AUTHOR EVENT: ‘In Your Heart a Devil’ Vanessa Santos in conversation

House of Books & Friends is excited to welcome Vanessa Santos to discuss her book ‘In Your Heart a Devil. The event will take place on 14th October at 6pm, and will last one hour, and will include a discussion, a Q&A, and a chance to get your book signed by Vanessa.

Tickets

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About the book

Inspired by local Scottish folklore, In Your Heart a Devil is a gothic tale of love and alienation, full of loneliness, yearning, and the unholiest of unions.

 For years bonfires have been lit by superstitious villagers in the town of S—, intended to ward off the spirit of the man who was once their Laird. His widow still watches from the window of the big empty house on the hill. Isabel has heard the rumours about her husband, but only she knows what went on behind closed doors. Because behind every enigmatic man there is a woman with a heart full of secrets.

It was decades ago that she left her grief-shadowed home in Portugal and began her search for her father. As her investigation led her to the rugged landscapes of Scotland, she couldn’t have foreseen the dark heart that was to win over her own, and how much she would come to understand the sharp pulse of longing and the deeper wound of rejection.

A gothic tale of unrequited longing and unfathomable betrayal, In Your Heart a Devil beckons readers through unforgiving halls where servants whisper and shadows stir, into chambers where forbidden vows are bound in candlelight; and into the heart of a woman who is ready to emerge from her husband’s mythologised shadow to tell her own story.

About the author

Vanessa Santos was born and raised on a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic. She now lives in Scotland (though still by the sea) and spends as much of her time as possible devouring stories, writing stories, and wandering the endless Scottish woods. Her short fiction has been published online at Samjoko Magazine and Idle Ink, and in anthologies by Sliced Up Press, Colp, and Solar Press. Her debut short story collection, Make a Home of Me, was published by Dead Ink Books in 2025. It was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and one of the stories ‘Emily’ won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novelette. In Your Heart a Devil is her debut novel.