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HOPE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

You’ve read fantasy stories about the Chosen One. A growing danger threatens to destroy the world. A teenager is prophesied to conquer that danger. She reluctantly accepts the mission, overcomes obstacles, grows as a person, and saves the world.

This is not that story.

Growing up as the Chosen One has left Hope Springs spoiled and without any particularly useful skills. Before she was even born, a prophecy from the All Seeing declared that on her 17^th birthday Hope would save the world from a rip in space-time that is slowly expanding and consuming everything in its path. She’s been coasting off her future accomplishments and garnering special treatment her whole life.

With the end of the world approaching and Hope’s 17th birthday only six months away, the world looks to Hope. As the pressure to save the world grows, Hope refuses, insisting that the adults solve their own problems. They brush her off, trusting in the prophecy and waiting for Hope to save them.

Disgusted with their inaction, Hope turns away from the end of the world and instead sets out with her best friends to hunt down the All Seeing to tell him to save the world himself. The friends’ quest brings them into contact with religious cults, a fate-based legal system, and time-laced drugs before they find the All Seeing and learn an uncomfortable truth.

HOPE AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a 69,000-word Young Adult Humorous Fantasy in the tradition of Jasper Fforde and Terry Pratchett with LGBTQ characters and sapphic romance that will appeal to readers who like their stories weird, funny, and heartfelt, like fans of The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken, The House in the Cerulean
Sea by T.J. Klune, and Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree.

HEISTS! AND OTHER WAYS TO AVOID MARRYING A PRINCE

HEISTS! AND OTHER WAYS TO AVOID MARRYING A PRINCE is a multi-POV found family YA fantasy heist story with sapphic and straight romance that mixes a little bit of Six of Crows with a lot of the deadpan humor of the Murderbot Diaries and a heart that will appeal to fans of TJ Klune and Travis Baldree.

Larissa Lockheed is a seventeen-year-old explosives expert who helps make her dad’s weapon-making business more cutting edge, profitable, and strategically important than the small-time blacksmiths that make up their competition. She’s also a lesbian, which makes it particularly upsetting when she finds herself engaged to the crown prince of a neighboring city-state as a means of cementing an alliance.

Vincent, the crown prince in question, empathizes with Larissa and agrees to petition his father to dissolve the engagement. The king refuses. The territory had always been defended by powerful wizards who drew their magic from deep within a mountain in the center of the city. The magic has been mysteriously dying and will soon be completely gone, leaving the under-militarized city-state at the mercy of its well-armed neighbor. He declares that Larissa cannot escape the marriage unless she can make the alliance unnecessary by saving magic, a task that has already been abandoned by the city’s wizard, experts, and scientists.

Undeterred, Larissa gathers a crew and plans a heist of a mysterious magical weapon rumored to be in the castle of the enemy queen. In addition to Vincent and his extremely forgettable assistant, she enlists the help of a grumpy retired wizard, an expert thief who has been stealing from the crown prince to provide for families in her poor neighborhood, and a former love interest who is now an advisor to the enemy queen. The crew pools their talents, navigates rocky relationships, and successfully infiltrates the castle. But when their attempted heist ends in an ambush, they must seek out the traitor in their midst and find a new way to save the city and win the chance to choose their own futures.

In Progress

UNTITLED MG DRAGON STORY

Tyler Ahna is only 12 when his father sends him on a mission to fight the dragon that camps on the mountain near their village. It’s framed as an honor, but Tyler knows what it really is: punishment. Punishment for being a pacifist in a tribe of warriors. Punishment for being unwilling to take on a leadership role in the tribe. Punishment for his unwavering support of his best friend Wren, a trans girl who everyone else treats as a boy. He’s being sent to “prove his manhood” by killing a dragon that has killed every villager who has fought it since it moved to the mountain three years earlier.

He climbs the mountain with his weapons but refuses to fight the dragon, instead opting to accept his fate. The dragon, surprised, invites Tyler into his home, explaining that he too is an outcast, having been thrown out of his clan for being a vegetarian. The two decide to work together to search for the lost city of Panrima, rumored to be a hidden utopia of acceptance.

Tyler rides the dragon back to the village and Wren joins their quest. Along the way they are joined by a collection of other misfits and outcasts, from witches and mermaids to ghosts and a lovable dwarf with human-sized legs, all longing for their own place of acceptance and openness. But when the lost city turns out to be abandoned, the group needs to come together and learn how to build the world they want to live in.

UNTITLED CASTLE ROMCOM

[UNTITLED CASTLE ROMCOM] is what happens when you take The Switch by Beth O’Leary, smash it against Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, then leave it to soak in a bowl of Terry Pratchett. It is a Fantasy RomCom that explores the lives and loves of the servants in the background in a second world fantasy, much the way that The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness does in a more contemporary setting.

While the bards will sing of heroes and wizards and battles won, sometimes the more interesting stories are inside the castle.

Lillian, a royal animal handler, is thrown for a loop when her best (and only) friend kisses her. Lillian realizes that her strange upbringing has prevented her from having enough human interaction to discern her own feelings towards others. When her distraction with the revelation causes her to get scorched by a dragon, she finds herself in the Healer’s Ward and expresses her jealousy of Maisie, the healer’s assistant.

Maisie has sworn off love but is having trouble getting over her ex, the royal herbalist, when she has to see him every day. Seeing an opportunity, she offers to swap jobs with Lillian. Neither is qualified for the other’s job, but it’s not like any of the royals would know the difference, right?

Lillian finds herself drawn into all sorts of human drama that she isn’t prepared for, as she joins a community where everyone has known each other since birth. With multiple servants interested in the new girl’s attention, she steps straight into a web of love, hate, and multi-generational grudges. Meanwhile, Maisie quickly makes an enemy of an arrogant, cocky, and oh so beautiful dragon rider. But will their combative relationship turn into something that challenges her vow never to love again?