Sole De Gasinis drowns his grief in wine and buries his hatred of his body in twisted sculptures. When, one drunken night on the beach, God orders him to rebuild his village's church, he knows he wasn't chosen for his piety.Instead, he and God make a deal. If Sole rebuilds the church, God will give him the body of a man.As Sole works in a frenzy for salvation, lifelong friendships decay, a village united to tear down its church fractures into pariahs and zealots, and power and grief reshape the prophet into a tyrant. Grief for a boy he fell in love with ten years ago, who claimed to be a virgin birth, who died in agony in the church crypt when the God inside him wanted out--and whose monstrous remnant Sole must commune with for every piece of his prize.

Jamie Fugate is a physician taught by his ex-army father. Amon Jessop is a veterinary radiologist too soft-hearted for Jamie’s patience. To the behemoth which crash-lands in a wheat field between their towns during a storm, they’re the only science for miles.The behemoth yields few answers. A communal tornado shelter barely contains its six wings, and an x-ray reveals that the tangle of its body contains not one human skeleton, but two. Wanting to see more of this strange romance than a picture on Amon’s fluoroscope, Jamie fetches his father’s bone saw.But locked away from the world in this tornado-shelter-turned-operating-theatre are more secrets than the vivisection of an angel. There’s a reason Amon fled back to Oklahoma from the city he trained in. There’s a reason Jamie’s family never ask what he’s doing with his knives.And when their thirst for knowledge turns into a thirst for each other, they’ll have a far more dangerous monster on their table.