John's Eyes
Part 1 of the Luna Novella series
John's eyes were, manufactured with the purpose of providing sight to those, who have lost it. Equipped with the ability to learn, the eyes develop a sense of responsibility for ensuring John's happiness. John's eyes strive to please and, with the power to enhance everything he sees, they soon realize that they are also able, to manipulate what he sees. With a skewed sense of emotional intelligence, combined with unquestioning loyalty to their master, the actions of John's eyes lead to devastating consequences.
Just Add Water
Part 2 of the Luna Novella series
Humanity has reached out to the stars, an exodus of dehydrated packets waiting to be sent down to any habitable planet with water on it, to start life anew. They are watched over by an AI, programmed to find them safe haven.
Chief Engineer Mara Loganova is reconstituted early to repair a fault the AI can't fix, only to find the ship engaged in a war against a populated world, using weapons it didn't leave Earth with.
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With the AI breaking all of its programmed rules, it becomes frighteningly clear what the ship's new purpose is, and the true battle for the future begins...
Dread and The Broken Witch
Part 3 of the Luna Novella series
In the magical desert of an ancient, altered land called Zabardu, a nameless dread falls across the village, trapping a little girl. The villagers turn to their healer, Bambomiyi, the Broken Witch - a raucous transgender woman who lives in a strange wreck in the desert. She is a veteran of the endless war against invaders from the north, a battle which caused her to lose her powers.
What skills she has left, however, are valuable enough for the villagers to tolerate her promiscuity and outrageous behaviour. It helps too that she is a distant descendent of the godlike Daxu, who vanished long ago, leaving her with the gifts of above-average strength and knowledge of the uncanny.
And so the wheels of an epic journey are set in motion, as she vows to save the young child.
The Future God of Love
Part 4 of the Luna Novella series
The Future God of Love is a romance fantasy, set in an African world, where stories are essential for the survival of humanity.
Jamaaro, a struggling storyteller, is the future god of love and must create a story every full moon for the prosperity of his town. When he falls in love with a strange woman, having known loneliness all his life, he ignores the clues that she might not be what she seems.
Skin for Skin
Part 5 of the Luna Novella series
"And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." Job 2:4
Troublesome priest Eve Clements is, exiled from her North London parish to remote St Jude's, miles from the nearest village. Carrying childhood demons with her, broken relationships and addiction, she becomes an unwilling pawn in a supernatural battle that keeps her confined within the parish grounds, with a congregation that is not what it seems.
Eve must find her purpose if she is to survive, as terrifying apparitions and her own emotional fragility drive her towards breaking point.
Clockwork Sister
Part 6 of the Luna Novella series
Aeon is a simulacra, a creation of flesh, clockwork and magic, designed to protect their original humans from the deadly attacks of curse-workers.
She is an identical copy of her original, Mara, eighth princess of the Tamyin Empire, except for the brands and seals that mark her as artificial.
When Mara dies of natural causes, Aeon expects to be, killed. After a botched attempt to euthanize her, she is, taken in by a family of rogue simulacra living in the city slums.
When one of their number dies after injecting a dose of a serum that allows simulacra to change their bodies, Aeon is worried that someone is targeting rogues. A trail of discoveries unearths a deadly conspiracy, where friends and enemies are no longer, what they seem.
Hovering
Part 7 of the Luna Novella series
When Zo's campervan leaves her stranded in an unfamiliar part of Sydney, she impulsively decides to stay at a bed and breakfast while repairs are being made.
As the days stretch into weeks, Zo begins to feel stuck. There are signs the house is not quite, as it seems. The place shifts between decay and normality and at times she senses ghostly presences and echoes of other lives.
Something, or someone, is keeping her there. Zo knows that she must find a way to leave, before she too becomes only an echo.
A Face In The Leaves
Part 8 of the Luna Novella series
"This forest was home to thousands, millions of life forms, a colony, a vaulted, green, cathedral-like, city. Surely, she knew all this, and yet, she'd never thought of it before, never really noticed. The woods and forests were just somewhere pleasant to walk, to be surrounded by nature, in the beautiful, lush quiet. As if it was made for her, and the people like her. But, it wasn't. It wasn't made for any of them."
Art journalist Lily Goodfellow is excited to have discovered a young artist with the gift to capture nature, beyond what the naked eye can see.
As she tries to unravel the secrets of North London's woods, Lily finds herself confronted by ancient forces, bent on protecting their own boundaries at all costs.
