Last updated on May 7, 2026
When home betrays you, build a new home
Two former classmates, faithless priest Placida and traumatized shrine guard Lunden, are tasked with reopening an abandoned shrine far out in farm country. They didn’t know one another well at the Academy, and don’t intend to start now. They just have to figure out how to run a shrine on their own, so the townsfolk don’t send them home.
Between summer bonfires and winter rains, Placida and Lunden find that they’ll have to work together to make the shrine thrive — and that they both hide painful secrets.
The Strangers’ Sanctuary is a small-scale fantasy novel about healing from dysfunctional origins, finding your place in the world, potlucks, book clubs, and true friends. It’s set in the same queernorm, low-magic world as the Healers series, but can be read without it.
Content note: Cozy-adjacent, not cozy: While this book takes place in a friendly small town and centers community and healing, it also contains depictions of verbal and emotional abuse, low self-esteem and other character struggles, and fictional religions. It has no world-level stakes, but high personal stakes. Full Content Notes at the author’s site.
Representation details: neurodiverse, trans lead (Lunden); bi leads (Lunden and Placida); nonbinary supporting character.
No AI was used in the writing or cover of this book.
Cover art and design by May Barros.
Available at 99c or the equivalent at all available stores (direct from ko-fi, Bookshop, B&N, Kobo, itch.io & more). The ebook is on sale for Cozy the Day Away, but the paperback is not.
Bio:
S.E. Robertson / C.A. Moss writes fiction about feelings and magic. They live in Pennsylvania with a spouse, a cat and a garden.