Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Divine Shadow by Lyndsay Ely, which releases on November 10th 2026.

In the shattered ruins of the Cathedral of the Enduring Flame, Lys grapples with the fallout of the latest divine conflict. The Whisperer has returned. Nolan is enthralled. Tempestra is still alive…with Lys as their newest avatar, which was definitely not part of the plan.

As the goddess worms deeper into her mind, Lys is determined to keep control—if not for herself, then for Nolan who is in danger of succumbing to his own divine possession. But resisting Tempestra is only the beginning. Across the Devoted Lands, the faithful and heretics alike spill blood in the names of their gods.

To end the war before it truly begins, Lys chases long-forgotten secrets where the first god fell. But as she prepares for her final stand, one question erodes the defiance she’s held tight: Is she truly ready for a world without gods?

EXCERPT

Eight

What hasn’t burned yet is consumed as I sweep through the city, stone turning tarry black and charred timbers crumbling to bone-gray ash. The air becomes dust choked, a roiling storm cloud to accompany this fresh wave of destruction as the Goddess finishes the job Osiron began, the fury of the Flame turning anything that might have been salvaged (with some hard work and a hefty dose of optimism) into nothing more than cinders and memory.

Except I’ve got nothing to do with it. My body might be the ship, but Tempestra is the gale. I’ve got no other choice but to batten down and bail out as they steer us back to the entrance of the city, every step feeling as if it will punch down through the cobbled streets into the very earth itself, a trail of graves for each of my—their fallen children.

Nothing.

Tempestra . . . stop . . .

We felt NOTHING.

I’ve lost physical control, but I’ve got a front-row seat to our blazing rage. Our vexation. And—most interestingly—our fear. The snuffing of a singular Chosen here and there might have been missed. But the mass murder of so many? We should have felt it as it happened, holes tearing open in the canopy of our power. Instead, Osiron managed to obscure their attack.

Understandable how that might worry you, Mother, but is this really the best way to react?

The gathered crowd shrinks as we reappear, tiny things that plunge to the ground until every soul left in Osturan is prostrate before us, save for our Chosen. Fleeing was not an option for these people, not when the Flame has unleashed its inferno. To run would be to acknowledge their weakness, that they are barely worthy to be prey to the power of the divine. As we pause to look over these frail creatures, the vision of the cowed heretic crowd returns, overlaying, bleeding into the figures before us. Each and every one deserves to burn. To be consumed by the Flame and have the wind disperse their ashes into nothing. A price must be collected. Here. Now. Love and loyalty be damned. They are nothing, after all. Nothing compared to what was lost.

We take another step forward, wrath swelling us like a drawn breath. No one moves. The faces that stare are so overwhelmed at witnessing the true potency of their god that they have gone blank with resignation, their bodies frozen with the understanding that whether they live to pray another day or end up as a communal pile of unidentifiable cremains is entirely out of their control.

One hand rises . . .

Don’t you dare, Tempestra.

We go stiff. I summon another memory, of familiar figures dropping through broken ice into an unforgiving current. The remains of my village, destroyed by the Flame’s servants.

Heretics.

Exactly. Something these people are not. They did nothing to warrant this. Not to mention this tantrum is unbecoming of a goddess.

The hand remains hanging in the air.

So let’s take a minute to cool off, yes?

We do, which comes as a surprise to both of us. The fury of the Flame contracts slightly, the searing light dimming. Which leaves an opening for the sorrow to pour forth, chilled water thrown on a whitehot forge, shattering the ravaging desire that gripped only moments before. Tears escape from beneath my eyelids, their trails like a cold razor blade drawn down my burning cheeks.

My children . . . dead . . . dead and taken . . .

Yes, Mother, but incinerating innocents isn’t going to change either condition.

My control returns, relief spreading before I realize I’d been afraid it was gone forever. That Tempestra had toppled—even unintentionally—those careful partitions keeping me, me. But despite the deluge of violence, the dams have held. We open our eyes. The citizens of Osturan still stare with a glaze of wonderment as thick as the silence that has fallen. They are waiting. None seem to know what for—an explanation, a punishment, death by immolation—but each result is one that they’d accept as deserved.

We stand a little straighter, a lump forming in my throat. “My Chosen . . . are dead.”

No surprise: I’m sure that’s a conclusion most had already reached. Instead, the collective sense among the onlookers is something less definable, like the moment when one’s balance falters, not quite lost yet but unclear whether it can be regained . . .

“My Chosen are dead and the Whisperer is to blame.”

