The book
Leana doesn't have a death wish. Sure, she uses forbidden magic for illusion pranks. But death may be coming for everyone soon, the way the monster crisis keeps accelerating. In the meantime, why not make a few terrified refugee kids smile?
Twice a refugee herself, she’s found a new home in a city that's really trying—free libraries, an elected council, and perfect cheese bread—and friends she'd do anything for, except the one thing they want her to do: live in fear.
All her life, she's heard the old stories about people like her. Every atrocity is another reason wizards were hunted down, and perhaps deserved to be. But she pieces together another story that was lost, or erased. A discipline of curiosity that once held the monsters back. Maybe it could again, if people would trust it. And if humanity could be trusted with it.
Spell by spell, siege by siege, she and her friends grow strong enough to matter. And to be noticed.
What to expect
- A tentacled narrator whose growing affection for the heroes might be appetite.
- Classic fantasy adventure (until they face problems violence can't solve).
- Enemies who believe they're good and might be right.
- Revelations about history and about three hard magic systems.
- Friendship through grief, self-doubt, and internalized shame.
- No romance. No AI.
For readers of
- Dragonlance — Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman The books that made me a fantasy reader. Classic party action-adventure, historical revelations, and hope in dark times.
- City Watch — Terry Pratchett For the love of imperfect civic institutions, the brazen metafiction, and a fraction of the humor.
- Legends & Lattes — Travis Baldree For an arc about overcoming self-doubt. And for the warmth: found family, community, and love of/as food, but with high stakes and a dark world. Cozydark. Cozy with teeth and tentacles.
Content notes
It’s a dark and violent world, but sensitive readers are in good tentacles. Er, hands. Contains:
- Children born as monsters, and what families do about them—including infanticide carried out as official policy in the book's history. No on-page harm to children.
- Persecution, internalized shame, and historical genocide of a magic-using minority.
- Implied suicidal ideation, handled with care and resolved positively.
- Refugee displacement and grief.
- Siege warfare and moderately graphic violence.
The author
I'm a political communication professor at Louisiana State University. Like this debut novel, my research seeks hope about dark subjects: media effects on democracy, the role of facts and policy reasoning in politics, how societies prioritize problems, and trust in truth-seeking institutions.
Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, I've sailed competitively, designed games, stubbornly played disc golf for years without improvement, written embarrassingly gushing fan emails to authors, and found my greatest happiness in fatherhood.
Why I wrote it
It's a social science take on fantasy. A heroic action story about how stories can matter more than actions, and systems more than heroes. A love letter to science and to magic, in a world where they're not opposites.
And above all, it's a story I need right now. It's about how to find hope in dark times—not by worshipping shiny heroes or attributing all evil to some archvillain, but by doing the hard work of understanding broken systems well enough to change them.