Excerpt from As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It turned out the jam was tainted. Many fell sick, and one man died—Cybil would never forget his limp face, the manner in which his body had spasmed. "Terrible," Bess had said, pale and weeping. Christopher Harding examined the corpse before returning to his study, silent.

The servants had been wary before, but now they were frightened. Although Cybil had never been close with them—she was a lady, it would not have been right—these were among the few faces who were familiar: Mrs. Verney, the ruddy three-toothed laundress with a cloud of gray hair, who on occasion had taken pity on her, and listened to her play the virginal; Mr. Stapleton, the gardener, who hummed tunes as he trimmed the hedges; even Jane Lennard, a young housemaid the same age as Cybil, who had once smiled at her and complimented her hair. All of them now blanched to see her, turning away after stuttered bows to busy themselves with chores. Jane did not smile at her anymore. Once, she dropped a glass in the same room as Cybil, and apologized so profusely, so fearfully, that she began to cry and had to flee to another room.

Afterward, Cybil went to her mother.

"She despises me," Cybil said to her. "Mother, Jane despises me. What should I do?"

Bess's face collapsed in sympathy and regret.

"My dove," she replied, "there is nothing to be done. There is a Great Chain of Being that determines how each of us is born and lives and dies. Jane stands below us on the chain; your father stands higher. We must not worry ourselves with those who live on a different link than ours."

"What if I wish not to be chained?" Cybil asked.

"You must be," Bess said.

And Cybil imagined this chain, the Great Chain of Being, wrapping tighter and tighter around her, until her flesh was bruised and she could not breathe.

From the book AS MANY SOULS AS STARS. Copyright © 2025 by Natasha Siegel. To be published on November 25, 2025 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.