Okay then. That’s how we’re playing this. No more secrets. No more manipulating rumors and half truths. It’s almost a relief—to me, not anyone else, Tempestra included. The Goddess would have much preferred to keep Osiron’s return tightly under wraps, and even I have to admit that it would have been more convenient to catch up to the Whisperer and handle our disagreements quietly. But both of us know by now that ignoring the stink of a rotting fish won’t make it go away.

“They have come from the shadows,” the Goddess continues, using my voice to speak, “as they always have, their devious nature betraying their weakness . . . their fear of us. They slink forth like the lowest sort of assassin, targeting those that have done them no harm other than giving their love to me . . .”

Framing that picture a little creatively, aren’t you, Tempestra?

“. . . and having the revolting gall to desecrate my children’s remains.” The Flame swells once more, chasing away some of the growing, if still nervous, relief throughout the crowd, the act reminding them that their Goddess is more than a doting mother—they are a warrior, a force of nature, a leviathan of very existence. It reminds me as well, a swarm of memories enveloping what is Lys. The clash of metal against metal rings in recollection, air thick with the scents of sweat and copper and opened bowels. Bodies spread across endless fields, blood soaking every inch, cries of the dying still filling the air. The very earth trembling as a deity sputtered and winked out of existence, the resulting release of energy as unchecked as a hurricane. “The destruction of Osturan will not go unpunished. The Flame has burned throughout a thousand battlefields, leaving all challengers defeated. That has not changed. I have fought, I have been victorious. I have endured. We will see this cowardly challenger dead and their vicious heretics punished in ways never before seen within these lands. I am Tempestra-Lystrata, Goddess of the Devoted Lands. I am the Flame, and the Flame is eternal!”

Before we have even finished, the crowd explodes, their love surging forth with as much enthusiasm as their cries, flooding through us and washing away some of the marks inflicted by Osiron’s attacks. But as bracing as that is, Tempestra suddenly recedes. With a single beat of my heart, full autonomy returns, the Goddess shrouding themselves in gray sorrow, moving beneath the shadowed eaves of me once more.

I take a deep, gasping breath, as if I have been drowning and finally broken the surface. Which . . . what the fuck, Tempestra? Was that really necessary?

They’re dead . . .

I know, I know. You loved them, Mother, as much as you’re able to love any of your children. But, frankly, one of us should have expected this. It’s our fault we were taken in by the fact that Osiron traded for so long in small, calculated maneuvers that a sudden shift to this scale simply didn’t occur.

My Chosen children murdered again and again . . . lost . . .

And whose zealous regime is to blame for that, Tempestra?

Exhaustion hits suddenly, along with the knowledge that our childish exertion of energy was a coin poorly spent, better saved to pay for what is coming.

“All of you, go,” I say to the crowd. “Follow your fellow citizens and find somewhere safe.” No one moves. “What? Did you want to pack up some of the ashes to take with you? Go!” The command comes more forcefully this time, quickly followed by remorse for my sharp tongue. The people here have lost everything. They also have no idea how close I was to letting the Goddess’s anger be taken out on them… far too close. I soften. “There’s nothing left for you in Osturan, but I swear that the moment the Whisperer is dead again, what has been lost will be returned, as much as is in my power to do so. Go!”

The combination of a gentler touch and my generous promise gets them moving, standing shakily, drifting away with a reluctance to leave the warmth of their Goddess’s flame. But beneath it all—infused in stolen glances and the set of tight jaws—I sense something else: doubt. In the ability of the Flame, in the truth of its promises.

Despite our little demonstration, there’s no unspilling that blood now.

As the last of the crowd disappears into the distance, Morgan and Ysell and the others, abandoned back at the Arbiters’ hall, reach my side again. They aren’t doing any better of a job in hiding their insecurity than the citizens of Osturan did, and wait for me to give some order, set some tone. Instead, I go over to the nearest chunk of stone that will accommodate my weary backside and drop onto it, letting my head hang to my chest. I don’t even bother to try to listen in on the low mutterings that follow.

“Goddess . . .” Ysell is the first to break my vigil, her voice tight with urgency. “We need to return to Aerdis and its legions. It’s not too late for the Clerics of the Blood to handle this, send the lesser Orders out to contain the spread of what happened here before it reaches too far.”

“That’s idiotic,” Morgan blessedly cuts in, saying exactly what I was about to and sparing me from hurting Ysell’s feelings. I look up in time to catch Ysell’s offended frown, but she has nothing to counter with. “There’s no containing this,” Morgan continues. “There are too many witnesses to spin this slaughter as anything other than what it was.”

