Mountain of Songs

Respectable spinsters don’t run off with their lovers to save the secret to eternal life.

Unemployed, overqualified, and still scandalously unmarried, Ellie Mallory and her perpetually shirtless surveyor Adam Bates have another ancient puzzle to solve—this time in the elegant and treacherous world of late Joseon Dynasty Korea, where the race is on to uncover the truth behind the legend of Mount Penglai, home of the immortals.

Their enemy? Adam’s father, the ruthless American oligarch George Bates… and he’s brought along the brother Adam thought he’d lost forever.

Ethan Bates has bruises on his knuckles and a heart full of secrets—and certainly didn’t ask to be dragged into a web of ancient ciphers and imperialist ambitions. Now he must decide whether to trust the sibling he hasn’t seen in seven years… or the haughty (and unfairly handsome) Korean scholar who is very politely blackmailing him.

It’s a choice that will plunge an unlikely alliance onto a trail of clues left by a legendary Korean warrior, leading them from the intrigues of Seoul to the ruins of Gyeongju in a deadly contest for a prize that has lain hidden for over a thousand years.

Monsters will rise. The dead will speak. And a mountain haunted by the ghosts of regret will force everyone to face what they fear the most.

Because the power to overcome death isn’t what it seems—and the man who shaped Adam’s life is willing to pay a shocking price to claim it.