A prequel to Michael Bible's Sophia, Empire of Light features a young Maloney and his adoptive father, Frank, who often get into trouble together in their small Carolina town - partly due to Maloney's expansive heart and his love - and lust - for both a girl named Molly and her mother, his schoolteacher Mrs. Kelly. It is, perhaps, an even sexier novel than Sophia, and contains an appetite for misadventure and the same kind of learned mysticism that made Sophia so wholly original.