“Not to mention,” I mutter, “someone will notice eventually how few Arbiters are out and about.”

My Chosen stop arguing and look back at me and the piece of rubble I’ve made a temporary throne, tension gripping each and every one of them, even Reia and Owin, who were spared the puddle of disembodied eyes.

“You can’t remain out in the open,” Ysell presses. “Goddess, it’s not safe.”

“If this is where Osiron had wanted to start a fight, they would have been waiting, ready to throw down.” I can’t keep the exasperation out of my voice, patience far too much of an effort. Lys and Tempestra are tired. I recognize the feeling that’s crept its way into us, that one that follows loss, when a hole has opened up in you but neither time nor reflection has had a chance to start filling it in. The Goddess sulks even as something else bothers me even more: the fact that I have no fucking clue where Osiron is at this moment. The feeling of the new god, and the compass pointing north toward them, has not wavered at all. Was Nolan the true distraction, the bait meant to draw me away from the region so that Osiron could ensure their message of return would get out loud and clear? Or—a small flicker of hope sparks within me— has the new god already balked at being under someone else’s control? Even more optimistic: Has Nolan exercised some power over it, managed to break the new deity away from the Whisperer and driven them somewhere else?

But if that’s a possibility, then their purpose for moving north makes no sense. Why not return to Tempestra?

To me?

The only answer I have to any of those questions remains in that vague, pulsing sensation of their being, traveling farther and farther away with every minute we waste here.

Suddenly, the sun hangs low. Not low enough that we couldn’t make some distance from Osturan, but despite my impatience, I can’t bring myself to order us up and moving. My Chosen have exercised the patience I couldn’t while I was submerged in a sea of my own thoughts, Tempestra’s grief an anchor I couldn’t fight. The Potentiates have brought tea and food, warmed over a campfire they’ve built nearby. I accept the tea but wave the food away, not missing when Reia glances at Morgan, who nods before she actually scampers away with it.

“This is going to spread.” Morgan picks up that point as if it had never dropped. “And when it does, every heretic who’s been hiding out is going to worm their way to the surface, driven by the promise that their dead gods will return. The Whisperer’s spies have infiltrated who knows how many of our institutions. Ysell is right about returning to Aerdis, or Lumeris. We should fortify both internally and externally before one of them becomes the next target.”

“Osiron won’t strike the same way again.” I close my eyes. The air still reeks of burning everything, dry and astringent. “They chose Osturan because the Arbiters have been trying to flush out those very heretics, but also because it was small enough to take easily. The Whisperer wouldn’t be foolish enough to try for one of the larger cities. Whatever assistance they’ve mustered, their forces don’t have that level of strength.”

“But ours do,” Morgan insists.

“The Executrix is right.”

Lovely. My Bellator Prime and Executrix are teaming up.

“Let the legions sweep the land,” says Ysell, “before the next blow falls. We can comb every village, town, and city . . . chase down every hint of heresy and clear these rats out before they know what’s befallen them.”

“And how exactly”—I rub at the ache gathering in one  temple—“will you know who is a true heretic and who isn’t?” It’s a miracle I can say it with a straight face. As if that’s ever been a concern before, huh, Tempes tra? “At best, you will spread our forces thin and expend unknown amounts of resources to root out a handful of heretics that may not even be the ones we’re after. At worst—and I’d bet a jar of eyeballs that Osiron hopes we will react exactly as you just described—you’ll create a paranoid panic. Rivals will lob accusations against each other. Neighbors will offer up any vague half-remembered time where someone forgot to pray loud enough or didn’t greet them with ‘May the Flame warm you’ in order to make themselves appear above suspicion. Osiron has sown unmeasurable amounts of discord quietly. Don’t let them manage it in the open too, with you acting as their agent.” Ysell seems so chastised by this I actually feel a little bad.

So, what are we going to do? I see that question on all their faces.

But we don’t have an answer, do we, Tempestra? We can’t even fathom what other helpful tricks Osiron might have honed over the centuries, because we’ve been so confident in our supreme control for so long that we no longer know what pieces on this game board were there from the beginning and which ones Osiron has been sneaking in to mess with us. And since we don’t have a plan on how to deal with the Whisperer, I’m holding you to your godsdamned word.

We’re going after Nolan.

No argument comes, direct or otherwise.

Good.

