2022 Derby Books

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Celestial Bodies

Celestial Bodies

Magical Realism

Fantasy

Suyana is the last caretaker of the Celestial Archive.

Years ago, the archivists ventured into its depths, and Suyana was chosen to keep watch while they sought greater secrets about the night sky. They promised her they would return, and all would be well. But as more and more time passes, Suyana is forced to deal with a crumbling Archive and curious outsiders all alone.

She clings to the hope that they will return, and that together they will make the Archive better than it had ever been. But when a new visitor arrives at the nearby town, asking far too many questions, Suyana has to ask herself: is she really willing to wait for the archivists' return forever?

Does leaving it all behind mean giving up on hope, or does it mean rising to meet a new one?

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Banshee and You

Banshee and You: A Guide to Dating for the Recently Deceased

Fantasy

Romance

Horror

“The human was supposed to die at my scream. But for her, I'll defy death itself . . .”

The last thing Shufen Lu wants is to move to a forgotten little town to live with her mom, but her overbearing step-mother gives her little choice. Her mom is welcoming, but the town is strange and sleepy and boring. That is, until she meets the mysterious and alluring Tiernan Aodh, and Shufen's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn.

Tiernan hides a dangerous secret in her sweet and lonely heart: she's a banshee, a creature of doom, an omen of death. For years she protected her tiny town, but now, nobody is safe, least of all Shufen, the innocent and intriguing human fated to die at Tiernan's hands . . . . now they must bargain with death . . .

It's not easy to cheat death, but Shufen is prepared to go to the ends of the earth if it means she gets to have Tiernan.

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An Eye for an Eye

An Eye for an Eye

Fantasy

Romance

Desperate to earn her place amongst the Order of Valchirii, Tullia offered her eye for the gift of magic. Donning that helmet promised grand missions, protecting the innocent, upholding the Good...

Anything but guarding rich Merchants and their spoiled sons.

Patrin - a talkative, lyre obsessed annoyance - is Tullia’s latest assignment, but a journey across the country lands them in the hands of the Valchirii’s mortal enemies - slavers from the east.

Tullia’s magic and swordsmanship prove less effective than her sharp mind and quiet tongue, but none of it can keep her from the arena sands.

Drowning beneath a crowd screaming for death, Tullia must decide if spilling Valchirii blood is a price worth paying to See those she loves again... or if the Greater Good is worth dying for.

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Long Bridge to the City

Long Bridge to the City

Fantasy

Romance

A chance encounter. A dangerous power. And a betrayal beyond imagining...

Órlaith's kept her magic a secret her whole life, fearful of the fate that befalls the spellweavers - the unlucky few with powerful enough magic to catch the wrong person's attention.

Until she - literally - runs into Leolin. He's a spellweaver just like her - except the magehunters already caught him. And they want him back.

When Órlaith's whole world burns down around her, the two of them flee to the near-mythical City, said to be the only place in the realm where spellweavers can live without fear.

But who is the mysterious Gwydion, who seems determined to stop them from reaching the City? And is the City everything it seems to be - or is there something else hiding beneath its shimmering towers?

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Sealkeeper

Sealkeeper

Fantasy

Romance

Sealkeepers guard dreamer’s realms, preventing our worst nightmares from escaping onto the waking plane. Tegwen is a sealkeeper-in-training, so close to graduation that she can taste it.

On her first solo shift, she witnesses a seal broken by a nightmarish windigo. Tegwen has a decision to make—face demotion, or chase the beast down on the waking plane. But she has to work fast, or soon other dreamer’s realms will break down, unleashing all her wards upon an unwitting population.

Tegwen made this mess all by herself. She decides she can fix it on her own too, right?

Namid, a feisty dreamer with a long-held secret, will challenge that theory, and show Tegwen how it feels to have dreams of her own.

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Tempest Came

Tempest Came

Fantasy

Romance

Hazel Honeyweather is living her best life in the magical capital city. No, for real. Her days of running from her owner, the Clockmaker, are long gone.

The glamorous Queen Maureen is a far better master, and Hazel has an awesome job as court spy. In fact, just one more gig stealing secrets from a wicked mage and she’ll have a permanent place in high society.

But Maximilian may not be so wicked after all, and there may be someone else behind the mysterious tornadoes kidnapping mages left and right.

