Gothic fantasy romance
The Mercy of Black Water
A stranger arrives on Leda’s mortuary table wearing her missing brother’s coat. The king’s executioner knows who sent him.
The collection
The bookshelf.
A city losing its memories. A repair shop with one chair by the door. A parade cart that won’t budge. Which story will you open first?
Contemporary literary fiction
The Chair Beside the Door
Mira comes home to sell her father’s repair shop. A notebook marked CHAIR introduces her to the people who still count on him.
Picture book · Ages 4–7
Tavi’s Very Wobbly Parade
Tavi has a giant daisy, a drum and big plans for the Meadow Parade. When his cart won’t budge, he turns to his friends Mira and Odo.
Opening pages
The reading room.
Pull up a chair and spend a page with a story.
01Gothic fantasy romanceThe Mercy of Black Water
Chapter One · The Wrong Thread
The dead man arrived wearing Leda’s brother’s coat.
She knew the coat before she saw the face. Brown wool, one horn button replaced with copper, a triangular darn beneath the left pocket. Tavin had caught it on a fishhook the winter before he disappeared. He had insisted the hole resembled a country and should be allowed its independence.
Leda set down her cup.
The men carrying the stretcher mistook the sound for permission. They shouldered through the door, bringing rain and canal stink into the room where she prepared the poor for burial. One of them had trodden in something that wasn’t mud.
“Not on the clean tiles,” she said.
They stopped.
Reader note
This standalone story follows adult protagonists and has a hopeful romantic ending. It contains death, grief, execution, blood, coercive political power, drowning imagery and the loss of a limb. Intimacy is consensual and non-graphic.
02Contemporary literary fictionThe Chair Beside the Door
Chapter One · The Key That Would Not Turn
The key worked if you lifted the shutter with your knee.
Mira knew this, but she spent several minutes trying it the ordinary way, as though her father’s death might have persuaded the lock to behave.
Behind her, a bicycle bell rang twice.
“Left knee,” said a man.
“I remember.”
“Then why are you fighting it?”
She turned. Javed had grown a beard since she last saw him, though he still wore his watch on the inside of his wrist. There was a basket of bread strapped to his carrier. He had once driven a bus. Apparently he now delivered breakfast.
“Aren’t you retired?” she asked.
“From buses. Nobody has retired me from eating.”
View this book on Amazon03Picture book · Ages 4–7Tavi’s Very Wobbly Parade
The opening spread
Tavi had a cart, four squeaky wheels, and a very big idea.
“Tomorrow,” he told Mira and Odo, “I’ll make the grandest cart in the Meadow Parade!”
Mira twitched her ears.
Odo grinned.
“Can we help?”
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