Projects in the Works

Now the point of this page is to help me keep my projects straight. They come in 4 categories: Currently Working On, ON Back-Burner, Cloud of Nebulous Ideas, and I'll Get to It One Day. So here they are.

CURRENTLY WORKING ON

BLADES OF FIRE & ICE - Mirabehn and her stepbrother Yaksha plot to ruin Lalita, a fellow student at their elite sorcery academy, when Mirabehn learns Lalita's family might be the reason her late mother's reputation as a sorceress was ruined and Mirabehn was passed over for a prestigious magic class. Complications arise when Yaksha becomes fond of Lalita and begins falling in love with Lalita's sister. Dangerous Liaisons meets Mean Girls, with magic and murder, in a high fantasy world inspired by Hindu mythology and Indian history.

NIGHT-DREAMED ROADS (TO THE CITY OF SLEEP) - When their magic teacher falls ill, a group of acolyte witches must journey to a ruined city to save their teacher's foster son as a test to prove they're ready to become full-fledged witches. Genderbent "Sleeping Beauty" in a solarpunk, post-post-apocalyptic world 170 years in the future starring the fairies.



ON THE BACK-BURNE

KATSCHEI - Ayao should have been the princess of the Summer Kingdom, but she was born with witch's magic. Bargained off as the bride to the cruel, immortal tsar of the Winterlands, she will do whatever it takes to end the centuries-long war between their countries. But there is more to Tsar Katschei than Ayao realizes, and the dark forces behind the war won't be stopped by political maneuvers. It will take all of Ayao's skill as a mati wata - a water-witch favored by the magical orishas of the Summer Kingdom - to end the war once and for all. Beauty and the Beast set against a high-fantasy world inspired by Slavic fairytales and Santerian mythology.
 
LACEY AND TIM - Lacey and her twin brother Tim don't mind that their house is full of dead bodies or that they're stuck wearing all black even when they're not in mourning or that their nanny's been undead for a solid decade. They like living in a mortuary and having a dead witch for a babysitter means outtings are never boring affairs. And their parents trust them with the family secret: the mortuary is just a front, a means of providing aid to the otherworldly beings known as midnight immortals that frequent NAN (the Nocturnal Alliance Network) for help quietly faking their deaths and relocating to different parts of the world under new names with new lives without normal humans finding out. One day a midnight immortal that comes to their parents for help is murdered in the mortuary and a strange golden orb is stolen from his pocket. Unable to go to the police, their parents realize someone has uncovered their connection to the Alliance. Then they disappear, too, leaving Tim and Lacey on their own to figure out where they've gone, who killed the immortal, what is so special about the orb, and what to do next -- before they become the next victims. A middle-grade gaslamp fantasy mystery set in city reminiscent of Victorian Hong Kong. 

LADY OF HYAKKI YAKO - American thread-witch and fashion designer Grant Ishida must go to the daimyo of the local yokai clan when his brother is kidnapped by a man-eating spider demon. The daimyo sends Ayame, a yokai kunoichi, to escort Grant through an otherworldly dimension reminiscent of feudal Japan, but Ayame has secrets of her own. The fairytale of "The Snow Queen" set in a magical, feudal Japan populated by Japanese myths and legends.


SAMEDI - An immortal Haitian death-prince must track his wayward brother to America to stop him from combining ghede-magic with Frankenstein's science to create unkillable monsters. In order to succede, he'll need the help of a young aerialist from a strange circus with ties to the late Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. A loose retelling of Hades and Persephone.
 
SAYURI - Hostile aliens attack a starship captain fresh out of the academy. In order to escape, she risks going through a temporal-spatial rift and crashlands on modern-day Earth with her living ship. Chased across space and through time by the aliens, Sayuri and Boreal - an extraterrestrial, sentient starship - have to team up with Eric, a modern guy who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, in order to discover the aliens plan before they rewrite history.

STONESPEAKER - Avatars of the Chinese Zodiac and masters of Shaolin alchemy, Lia and her brother Demetrius have to decide who to trust when they find out the government and their parents are lying to them. In a near-future world where magic is a common ability and Chinese demons prowl the back alleys of every city, all Lia knows for sure is that the Zodiac have a mission. Now if only she and her brother knew what that was.

TEMPUS PSYCHE - In an alternate world where witches live alongside normal humans and people are born with soul-clocks that count down to the moment you meet your "true love," a blind witch communicates with the deaf boy she loves via sleepwritten letters and enchanted music while trying to protect him from the murderous stalker who's killed off her last six potential soulmates.


TIGRESS SHARK - Ren wakes up with no memory and on the run from the Ningyo Empress's guards in this Southeast-Asian high fantasy steampunk adventure that combines "The Little Mermaid" and "Snow White." Teaming up with the exiled crown princess-turned-smuggler Captain Tigress and her crew of ghost-pirates, Ren must uncover the secrets locked inside his memories in order to depose the Empress and give the princess back her throne.

CLOUD OF NEBULOUS IDEAS

HOLIDAY - sort of a Nightmare Before Christmas meets The Neverending Story with a dash of Rise of the Guardians.

THE GIRL FROM DUNWICH - a contemporary dark fantasy inspired by HP Lovecraft.

I'LL GET TO IT ONE DAY

WHERE THE HEART IS - I'm actually almost done with this, I just have been so wrapped up in YA that I don't have time for adult romance anymore. BUT! An embittered lawyer learns his late sister had a child, but her legal guardian - a woman with some very good reasons to hate his family - refuses to give the child up. A contemporary retelling of Rapunzel.