As Hazel's disguise and Maximilian's defenses unravel, she realizes that running from the past won’t just cost her a job this time: she risks life and love, while the place she finally belongs is suffocated by the tempest.

Join Hazel Honeyweather, a many-faced runaway with zero magic in her dumb bones, on this delightful adventure through a magic land with surprise and intrigue behind every corner.

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Trial of the Aeromancer

Trial of the Aeromancer

Fantasy

Romance

The sacred cave grants powers to those who brave it and survive. Nobody warns you about what comes next.

When Aleah is the only one to emerge from the cave, foul play is suspected, and the villagers aren't subtle in their accusations. Alone, as always, she sets out on a journey to find other aeromancers and a place to belong. Along the way she meets Lark, the beautiful huntress who encourages her to embrace her newfound powers and makes Aleah's heart leap in her chest.

Each day brings yet another trial that tests her will, as well as adding companions to their party, each with their own complicated pasts. Through it all, Aleah holds tight to her goal, and nothing will stop her from finding a place to belong. But the longer the ragtag group sticks together, the more Aleah begins to wonder if maybe home isn't a place at all.

Trial of the Aeromancer is a cozy fantasy adventure novella, where romantic and platonic love are the perfect feel-good combination.

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A Midsummer Nights Haunting

A Midsummer Nights Haunting

Thriller

Romance

Paranormal

Majoring in Ancient Civilizations, my entire mindset was geared toward facts, not fiction.

I wanted to find answers and provide proof of things, not just believe in mythology and ghost stories. That’s why I was more than willing to drag my three best friends into a forest we knew little about in search of a lost city. While stories were great, finding the actual location was better.

Setting out, my best friend Ashlynn and I were confident, knowing we were protected by our best male friends, Phynix and Case. That quickly turned to fear when we ended up lost. Too soon, we found ourselves stalked by a ghostly figure— herded and trapped without any idea of escaping.

Everything was a mess until the forest provided a means to calm us, to relieve us of our fears and inhibitions— and then realizations came forward that tilted the world the four of us knew on its axis and opened a future we never knew we desperately wanted.

One where we loved each other, all four of us, and lived in that truth forever.

There was only one catch from the ghostly figure, and it turned out to be one that I would willingly follow . . . but it required all of us to agree. Otherwise, we’d lose everything.

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The Dreamer's War

The Dreamer's War

Thriller

Paranormal

Marissa is drowning in debt and constantly pushing away thoughts of her estranged brother. For added income, she decides to sign up for a sleep study.

From the beginning, the study is anything but ordinary. As the study progresses, it only becomes more bizarre and confusing as her dreams mirror the waking world. She delves deeper into this world with questions arising at every turn, soon discovering something sinister awaiting in the abyss. What is hiding in the darkness, and what are its intentions?

Be afraid of what goes bump in the night--especially if it knows you're there.

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Of Ashes and Stardust

Of Ashes and Stardust

Fantasy

Nothing newsworthy ever happens in the tiny town of Avonlet, and that’s just the way the residents like it, thank you very much. Until the phoenix appears in a blaze of glory above the town.

The creature announces awkward Enaria is key to stopping the tragedy that will happen in three days. As the town tries to figure out who will be responsible for something so horrific that it would shake the world to its core, Enaria tries to master the magic of her unasked for bond to the creature. But self doubt and her own trauma holds her back.

When the phoenix’s magic reveals secrets and desires that make Enaria question everything she holds dear, she turns to her friends for help. But even those relationships strain under the phoenix’s fire. If she cannot find a way to prevent the tragedy, the phoenix will burn for the last time, and the magic of their world will vanish forever, turning stardust to ashes.

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The Girl Among the Green

The Girl Among the Green

Fantasy

Death awaits any who cross the magical barrier surrounding Goldcrest. At least, that's what they say.

Addison was always told to fear the creatures lurking deep within the forest. Missing children, hungry beasts--everyone knows the stories. He's never needed proof to feel the fear down to his bones. But when fate leads him deeper into the woods than he's ever been, it's not a monster he meets--it's a girl.

