Into the Fading Twilight - Catherine Cowles - Prologue

Aug 7, 2026

Uploaded by Violet

Into the Fading Twilight opens with Nova in captivity in the woods, chained and stripped of food, water, and hope. With pain turning into a dull, constant ache, her survival depends on a fragile inner will that keeps memories of her loved ones alive. As twilight light flickers through tree branches like snowflakes, an approaching presence interrupts her dread, and a new man appears—breathtaking, angry, and able to speak her name.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages444

Reading Time11 h 24 min

AccessFree to download

Prologue

Nova

[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) About the Author USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Catherine Cowles has had her nose in a book since the time she could read and finally decided to write down some of her own stories. When she’s not writing she can be found exploring her home state of Oregon, listening to true crime podcasts, or searching for her next book boyfriend. [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Also by Catherine Cowles STARLIGHT GROVE SERIES Across the Vanishing Sky SPARROW FALLS SERIES Fragile Sanctuary Delicate Escape Broken Harbor Beautiful Exile Chasing Shelter Secret Haven [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Praise for Catherine Cowles: ‘Heartfelt, hopeful and emotionally gripping!’Lauren Asher ‘I’m ready to enter my Catherine Cowles era!’Elsie Silver ‘No one writes twisty smalltown romance like Catherine Cowles’ Elle Kennedy ‘The queen of steamy smalltown suspense’Helena Hunting [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Catherine Cowles INTO THE FADING TWILIGHT [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Sometimes you just need a hug. This book is for everyone looking for comfort, solace, peace, healing: may you find it in both likely and unlikely places—and consider this my hug to you in book form. [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Prologue Nova E VERYTHING HURT. SO MUCH THAT I COULDN’T IDENTIFY all the places the pain had made a home in me. And maybe that was for the best. The agony had become more of a dull ache because it was so ever-present. My stomach cramped as if to call me a liar. Hunger. I could still feel that. But the food the man had left me was long gone now. Days ago. And the water …Did I drink the last of that? I thought I had, but it was too much effort to roll over and see. Some part of me knew I needed to fight. To harness that spirit within me—the one that had carried me through the days and nights of fear and torture. But it felt like a ghost now. I rolled to my back on the forest floor, the chain clanging with the movement—the same chain I’d carried with me for countless days and nights. They hadn’t started out immeasurable, though. At first, I’d been meticulous about marking the moments, never losing sight of the time that had been stolen from me. I’d memorized the tally of each dusk and dawn by the slivers of light around my prison door, the count branded on my bones. But I’d stopped at some point. I thought it was at three hundred and twelve—the number that had beaten me. Maybe because it was so close to a year, and that fact had been too difficult to bear. We’d passed the year mark now, for sure. And my captor bringing me out to the woods and leaving me chained to a tree wasn’t exactly a good sign. He’d left me before, but it was always in the underground cell. It was a hell of a mindfuck when you started wishing for the person who’d stolen everything from you to appear again—when the master of your pain was who you hoped to see. Then he’d show up, and I’d swallow those words whole. His torment wasn’t always physical, though he did like to use his fists. But where he really shined was in the emotional. Letting me know all the ways everyone had moved on without me. My friends. My family—not that they’d ever cared. His manipulations were his true weapons—the kind of manipulations that made you want to give up. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to force the memories from my mind. I thought about my best friend, Brae, and her son, who was like a nephew tome. I tried to imagine Owen a year older now. What teeth had he lost? What color were his new glasses? I held the last images I had of them in my mind as my eyelids fluttered open. The light hurt after all my time in the dark, but I stared up through the tree branches. Little particles of light twinkled and danced in the twilight like they were floating on air. Or were those snowflakes? Was it snowing? My mind stru

FAQs

Nova is dealing with what situation in the prologue?

Nova is held captive in the woods, chained to a tree, without the food or water she once had.

What keeps Nova going as time passes?

Nova tries to harness the spirit that carried her through fear and torture, and she clings to memories of her best friend Brae and Brae’s son Owen.

Who appears when Nova hears footsteps near her?

A man enters her vision who is not her captor—he has dark hazel eyes, anger, and he calls her name, Nova.

Aug 7, 2026

Uploaded by Violet