And the raven won't leave.
Enter Amelia Harker: paralegal, mortal, entirely unimpressed.
She has notes on all of them. She will not be sharing the notes.
Armed with a tablet, a senior partner who has never lost, and a professional calm that has unsettled creatures far older than these, Amelia begins the defense of a household that has never once been defended — and discovers the audit isn't routine.
Someone very old and very powerful designed it to erase Blackthorn entirely. The mechanism is airtight. It has been in preparation for a long time.
The Bureau has procedures.
Amelia has a checklist.
God help the Bureau.
A wickedly funny, unexpectedly moving novel about immortality, found family, and the terrible eternal truth that no one — no one — escapes compliance.
For readers who love the bureaucratic absurdity of Terry Pratchett and Good Omens, the dysfunctional immortals of What We Do in the Shadows, and anyone who has ever suspected that eternal life would eventually require filling out a form.
Blackthorn
Eternal Compliance, Eternal Truths
Valerius the Dread has survived sieges, plagues, holy wars, and the fall of empires. He will not survive an audit. Probably.
For five hundred years, the vampire household at 1847 Blackthorn Lane has maintained a comfortable relationship with paperwork — namely, not doing any.
Then a certified raven arrives with seventy-three pages from the Bureau of Eternal Compliance.
Valerius — former warlord, current Tier Two Retention Specialist at a blood-delivery startup whose app has mistaken undeath for a password recovery issue — has twenty-one days to produce five centuries of documentation that does not exist.
Ambrose, the gentle scholar, has been quietly grieving for a hundred and thirty years and filing nothing. Zach still hasn't told his mother what he is. The House itself is sentient, resentful, and considering its options.
His household is not helpful.
The vampires have secrets.
Testimonials
Unfortunately, these are the people involved.
★☆☆☆☆
“Defamatory.”
— Valerius the Dread
★★★☆☆
“I have been advised by counsel not to comment while the audit remains active.”
— Amelia Harker
★★★★★
“I’m in it.”
— Zach
★☆☆☆☆
“I haven't read it. I'm busy grieving—I mean filing, of course.”
— Ambrose
DISCLAIMER: Briar Gate Press has conducted no meaningful fact-checking and assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, reliability, legality, or general emotional stability of the statements above. Testimonials may have been obtained under duress, supernatural coercion, pending litigation, or in exchange for favorable treatment during an active audit. Star ratings are self-reported, entirely unverifiable. The Bureau of Eternal Compliance has neither approved nor authorized this material. Please direct all complaints, subpoenas, cease-and-desist letters, and ominous correspondence delivered by raven to someone else.
Briar Gate Press regrets nothing.
★☆☆☆☆
“This publication contains confidential Bureau material and should not exist.”
— Bureau of Eternal Compliance
★★★★★
“As the author, I can confirm that every word of this is true except the parts my attorney has advised me to describe as fiction.”
— Amy Wiley, Author
THE FIGURES
Publication Date
September 21, 2026
Genre
Satirical Fantasy Fiction
ISBN-13
979-8-9974971-1-8 / 979-8-9974971-0-1
Page Count
479
Format
E-book & Paperback
Hardcover available on Amazon
Publisher
Briar Gate Press