Ostracized and stricken by tragedy, he embraces the girl that found him in his moment of need. She's always there when he needs someone to talk to. Someone to help him understand the world he was born into. As they grow up together, he begins to question the ways of the village. If the Elders are lying about the horrors of the woods, they are certainly capable of much worse.

Difficult decisions line his path as he tries to find his place. He searches for answers, all with one major question lurking in the back of his mind: can he really trust the girl among the green?

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Lair Watch

Lair Watch

Fantasy

LGBT

They say there is a dragon of great power in the barren wastes to the west. They say it’s gathered dozens f princesses and noble women in its keep. They say he who frees them from that horrid place will reunite half of the ruling families of the world.

Enter Diomede, a knight with a penchant for self-sacrifice.

Diomede has felt wrong his whole life. In the house of an enemy he finds a little bit of rightness in a misunderstanding. Now, he has to learn who he truly is, and how to be her.

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Hollow King

Hollow King

Fantasy

It's been five years since Barridur Sharrow deserted the army rather than commit war crimes at the order of his commander. He now works as a mason, he's well-liked by his community where no one knows his past, and he focuses his time on raising his adopted child. But everything falls apart when his former commanding officer, the Grand Mage, returns to the city and discovers him — and shortly after that, Barridur is executed as a deserter.

Barridur finds himself in purgatory where he meets the fabled Hollow King. A cruel and capricious god, the Hollow King offers Barridur a chance to return alive to the living world.

All Barridur has to do is defeat the Nine Champions of Hell. An immortal minotaur, a shapeshifting crow with a flock of man-eating ravens, a banshee who lives in a well, a flesh-eating swarm of flies, a cannibalistic chef, an enchanted stone giantess, an unstoppable rock troll, a huge two-headed hound who guards the Gates, and a final unknown entity no one has lived to tell about. How hard can it be, really? All he has to do is beat them all and survive. If he fails, the Hollow King will devour his soul and Barridur will become part of the wraith army, enslaved for all eternity.

If staying alive in Hell wasn't hard enough, Barridur discovers that the Grand Mage who murdered him is intent on summoning the Hollow King as a weapon of mass destruction. Millions will die if this comes to pass — including Barridur's family. Desperate to win this impossible challenge, Barridur sets with only a lone vampyr as his ally... and honestly she just wants to drink his blood.

No matter what it costs, Barridur will fight all of Hell to keep the Hollow King from rising into the mortal world — even if it means losing his humanity in the process. No pressure.

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Lavender Atlantean

Lavender Atlantean

Fantasy

Atlanteans and humans have hated one another for a long as either race can remember. Even Saala, a purple skinned Atlantean and outcast among her kind, has inherited that ancient grudge. But when ancient monstrosities emerge and threaten every race with extinction, Saala finds herself thrust against her will into human society, the first -and only- Atlantean to help humanity and it's allies fight off the predatory Ithagn that threaten the world. The mindless brutality of their monstrous enemy cares nothing for Atlantean stubbornness or human pride, and Saala must shake off the prejudice that exists against her -and within her- to bridge the gap between the species and put an end to the threat that would destroy them both.

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The Mermaid's Shoal

The Mermaid's Shoal

Fantasy

Elfyn O Se has lived by the laws of the sea his whole life. He'd go by Elf to his friends if he had any left, but at least his crew are willing to work with him, and it's not because he accidently cursed them all. Yet, maybe he can pull them together for one last job that might ease the fury of the tyrannical mermaid he wronged so long ago. He might have a chance to break the binds for himself and his crew, if he can pull it off.

There's just one problem; a rival mermaid called Anwen. As mysterious as she is terrifying - and adamant that Elf can't win - she offers an alternative to break the curse if the crew can help her get home.

The crew of the Ossory now finds themselves caught in an odyssey brimming with magic and monsters. Battling against champions of terrible adversaries, mysterious lights from the deep, and kleptomatic selkies who deal in blood, Elf is faced with a choice. Will he risk the future of his world to save his crews' souls, or condemn them all to protect the archipelago from certain calamity?

Find the book here!And on Kobo!
A Perfectly Ordinary Day

A Perfectly Ordinary Day

Fantasy

Adventure

Action

Erasmus Taylor makes his way through life in the cloud sea with an enchanted rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other. Along with his crew of sorcerous companions, the rogue steals rare and valuable artifacts for the rich and powerful. Headstrong and confident in his abilities, he agrees to take on another such job, "procuring" a jade pendant from the airship Angelica.