The Moment You Remember, You Forget
Part 9 of the Luna Novella series
Robert has been an imaginary twin brother to Lillian for over eighteen years.
After the sudden and deliberate death of their older sister, Robert is forced to confront the inevitability of his own death as an imagined being.
Interspersed between Robert's grappling with the logistics of what he is, are the voices of his family members: Lillian, who needed an imaginary friend late in life, Lacey and Samantha, the older twin sisters who grow apart on purpose, and Jillian, the result of a teenage pregnancy, who feels she's treated more like an imaginary being than Rob is.
The Moment You Remember, You Forget challenges the perception of what is real by exploring the boundaries of love, dependency, and grief.
The Chancels of Mainz
Part 10 of the Luna Novella series
In late 16th century Germany, the witch-hunt trials are engulfing the country.
Young, brilliant, and eager to prove himself, Inquisitor Hermann De Vylt is hell-bent on his holy war against the forces of evil.
But, when his world is turned upside down by the death of a noblewoman accused of witchcraft and the encounter with the mysterious Namtar in the Cathedral of Mainz, Hermann is forced to reconsider his allegiances.
Luca
Part 11 of the Luna Novella series
Two young women live in the same city in the Middle East; Luca is drowning, while Dani is slowly being lifted off the ground.
Luca is rapidly spiralling into a heavy depression that no one but her can see. Alongside Luca's descent, Dani is trying to find her place in the world. She has the unusual ability to see other people's emotions.
Fortunately for Luca, Dani's ability isn't just an inconvenience; it might also be a gift.
CW: Self-harm
The Queen Of The High Fields
Part 12 of the Luna Novella series
Two misfits, Carys Price and Angharad 'Hazard' Evans, strike out from their disenfranchised seaside town to take ownership of the High Fields, a mythical island brimming with world-bending promise.
Objecting to the demands of modern society, they hope to find a place where they can live as they choose, but instead they find an ancient power that tears their friendship apart.
Ten years later, Carys returns to the collapsing world of the High Fields to face the terrifying power of the friend-turned-goddess she left behind.
Broken Paradise
Part 13 of the Luna Novella series
After falling out with her brothers, Samaki the goddess of water flees to Earth where she must mask her trace by splitting into a quadruplet of magi.A quadruplet is perfect, but all things are never equal. Dissonance arises when the magus Umozi breaks the quadruplet.Only the newness of a child magus can restore balance and save a broken paradise-with the help of a goddess mother.
Ashes of the Ancestors
Part 14 of the Luna Novella series
In a haunted monastery at the heart of a crumbling empire, a lone priest tends the fires for the dead. A servant bound by the bones of her family, Magdalisa is her people's last link to the wisdom of the past.But as the land around them dies, new arrivals throw the monastery into turmoil. A dead warlord demanding recognition. Her rival, seizing the scraps of power. Two priests, both claiming to serve the spirits, both with their own agendas.As ancient shadows struggle for the soul of an empire, Magdalisa must decide how far she will go to keep tradition alive.
The Night Begins
Part 15 of the Luna Novella series
Freshman, Darcy Mills, wants nothing more than to repair a strained relationship with her mother. When Darcy receives a letter from Althea asking for help with a downsizing move to Dallas, she is excited at the prospect of reconnecting.
Facing the frightening memories trapped in the walls of her childhood home, is daunting, but Darcy is determined to have Althea back.
Unfortunately, the past isn't the only thing to haunt Darcy. An evil lurks in the nearby woods, and It has noted her arrival.
A story of family rituals, southern folklore, and magic set in rural Texas.
Miasma
Part 16 of the Luna Novella series
Living alone with his mother on the edge of an ever-encroaching swamp teeming with toxic magic, young Nereus Vestryn has grown up hearing stories about the feral people the 'miasma' has infected.
So when one morning he finds his mother crawling sickened from the swamp, he has no choice but to summon a mage to help her.
But mages are feared figures, reminders of the ways the swamp can twist people, and her arrival has greater repercussions than Nereus bargained for.
As long-held family secrets are uncovered and an unexpected threat arrives on the doorstep, Nereus must ask himself: what really makes a monster?
The Lies We Tell Ourselves
Part 17 of the Luna Novella series
In a world still bearing the scars from an ancient magical conflict, those who wield magic - or are changed by it - are condemned as abominations, their lives forfeit.