“Ysell.” She snaps to attention. “You’re as fully informed of what happened here as anyone. Return to Aerdis and have the remaining Bellators ready the legions. For what, I don’t know yet, so don’t ask. It is

possible Osiron will try something else, so instruct them to send messages to every city and port and village big enough to have a name and tell them to keep their eyes open, weapons ready, and expect anything.” I stand to emphasize what I’ve said. “Get moving.” My words deepen. “And call all my remaining Chosen back to their Orders’ cities. Keep them together. Keep them safe.”

You had to add that little bit at the end, Tempestra, didn’t you? Fine. Do what you think will keep your Chosen from harm.

So long as we do everything possible for the one I want to save.

Ysell rides off. Night falls.

A chill laces the air, though I no longer feel it in the same way I did before. Or even how I did when we set out on this little adventure. The whole world is taking on a sharper edge the longer I remain avatar, as if the world is being reworked in glass. The tea I drank earlier poured down my throat like oil, and the night sounds of crickets and things rustling in the brush take on a strange melody. It is as if everything around me is shifting into the facets of a dream.

I refuse to dwell on these changes, though. Tempestra has kept to our bargain. I am still more Lys than not.

I hope.

A very human fatigue circles like a hungry vulture, but remains held at bay by a pressing restlessness, which finally drives me to my feet. I want to head to where the air doesn’t reek of cinders, but instead I find myself moving once again beneath the gates into the city, through its rubble and ruined streets. With everyone sent away, it’s even quieter within than without, not even insect song to add some ambiance. There is something lingering, though, sprinkled among the ash and coals, deeper than the cool veil of night. It’s not a feeling of Osiron, but I can’t put a name to it.

What else is here, Tempestra? Was this more than a message to the devoted, or even to you? We were always told that the Whisperer was the weakest of the gods. That’s why their siblings were able to destroy them so easily, and why they left no trace on the world. You believed that. We all believed that.

But that was then. This is now.

Eons have passed. Is there a possibility Osiron’s power has branched, evolved in such ways that they were able to obscure the massacre of the Arbiters? What else might they be capable of?

Without noticing, I’ve reached the stairs again. The eyeballs are gone. Morgan and Ysell insisted they be shown the respect that belonging to their brethren afforded them; what’s left now is a tiny pile of ash among larger piles of ash, already nearly indistinguishable. The urn was left where it rolled, colorful enamels catching the glow of the rising moon, a clean light that makes the soot-free stairs glow. There are no clouds, so the stars shine brightly above. I seek out one that shines brighter than the others, a fixed point that’s referred to as the Compass Star, as it always leads north.

North, where Nolan is.

What is he dealing with? I know what I’ve experienced, but what is it like for him, to be burdened with a new deity, one whose mind is still trying to form into something capable of comprehending our world? Has he maintained any sense of himself, like you’ve allowed for me, Mother? Or is it like being lost in a sea of your own body, buffeted about by the will of some chaotic, primeval creature? Does his forced baptism in blood protect him from the new entity at all?

I blink.

Morgan stands in front of me, a questioning expression on her face.

“Goddess?”

I look around, then up. The moon has moved well across the sky. “Yes . . .” How long have I been standing here? “What is it?”

“I . . .” She stares at me quizzically for a moment, as if waiting for me to say something. Then: “I woke and you were gone.”

I gather myself. Shrug. “Couldn’t resist one more sightseeing tour around Osturan.”

Unamused, her mouth thins, but blessedly she gives up on inquiries. Instead, she holds up some bread from dinner, topped with thin slivers of hard cheese. “You didn’t eat today.”

“I’m not hungry.” Not tired, not hungry, no longer subject to such insignificant human concerns. “You should still—”

“I said I’m not hungry.” It comes out fierce. I don’t mean it to, but it does.

Morgan shrinks a little, then frowns and draws herself up, taking a step closer and pushing the food toward me again. “You need to eat something, Goddess . . . Tempestra-Lystrata needs to eat something.”

She hits my name hard, with enough force that I obediently consider the bread again. I should be famished. Instead, it holds all the appeal of a handful of sand.

“You . . .” Morgan hesitates. “You’re thinner than you were.” Lys is, she means.

“Well, yeah,” I mutter. “There was a time in the not-so-distant past where feeding me was basically heresy.” It seems years ago that Caius kept me locked away and unfed for the whole trip from Cyprene to Lumeris, but it’s only been a couple of weeks. Add to that an infusion of divine being for whom food is only a necessary inconvenience and it’s not exactly shocking I’ve gone a bit bonier than before.

“Fine.” I reluctantly accept the offering. “But only because you used your Executrix voice.”