Giorgio DiMarco is a retired widower who spends his days fishing for prizes across the sky to keep his wine cellar well stocked. With the help of his automaton assistant, Carnation, he travels around inside his tiny zeppelin, The Quilted Guppy.

When the heist goes wrong, the two men are brought together as if by luck, but is that truly the case?

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Upon the Parapets

Upon the Parapets

Fantasy

Orphaned at a young age, Adeline has spent her entire life trying to find a place where she belonged. When she was sent to become a guard for the king she thought she might finally find that place. But bodies started showing up wherever she went. Those behind the killings, demanded a girl.

Adeline was never anything special, but when a voice in the back of her head starts telling her to do things, she can't decide if she's insane or if she should listen. Listening would change her entire world, and with it she needed to decide if she was going to fight with her newly made friends or run back to her unfulfilled life.

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Hidden Valley

Hidden Valley

Fantasy

Mystery

Western

Don't pray to gods or they might answer. Chili Hellyer is perfectly fine living among humans with her sister, working as a tailor. That all goes up in flame as a mysterious curse makes people snap and turn into blood thirsty monsters, and in the pandemonium the town ends up literally burning down. The desire to find out exactly what happened starts her on a journey back to the burned rubble - but with unforgiving desert and bored gods before her, she might never make it back at all

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Fire in his Veins

Fire in his Veins

Urban Fantasy

Action

Once, dragons ruled the skies and the land, terrorizing those that served under them. It has been many hundreds of years since the humans took back the land, confining dragon-kind to their designated cities, bringing peace back to the world.

Now the dragons have begun to fall back into their old ways, and Diego Evans has gone where no human dares set foot, a dragon city, in order to exact revenge on one particular dragon who murdered his father.

When this venture unlocks ancient, unknown magicks within him, he decides to use his newfound abilities for good, stopping those dragons who have been overstepping their bounds and bringing the fear of man back into their proud reptilian minds.

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Into The Dark

Into the Dark

Urban Fantasy

Thriller

Some secrets are best left in the dark.

Tracey Whitmore is a homicide detective, and one that has had to work tooth and nail to get her position despite prevelant corruption and bigotry within the Lakeport P.D. Dangerous criminals, strange disappearances, and grisly murder scenes are nothing unusual for her, especially when the homeless population, and the crime rates by proxy, within the city are growing out of control.

So when her brother, a private investigator, asks her for help with a group of cold cases he's working, she's more than willing to pitch in. Until he asks her to meet him at his office. Only to find the place trashed and her brother kidnapped.

She may have to be prepared to lose her job, her freedom, and even her closest friends if it means getting him back. What she isn't prepared for is avoiding a strange woman that wants to kill her with a sword, strange links between cases decades apart, and supernatural secrets she was never meant to learn.

Sometimes secrets drag you Into the Dark.

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The Order of lazarus

The Order of Lazarus

Fantasy

Adventure

Action

Mystery

The Order of Lazarus is a secretive order of justice, working as the balancers of magic and might. Or rather, they used to exist but now they are nothing more than fiction. Their members, works and location lost to the dredges of time... Or so the story goes.

With the destruction of the great city magic cities of Castellan, Tran-Gratta and Bossa, the Order were cast down from their high places and banished across the lands for treachery, to be hunted for all time.

---

When the stranger gets teleported from his world to one of magic, elves and dwarves, he's surprised and captivated by it all. Still, with his old world suffering from war and his loved ones left behind, he knows he has to return back to them no matter what it takes.

Armed with his wit and determination, he begins his journey in the new world to find his way home, oblivious to just how much the world has changed with his presence. Or just how much it was to change still. Especially with what he transferred with.

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Six of Cups

Six of Cups

Fantasy

Science Fiction

Action

Adventure

In the year 2063, living in an off-world forest colony is unforgiving. Especially for a single mother of six.

Catherine Li is a nondescript woman of middle-age working as a midwife. She is quiet, simple of dress and mannerism, and generally unnoteworthy. But there’s a rumor that, since her husband died, she’s begun reading tarot to make ends meet.

