Children of the Billy-Goat Star, (Paperback)

Christmas night, 1739. Austrian drums echoed cold across the Kempen.<br>Twelve-year-old Lijsken Dreessen stood beneath the gallows and watched her brother die. <p>The crowd went home to warm hearths.<br>The priests turned their backs.<br>The snow fell pitiless on the swaying bodies. </p><p>She had nothing left but cold, hunger, and a rage too fierce for her small body. </p><p>When the night offered a way to strike back-at everyone who wronged her kin-the desperate child took it. </p><p>Some debts are paid in fire. </p><p>Inspired by the real 18th-century legend of the Bokkenrijders-the "goat riders" whose night raids and brutal trials haunted the Low Countries-this dark historical fantasy weaves supernatural horror into the world of Austrian occupation, revolutionary upheaval, and the harsh realities of life in the Kempen. </p><p>Over five decades of frozen winters, Lijsken wrestles with the mounting cost of retribution: every act of vengeance demands more than she can spare, every night of reckoning leaves a deeper mark, and the ancient power that answered her rage is patient, watchful, and never sated. </p><p>Told in prose that feels like peat smoke and old campfire tales-rich with authentic Flemish folklore, the bite of real injustice, and the raw grief of the powerless-Children of the Billy-Goat Star is a haunting exploration of loss, fury, and the bargains struck when the world offers a child nothing but cold. </p><p>Did it really happen like this, or is it only legend?<br>On the Galgenberg, some questions have no answer. </p><p>They say the devil always starts with a child.<br>This is the legend of the child who made the world remember her. </p><p>Perfect for readers of Susanna Clarke's atmospheric gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's folk-horror, or anyone drawn to dark historical fantasy where vengeance rides on cloven hooves and the night itself has teeth.</p>

• Children of the Billy-Goat Star, (Paperback)
• Author: Independently Published
• ISBN: 9798246354230
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-02-01
• Page Count: 288