Alchemy · desire · plague
Flesh Endures
A tantalising tale of immortality, temptation and the terrible cost of desire.
Published 28 October 2026
Immortality comes at a price
Lord Karolan, endowed with an arcane knowledge of alchemy, knows immortality comes at a price. Any lover perishes at his touch. His only companion is his familiar, a greedy, wanton spirit that attached itself to him during his transformation, feasts on his fleshly desires and yearns to become human.
Karolan saves Garnetta from the plague sweeping through early gothic Europe by bestowing the dark gift upon her — but without her permission. A bond of desire develops between them, and a future seems possible, until Garnetta learns the shocking truth about what Karolan’s laboratory holds and what he has done to her.
Fleeing in horror, she falls into the hands of the Inquisition. Found guilty of heresy, she faces a fate even she may not survive. Dare she open her heart to Karolan now she knows what he is, while risking the familiar that is eager to inhabit her enticing female form?
Karolan is desperate to find the woman he has grown to love, knowing that only a leap of faith can lead him to her before time runs out.
- Publisher
- Troubador Publishing
- Publication
- 28 October 2026
- ISBN
- 9781806346622
- Format
- Paperback
- RRP
- £9.99
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Inception, influences & themes
Behind Flesh Endures
I’ve always been drawn to the dark and gothic in life, art, literature and film. The shadows and gentle cool of moon-shadow are more pleasing to me than heat and bright sunlight; beauty on the edge of ruin more enticing than beauty itself.
I discovered these themes in Dracula and Frankenstein, the Pan Books of Horror, and especially in books by Anne Rice and Tanith Lee, which often placed women at the centre. But I didn’t want to write a classic vampire or flawed-monster novel. Was there anything new to be said?
Karolan, Lord Rakka, is an alchemist who has discovered the secret of immortality. During his transmutation he attracted the greedy, disincarnate Fetch. Each is sustained by something of the other’s essence, while the Fetch will do anything to become fully human.
I set the novel during the Black Death in medieval England and Europe. Everything changes when Karolan saves Garnetta, a brutalised young woman who begins as a powerless victim but takes revenge on the soldiers who hurt her and the churchmen who condemn her as a witch. She is every wronged woman who triumphs.
From the novel
“We belong together. Never forget it,” he whispered. Holding him close to her chest as they finally slept, Garnetta fancied that in the aftermath of their joining she could recall the moment of her own birth.
Praise for the novel
Darkly seductive. Lushly imagined.
The sex appeal of the vampire has been a given for some time, but it’s rare to find the archetype handled as seductively. A marvellously imaginative, lushly sensual piece of work.
Flesh Endures is a gritty tale, its spiked tendrils pushing from the coffin of the vampire tradition. By turns moving, sensual and horrific. This is not a book for the faint-hearted.
Flesh Endures is a tantalising dark fantasy, with a gothic background and a hero who is deadlier than Dracula. There’s magic, alchemy, temptation and a rather surprising development.
An exotic tale guaranteed not to disappoint.
A high tingle factor.
Writer of Flesh Endures Sue C. Bentley puts the secrets of her success down to being well-balanced, having a sponge-like capacity for storing useless information, and possessing a joyously perverted imagination.
We belong together. Never forget it.