When a friend from old earth arrives unexpectedly at her doorstep, it’s quickly exposed that tarot is the least of Catherine’s secrets. Secrets she holds unyielding as the night holds the stars. With her past back to haunt her, Catherine is left with very little time to make a very difficult decision. If she fails, her children will be the ones to suffer. And she will bear any cost so that her pain will not become theirs.

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Between Faraway Stars aka Bork's Best Book

Between Faraway Stars

Science Fiction

Nothing ever goes right in space, especially when a planet is missing. This time it is Andon Moore's problem. Recently woken up from cryosleep due to an accident, the astrophysicist is tasked with navigating the stars. With the help of Box and other personable androids, he must find the ark ship Janus a new home. It's a race against rapidly depleting resources and his own sanity as the universe throws everything at them.

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Family Reunion 1982

Family Reunion 1982

Science Fiction

Adventure

The earth isn't the only planet with life, and it makes a very good tourist trap.

Elizabeth Carter and her mom are on thier way to the woods for the Carter Annual Family Reunion, but it's the last place on earth they wanna be.

The small unit doesn't get along very well with the rest of the family, but go every year so they don't become outcasts. When they finally hit the woods, however, things start going wrong.

Things they forgot to pack, problems they didn't plan for, and strange sounds beyond the trees spook them both.

But when strange visitors offer them a sudden choice, they must decide between finding a way back to their family, or being sucked up into the deep unknown.

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The Hungry Tower

The Hungry Tower

Action

Paranormal

Thriller

Science Fiction

How hard can destroying a living tower actually be?

There aren't many entities too strong for Agent Dan Kovac and his cybernetically enhanced team of paranormal hunters to handle. So when the U.S. Department of Paranormal Investigations calls in Kovac to lead an operation against the Hungry Tower, he readily accepts.

When he enters the complex, Kovac finds that the Tower is nothing like what he expected. His team finds themselves trapped and fighting for their lives against several threats thrown at them by a Tower that won't go down easily. And there's more to the building than meets the eye. Simply destroying it won't be enough to put a stop to its menace, so the only option Kovac has left is to unlock the Tower's secrets and cut it off at its source. The fate of thousands of people depends on it.

But the Tower isn't the only thing Kovac has to worry about. Trouble stirs within his ranks, which means he must also keep an eye on his own people.

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The Last Sentinel

The Last Sentinel

Action

Thriller

Science Fiction

Paranormal

The time for hiding is over. Now, it's time to kill.

Humanity has been almost completely wiped out by invaders from a distant galaxy, and Stanley wants nothing more than to drown himself in the bottom of a bottle and forget. But when the creatures come for his remaining friends and family, he decides it's time to put the drink down and pick a weapon up.

He's going to make them suffer.

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Strange Battlefields

The Last Sentinel

Action

Thriller

Science Fiction

Ken'ichi Kazama is a master samurai and assassin that has never failed a mission. When he and his clan members are captured and sentenced to death by order of the Shogun, not even he can see an escape.

Just as he's about to be executed, Ken'ichi is transported into a glittering city, where humans are more metal than flesh, and which the samurai way is ancient history. His saviours, the megacorp Vetor, are one of many megacorps to transport people to the future. Ken'ichi is the latest and, hopefully, their last. But a new life comes with a price. Vetor has ordered Ken to assassinate other time travelers in exchange for his freedom.

But when a mission leads to him discovering his long lost brother, past and future collide as Ken must decide whether to pledge allegiance to his saviours or his family. Will he find the truth at the end of his sword?

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Ashara's Awakening

Ashara's Awakening

Action

Fantasy

LitRPG

Even death can’t stop the sun from rising.

Tamran Westmiller was just delivering a package. He hadn’t signed up for any fighting. He was retired. But one wrong step toward a town that definitely didn’t exist last week puts him right at the center of a magical vortex, safe only by the grace of the equally-trapped sun demigod, Ashara.

He finds her temple ravaged by a rival now poised to devour her entirely. She doesn’t have the strength to turn back time on his attack, and Tamran’s mortal body can’t survive in the corrosive magic-storm. Alone, they’re stuck. But together, they just might have a chance to escape - through the light-sanctified souls of her champions.

