly beauty. As homage to the beautiful Greek goddess Persephone, he names her Persephanie.

He raises her in secret, isolated in an underground facility created just for her below his fabulous manor house at Walden Park. She believes her father is god and devotes all her talents to his service. But in 1964, on her sixteenth birthday, MI6 Agent Cadan Reese discovers her prison and frees her. Unable to understand this frighteningly strange new world she has been so suddenly thrust into, she is torn between the monstrous father she worships and those who offer her freedom, love, and salvation.

"But Persephanie will soon discover that there is more than one way to be a monster."

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Book Two

Tell Me What the Dead Say

Tell Me What the Dead Say
Book Two of a Four Book Series entitled, The Persephanie Chronicles

When Baron Nefas Guiste transformed the crumbling old monastery into the palatial residence he named Walden Park, the curse of Guiste Castle came with him. Isolated within a three-hundred-acre woodland estate in Oxfordshire, England, the magnificent manor was designed as an impregnable fortress where the baron could keep his darkest secrets hidden from the world.

Baron Nefas Guiste incarcerated his only daughter, Persephanie Sophie Guiste, in specially designed accommodations located thirty feet beneath the magnificent mansion. Below her rooms, the monastery's ancient wine cellar had been transformed into a mausoleum for the victims of the ancient evil that had taken root there.

Freed on her sixteenth birthday after eleven years of captivity, Persephanie has returned to Highfield Manor, her ancestral home. As she recovers physically, the frightened teenager who arrived in a body stunted by years of imprisonment gradually blossoms into a young lady possessed of a beauty so rare it seems almost otherworldly.

Unfortunately, freedom is nothing like the paradise she had imagined or the dream she had clung to for so many years. The cherished memories of a happy childhood spent at Highfield Manor bear little resemblance to the unfamiliar world into which she has so suddenly been thrust. Those she loved are gone. Yet Highfield remains a place where kindness, compassion, and unconditional love still flourish; a place filled with people who speak her language but talk of things beyond her comprehension. Instead of bringing her peace, this strange new world terrifies her. And through it all, Baron Nefas Guiste has no intention of allowing his precious "Little Pet" to escape. Confident that no one believes he can reach her there, he continues to torment her with impunity.

Like her father, Persephanie is a telepath. She was also born a genius, endowed with one hundred percent recall, gifts the baron exploited without mercy. He educated her himself, and desperate to earn his approval, she worked tirelessly to help expand her beloved father's vast fortune while he quietly extended his influence across the globe. Freedom did not change that. Her work remained both her purpose and her refuge from the bewildering world into which she had so suddenly been thrust.

It was 1964, a world without the internet, where global communication depended upon telephones and telex machines. In that world, Persephanie's extraordinary telepathic abilities gave Baron Guiste an unparalleled advantage. From her prison beneath Walden Park, she managed her father's vast international cabal of business interests and powerful influencers entirely through the power of her mind. Yet no one believed her. Instead, a psychiatrist was brought in to treat what was assumed to be nothing more than delusions. Despite her remarkable intellect, Persephanie's years of isolation had left her socially naïve, and she was diagnosed as psychotic, suffering from hallucinations and a host of mental and emotional disorders born of prolonged abuse.

Determined to break her spirit, the baron believes that, in time, Persephanie will have no choice but to beg him to take her back. To that end, he unleashes the spectral faces of those entombed beneath Walden Park, sending them to haunt her waking hours while terrifying telepathic visions invade her sleep, driving her ever closer to the brink of madness. Yet the world into which she was born refuses to surrender her so easily. The love that surrounded her before her father stole her away calls to her still, as steadfastly as it sustained her through eleven long, lonely years of captivity. Torn between the fierce devotion that binds her to her father and the unconditional love awaiting her at Highfield Manor, Persephanie finds herself caught in a battle not only for her mind and heart, but for her very soul.

One man stands between Persephanie and the baron. SIS Chief Lord Edward Reese is determined to wrest legal custody of her from Nefas Guiste. Yet it is Edward's nephew, MI6 agent Cadan Reese, who finally rescues her from the nightmare beneath Walden Park and brings her home to Highfield Manor. From the time she was a little girl, Persephanie had adored Cadan. There was something hauntingly familiar about him, as though the spirit of one she had loved and lost still lingered, and fate itself had returned a cherished part of her childhood. Throughout her years of captivity, memories of him became inseparable from the hopes and dreams that sustained her. Now the little girl who had longed for his return finds him standing before her at last, and childhood devotion quietly blossoms into love.

