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2026 Claymore Award Finalist Best Sci-Fi / Fantasy: The Watcher |
The legend of the Book of Enoch remembers the two hundred Watchers who ignited a cosmic insurrection. It forgot the woman they fell for.
A mythic tale of tragic devastation sparked by one impossible love.
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At the dawn of civilization, beneath the shadow of Mount Hermon, the fire-hearted healer Taliya has sworn never again to stand helpless and empty-handed at the sickbed of her loved ones. So when a towering stranger with glowing sigils flickering along his arms enters her world, she recognizes the answer to her curing her people’s blight: a man who knows every secret remedy the earth has been hiding. Samyaza, high chief of the immortal Watchers, was made to observe mortals and never be known by them, until Taliya asks him the one question he swore never to answer. He answers it. But when their clandestine encounters ignite a taboo romance, her choice to love him precipitates calamities worse than disease, unleashing the fabled giant Nephilim and bronze weaponry across the Copper Age Levant. As violence and a looming flood threaten to destroy everything she loves, the woman the legend never named climbs the forbidden peaks to plead for her world, and for the god she loves who doomed it. Click below to read excerpts from
The Watcher |
The Watcher: Inspired by the Levantine lore of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Ancient Legend of the WatchersThe Watcher is a romance-driven, mythic historical fantasy that reimagines the ancient legend of the Watchers from the esoteric Book of Enoch as a nuanced tale of star-crossed love, anchored in the perspective of the unnamed woman at the core of the story. This literary retelling of the Semitic text, which dates back to the 3rd century BCE, expounds upon the ancient account with complex characters and rich historical detail, drawing on the landscapes and customs of the Copper Age Levant to create an immersive work of grounded historical fantasy.
Told through the first-person voices of both divine beings and mortals, the narrative invites readers to witness the humanity of celestial beings alongside the resilience and sacred vulnerability of mortals. Through these interwoven perspectives, the story draws readers into intimate struggles with forbidden desire, encroaching corruption, and the hope of redemptive love. Focusing on the unnamed woman who precipitated the earthbound defection of the Watchers, The Watcher will appeal to readers of A.D. Rhine’s Horses of Fire and Rebecca Ross’s A River Enchanted for its heroine-centered lens, grounded lyrical lore, and charged romance. |
"By command of the god, those who take an oath do so here." Greek inscription concerning oath-taking on the summit of Mount Hermon (Qasr Antar), 4th–5th century CE. Discovered by Sir Charles Warren; British Museum, BM 1903.0422.
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"And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were born to them beautiful and elegant daughters. And the Watchers, the sons of the heaven, beheld them, and they became enamored with them and were inflamed with love for them… And they were in all two hundred, who descended in the days of Jared upon the summit of Mount Hermon…
These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader, Araqiel, Rameel, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Danel, Ezekeel, Barakiel, Azazyel, Armoni, Batariel, Ananiel, Zaqiel, Samsapeel, Satarēl, Turiel, Yomiel, Bezaliel, and Sariel."
~1 Enoch 6:1-2, 6-7
These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader, Araqiel, Rameel, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Danel, Ezekeel, Barakiel, Azazyel, Armoni, Batariel, Ananiel, Zaqiel, Samsapeel, Satarēl, Turiel, Yomiel, Bezaliel, and Sariel."
~1 Enoch 6:1-2, 6-7