The Last Rites of August Cole

He has walked thirty-one men to their deaths.

Father Eli Marsh is a death row chaplain. For eleven years, he has done the same work, over and over: sit with the condemned, listen without judgment, and stand beside them when the state takes their life.

He has never crossed a line.

He has never wanted to.

Until August Cole.

August has spent six years on death row for a brutal double murder. He refused every chaplain who came before Eli. No confessions. No prayers. No need for absolution.

Then, with sixty-three days left until his execution, he asks to see him.

From the first meeting, something is wrong.

August doesn't behave like the others. He doesn't beg. He doesn't deny. He doesn't try to be understood. Instead, he watches Eli with a quiet, unsettling attention—like a man who already knows exactly who he is.

And somehow… sees Eli more clearly than anyone ever has.

What begins as obligation becomes something far more dangerous.

The visits grow longer. The silence between them thickens. Eli finds himself returning not because August needs him—but because he cannot stay away.

Because August Cole is either an innocent man about to be executed…

or a killer Eli is falling in love with anyway.

And Eli is no longer sure it matters.

As the execution date approaches, everything begins to unravel—his faith, his relationship, his sense of self, and the boundaries that once defined him. Outside, an attorney fights to prove August's innocence. Inside, Eli faces a different question entirely:

What does it mean to love someone you cannot save…
may not be able to trust…
and cannot walk away from?

The Last Rites of August Cole is a dark, emotionally devastating MM romance about desire, doubt, and the cost of truly seeing another human being.

Not a love story about rescue.

A love story that survives without it.