Morgan bristles. “I do not have an—”

“You absolutely have an Executrix voice. I bet you had it before you even imagined it was possible you’d become Executrix. You practiced it in your room in the Cloisters, didn’t you? Just in case.”

Morgan’s jaw flexes with the desire to fight back, to throw Lys’s teasing back at her with a good dose of rancor. But I’m tired enough to take pity on poor Morgan.

“Thank you.” I pick at what passes for a meal. It’s good, my sense of taste now as enhanced as the rest of me, the components taking on an unfamiliar intensity. It’s as if I can taste the specific grains that made the bread, the rain that watered that grain, the ocean the salt came from to brine the cheese. As if I can pick out the interlocking pieces of this land I’m bound to in the bounty that springs from it. It should be a transcendent experience. Instead, the act of chewing and swallowing brings no pleasure or satisfaction. It’s a performance, one that must be put on in order to assuage my devoted, and to serve certain parts of me.

The weakest parts.

Excerpted from THE DIVINE SHADOW by Lyndsay Ely. Copyright © 2026. Reprinted by permission of Saga Press at Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Divine Shadow’ by Lyndsay Ely appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Nightcurse: Hauntingly gorgeous and tender, Emma Hinds’ Nightcurse is both a Gothic mystery and an enemies-to-lovers romance about navigating life and love in the face of death. Out November 10th 2026.

I have a confession to make: I have never read The Secret History by Donna Tartt. This is the book that gothic novelist and dark academia royalty, ST Gibson, described on Substack as ‘the quintessential dark academia book, the load-bearing pillar of the genre.’ Given its exalted position in the genre of dark academia, it would be reasonable for fans to question what business I have writing dark academia novels. As my university professors used to say, ‘Don’t come to the tutorial if you haven’t done the reading.’

Yet something I personally love about dark academia is that it is a broad church. If it were a strangely eerie university course, it could be taught numerous different ways. One of them would, undoubtedly, focus on The Secret History and its thematic fathers, Maurice by E.M. Forster and Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Donna Tartt’s dark academia is focused on the dark, compelling secrets that lie behind the ivy-covered walls of prestigious academic institutions. There are themes of reinvention, of class passing, usually a lonely protagonist is drawn into the alluring schemes of a wealthy upper-class or aristocratic character who brims with charisma and mystery. The darkness discovered within the hallowed halls comes from the dark hearts of the characters, and arguably from the seeping toxicity of oppressive class systems. It is like the fairytale apple. Glossy and delicious, indulgent and spectacular. Ultimately poisonous and ripe for queer stories. When Saltburn exploded into the cultural zeitgeist three years ago, the influence of the collegiate dark academia novel was obvious.

But that is only one version of the dark academia syllabus. My own preferences draw from other sources. As much as I love E.M. Forster and Evelyn Waugh, the fuel to my fire as a dark academia writer comes from the dark academia books that have fed my soul. Each book has a literary family tree, every author has shoulders they are standing on, books that made them the writer they are today. If I could set my own reading list for those loving to study dark academia, or if indeed there was a section in NeverEnd library devoted to it (my own magical library featured in Nightcurse) these are the first books that my librarian protagonist, Emrys Swift, would put on the shelves:

Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. I believe that part of the reason I am always drawn back to dark academia is because of the thrill of danger, of hubris being so dangerous it can literally drag you down to hell. Anyone who has worked in an academic institution, or indeed studied under a certain calibre of professor, has seen a Dr Faustus. An academic so entrenched in their own quest for knowledge that they do not consider the consequences of their actions. It’s also impossible to separate any work of Marlowe from a queer reading. There is a dark tangle of desire and power between Dr Faustus and Mephistopheles, a complexity that has always inspired my own work, because what’s more fun than characters who the reader is never sure are in love or going to kill one another? It’s a chemistry so intense that it has gone on to inspire many other queer re-tellings of the Faust folklore. One of my favourites is the sapphic gothic tale of conjuring, As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel.

However, I can’t have Dr Faustus on my shelf without its 19^th-century  ancestor, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Often lauded as the mother of science fiction, I think we can also praise Shelley for giving us one of the best dark academia novels of her century. Viktor is a child obsessed with alchemy, the occult forerunner to chemistry, and a student at the university of Ingolstadt when he creates and animates a creature from dead bodies. It is the darkest of academic quests, while also full of pathos for the terrible unnamed and unwanted creature, who himself finds solace and knowledge in literature. It also can’t help but engage with queerness, as Viktor makes himself a father in an entirely non-conformist way. We only need to look at the plethora of queer re-tellings of this tale to guide us as to its importance in Queer literature. Monstrillo by Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a perfect example that also strengthens the connection between dark academia, the gothic and horror novels. For me, it strikes at the heart of the queer gothic novel, the wrestle with being considered an outsider, with fighting to find a place in society. It’s a theme that ends up in all of my work.