Raised at sea under the tyrannical rule of his father, there is nothing the young Captain Fiaer Dradorn won't do for the knowledge of a lost treasure that drove his father's obsession. Even start a war.
Betrayed to the mercy - and consequences - of catastrophic, uncontrolled, magic, Fiaer is left with nothing but the belief in his own monstrosity and the overwhelming desire for revenge.
As his plans take form, he realises that true monstrosity is less what someone is, and more who they chose to be. A choice he must make before others make it for him.
Virgin Land
Part 18 of the Luna Novella series
Shayla Gainrad is a young woman raised in a splinter community of reactionary would-be settlers who abandon interplanetary society for newly discovered planets.
Shayla has achieved the settler dream-a home on the frontier world Erde, surrounded by rich and fertile lands-but she is increasingly lonely, homesick, and alienated from her husband.
Although Shayla has told herself to endure, events on Erde begin to push her new life into disarray. The arrival of spacers from outside the settler community, a freak accident, and the persistence of Erde's wild flora and fauna all add to Shayla's growing realisation.
The teachings she accepted as a child cannot explain reality's complexities, and webs of action and reaction will have far-reaching consequences, both in her own life and across the strange landscape of Erde's ecosystem.
The Invisible Girl
Part of the Luna Novella series
Maggie survived an apocalypse of hungry shadows by becoming invisible, only to drown during a violent telepathic assault.
Living on the edge of Bloemfontein, in South Africa, Maggie scavenges for scraps and grapples with the unreality, a collection of strange visions and slippery thoughts caused by the attack. When she's approached by strangers who claim she can destroy the shadow monsters, Maggie faces a dilemma: are these people real, and if so, how can she ensure they stay with her forever?
The Invisible Girl is about seeing the world differently, and society's tendency to 'other' people who make them uncomfortable. Many different ideas and experiences inspired this story: life in a backwater city, victim shaming and the stigma surrounding mental health issues, and the search for community in a world that doesn't tolerate strangeness well.
The Carrying Capacity of Paradise
Part of the Luna Novella series
The asteroid 4 Vesta has been colonised as a nature preserve by eccentric billionaire Benjamin Donovan Sr.-a refuge intended as much for creating a model of how humans can live, as for the animals and plants it hosts.
It is a paradise, removed from the pressures of overpopulation, social media, and the incessant, draining demands of modern life.
Now, Donovan Sr. lies murdered, and his son is either the prime suspect in his death. . . or the next target on the killer's list.
Liane Sheridan, the station's security chief, must find the answers while navigating a web of corruption.
The Last to Drown
Part of the Luna Novella series
People from this house go down to the sea at night, and drown.
Tinna cannot remember the last words she said to her husband. Three whole months of her memories were stolen in the crash that killed him and left her scarred and suffering from chronic pain.
Adrift and struggling to reconcile herself to this dual loss, Tinna accepts her aunt's invitation to return to her childhood home on a remote Icelandic coast. Perhaps the solitude and the sea will help her recover her memories.
But a greater grief has already taken hold here, one that has haunted the women of Tinna's family for generations. When her secretive aunt forbids Tinna from going down to the shore in the dark, she still cannot resist. Then she hears whispers on the tide offering her the answers she so desperately needs. If she can bear the price.
Tanglewood
Part of the Luna Novella series
Aoife Ni Coillte is the eldest daughter of an Irish Indentured family, living in a poor village near the estate of Tanglewood Manor. In love with George Oliver Williams, the eldest son of the wealthy Williams family to whom the manor belongs, Aoife is rejected as an unsuitable match in favor of the heiress, Dido Dubois. Pride and bigotry drive her to unkindness towards Dido's younger sister, Bellouise, until one fateful evening, when she is jointly punished by the African ancestral spirit, Belloko, and Pouq, the Irish phantom faerie. Transformed into the monstrous Steel Donkey, Aoife is condemned to haunt and terrorize the area, until she can learn to love that which she hates.
Ten years later, the Williams family hires John Jack, a discerning and kind freed slave to help maintain the family property. An unlikely bond takes root between Aoife and John, followed by rumors of Steel Donkey sightings spreading like bushfire across the hills.
“Tanglewood” is a postcolonial gothic romance, set in a fictional 1840s Barbados, that explores the isolation of the Irish Indentured, and a unique origin story for the local folkloric legend of the Steel Donkey.