If Tamran can reactivate her shrines using the avatars of those timeworn heroes, they can carve a path through the void to Ashara’s heart. Hordes of their foes swarm the temple grounds, turning every bungled route into a brutal end. When he falls, she can turn back the clock, but it makes their plan no less deadly.

The only way out is forward, though, so in Tamran goes - as many times as it takes.

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Stormshot

Stormshot

Action

Science Fiction

GameLit

After losing an impossible-to-win fight, Cyberpunk mercenary Jack Anderson uncovers an ancient disc in an abandoned warehouse. The back of the box tells a cryptic tale of a game long forgotten:

---

CHOOSE A SIDE

OR FADE AWAY…

STORMSHOT is an Action RPG set in the 2010s, where a bustling metropolis finds itself in the center of a gang war between two rivals. The war is coming to a head, but one man can decide its ultimate fate!

Kerzner is an underworld mercenary who can tip the scales and shape the city’s future. Working only for the highest bidder will drive the city to destruction as the war escalates with no clear winner. Will the chaos continue? Will he choose a side? Only you can decide!

---

Jack’s friends are outgunned and outnumbered. And he isn't the right man to tip the scales in their favor. But when playing STORMSHOT means he gains a new ability, Jack realizes that beating the game might be the only way to save them.

STORMSHOT is a love letter to what Cyberpunk 2077 could have been. If you enjoy high-action GameLit with protagonists who grow and learn (but maybe start off as a meathead), pick up STORMSHOT today!

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Terra Incognito

Terra Incognito

Fantasy

LitRPG

World On the Precipice . . . Will Grayson knew he would probably live to see the end of the world, with the way things have been going—he just didn’t think he’d live through it, let alone with an insufferable git by his side.

A System Glitch . . . Hiking in the Peak District at the moment Earth is—accidentally—infused with magic and thrown into an indifferent and muddled system, Will returns to his Derbyshire village to find a ghost town.

No bodies.

No blood.

Only a verdant, pervasive green that has overtaken his home as if it’s had a hundred years to grow. But this new magic is alive, and it’s not alone.

Neither is Will. Accompanied by the person he'd vote Least Likely to Team Up With in an Apocalypse and a literal baby dragon, Will searches for traces of his family and instead finds only dangling threads of clues, tugging on those threads might lead to answers . . . or they might unravel what’s left of Earth.

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Touching Down

Touching Down

Fantasy

Cultivation

Li Ming, a young, adopted member of Minglao Island, is denied the resources to cultivate. His peers are given coredust, a reagent that rouses their latent talent and allows them to begin their journey cultivating those elements that manifest in their spirit roots.

Ming was cursed on the day of his birth, the long, gnarled scar he bears sending him into the throes of agony should he even so much as touch the other islanders. He believes cultivation might lend him reprieve, or even respect. He has no intention to remain the Enlightened Chrysanthemum sect’s peasant until his eventual death.

He will find another way, or he will die trying.

Follow Ming on his journey to sagedom as he comes to understand the Dao and the world of cultivation.

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Yet Another Recycled Plotline

Yet Another Recycled Plotline

Fantasy

Adventure

GameLit

Zane once yearned to travel the world, see everything there was to see, and discover things no one else had found. But life has a way of fitting people into its grooves, and as the years passed his dream became little more than wistful glances at travel destinations he'd never afford.

Until the day he's summoned to a magical water world and given the chance to start over. One tiny catch - he has to become a merman and give up any chance of returning home.

For Zane, it's an easy decision. Trade a life of corporate drudgery for perilous adventures and a chance to explore a whole new world? Yes please!

Of course life in a magical ocean isn't safe or simple and the quest for which he was summoned is one of desperate last chances. But Zane will gladly take the risk. Isn't that what adventure is all about?

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Grand Admiral Pumpkin

Grand Admiral Pumpkin and the Helium Fleet

Contemporary

Drama

Taylor's hiding something—hiding something from everyone, including himself.

There’s something off about the smiling faces and echoing laughs of the cheerful birthdays that littered his youth. Something he refuses to think about while he’s trying to string together enough details of his sisters and brothers to throw them a party. Something he doesn't want to talk about to anyone, least of all a gruff, no-nonsense balloon clown.

Admiral Pumpkin can see right through him.

Find the book here!