When MI6 agent Cadan Reese reports to his uncle, SIS Chief Lord Edward Reese, that he has uncovered evidence of mass murder on a staggering scale at Walden Park, he becomes obsessed with proving that the elusive Baron Nefas Guiste is behind the crimes. Yet no matter how damning the evidence Cadan uncovers, Persephanie remains unwavering in her conviction that her beloved father is innocent and merely another victim of those truly responsible. Not even Edward, nor her devoted psychiatrist, Dr. Trevor Briggs, can persuade her otherwise. Her faith in the man she loves remains absolute.

But the dead will not be silenced. Their relentless pleas follow Persephanie wherever she goes, begging her to reveal the truth they carried to their graves. As the forgotten memories of her own childhood begin to surface, the man who rescued her now asks the impossible: Tell me what the dead say. Yet Persephanie knows the unspeakable horrors that await should she lead them into the crypt beneath Walden Park. Is she prepared to confront the evil that has haunted her since childhood? Who will win this relentless tug-of-war for her heart, her mind, and ultimately her soul? Or will the next victim be Persephanie herself?

A haunting Gothic tale of love, loyalty, and supernatural terror,
Tell Me What The Dead Say is the gripping second instalment of The Persephanie Chronicles.

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The Chronicles Continue...

Book Two, Three, and Four of The Persephanie Chronicles are in development.

The journey from priestess to monster to something unexpected continues.

Stay tuned for more revelations from the shadows.

The Vengeance of Demons

The Vengeance of Demons
Book Three of The Persephanie Chronicles

Persephanie is overjoyed that her beloved Papa has been exonerated of every crime. The deep-seated love she bears him blinds her to the truth. The guilt, she believes, is hers and hers alone. Father is free, he has forgiven her, and she is happy to continue in his service.

Then Cadan Reese, the childhood hero whose memory sustained her through eleven years of captivity, returns to claim both her heart and her hand in marriage. Papa is safe. She is forgiven. At last, the fantasy that carried her through years of darkness appears destined to come true. For the first time since her rescue from the nightmare beneath Walden Park, Persephanie dares to believe that happiness is finally within her grasp.

She could not be more wrong.

The ancient evil that has claimed the Guiste bloodline has no intention of surrendering its greatest prize. The peace she has so desperately longed for is shattered as betrayal tears away every certainty upon which she has built her fragile new life. One by one, the dreams that sustained her through eleven years of imprisonment crumble into dust, until Persephanie finds herself utterly alone. Broken in body, mind, and spirit, she becomes the target of her father's vengeance, and this time she has neither the strength nor the will to resist him.
What follows is the darkest trial of her life.

As the supernatural war surrounding her intensifies, the unseen battle for her soul begins to reveal itself. Ancient powers move openly against one another, each determined to claim the extraordinary young woman whose destiny has become the centre of their conflict. Even Persephanie's remarkable gifts seem powerless against the darkness that now closes around her.

Yet even in her darkest hour she is not abandoned.

Angelica, the angel who has hidden within Persephanie since infancy, finally reveals her part in the struggle to save her, but even that is not enough. Faced with losing Persephanie forever, Lord Edward Reese summons Captain Benjamin Carter Branack back to England. Within hours Ben is at her side, determined that no power on earth—or beyond it—will claim the woman he has never ceased to love. Faced with a darkness that seeks not merely her life but her very soul, he makes a promise that will alter all their lives forever.

As ancient powers gather for one final assault, Persephanie must discover whether love is merely another fragile dream, or the one force capable of defying the vengeance of demons.

A haunting Gothic tale of love, loyalty, and supernatural terror,
Tell Me What The Dead Say
is the gripping second instalment of The Persephanie Chronicles.

A Life Less Ordinary

From wrangling psychiatric wards to hauling big rigs across America to talking grieving widows out of polka-dot caskets while running a funeral service, S. E. Reid has lived through enough real-world "plot twists" to fuel a lifetime of gothic fiction. Now a self-proclaimed "white-haired crone" plotting world domination from her word processor, she invites you to discover the bizarre, grit-soaked reality behind her hauntings.

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