The dark academic notion of the spell, experiment, or test subject becoming sentient and complicated is also echoed by another of my favourite dark academia novels of our own century, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Where Shelley gives us the point of view of both creator and created, Clarke leaves us with only the created’s limited vision, fighting to understand this strange world he has been made from. Piranesi, like the creature, finds revelation through the written word, understanding who he is and how he came to be through journals. There’s a tale of dark desire there, of a twisted queer narrative of power and abuse in academia, and queer people have always felt connected to the narrative of the outcast. Piranesi battles to understand what has been done to him by society, something so many of us can relate to. There’s a little of Piranesi in my own dear Emrys in Nightcurse, an innocent young man who does not think to go beyond the boundaries of the beautiful house (or library) he has existed in for years. Until he does.

Clarke is also clearly inspired by the great gothic and dark academia trope of books within books, something Shelley utilises as well. I love how Shelley’s use of the Victorian trend for making a novel seem ‘real’ by making it an epistolary account shared by a stranger (the greatest use of the fireside spooky anecdote) actually makes the book itself an arcane object. If the story is true, if the tale Robert Walton recounts is real, then the book is a recipe for how to create monsters! Which leads me to one of my favourite tropes in gothic literature and dark academia. The dangerous book.

I’ve always loved magic books. In my novel Witchlore, Lando and Bastian contend with a grimoire that can only be read with blood. In Nightcurse, Emrys and Aubrey chase down stolen tomes of craven necromancy. In my own life, I even write my novels in a notebook that looks like it contains a formula to raise the dead.

For me, any dark academia shelf must include books about magic books. So keeping my doomed academics and their restless creations company would have to be The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Both novels not only feature a missing magical manuscript (something that always gives me delight) but the manuscript is Ashmole 782. Elias Ashmole was a real antiquarian and alchemist, who donated his collection to Oxford University with many missing pieces. It is so exciting to me when novelists use real magical history to create their own lore, it’s something that has inspired my own approach to fantasy, using medieval revenant folklore to inspire the revenants in Nightcurse. Similarly, The Historian blends Kostova’s own fantasy of vampires with the real history of Vlad the Impaler as her academics are often literally haunted by a woodcut of a dragon found printed inside relevant books and manuscripts. The queer and homoerotic overtones of anything to do with Dracula practically scream from the page, as people fall helplessly and hopelessly under his thrall. (I have always maintained the position that Count Dracula is a pansexual king).

Yet the thrall in The Historian goes beyond the magic of vampires. It is the magic of books themselves, of knowledge and how we seek it. Something that will draw me to writing dark academia over and over is because, in dark academia, reading changes the characters. In these magical books, transformation happens internally through the acquisition of knowledge (the Creature learns, Piranesi remembers) but it also happens physically, too. In All Souls, Diana physically gains more power from encountering Ashmole, in my own novel Witchlore, Lando’s magic begins to change in response to reading The Lore of Bodies. Characters become something else when they read, and isn’t that the most beautiful metaphor for us all?

If ‘Dark Academia 101’ was on a syllabus at Demdike library and Emrys Swift was responsible for building a collection of books to support it, likely my dear seventeen-year-old dead librarian would pull books from down the ages to go along with the few of the favourites that I have suggested here. I think, since he is still only seventeen, he would also make sure that Northern Lights by Philip Pullman had a spot. A book about the trials of mysterious and deadly academic researchers, Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter, but also about a child on a quest to find someone beloved to her. She’s equipped with a magical tool that only she can ‘read,’ and, in the course of the series, she finds someone she loves from a different world to her. I think Emrys would definitely relate to that and certainly understand how it feels to live in an academic institution and not be taken seriously!

The library of dark academia is broad, and every day new tomes are added. There is marvellous diversity inside it, and whilst all these books and authors might never fit neatly under one common descriptor, I do think that a single communal factor we all share is this: dark academia embraces the possibility of transformation. I believe it’s why it is so compelling to us queer readers and writers, because queer academia takes all of us on a journey and embraces all the possibilities of social or magical evolution. Not only inside the pages, following in the footsteps of beloved characters towards revelation or ruin, but also once the pages have been read. When all the magic has been learned, and all the secrets uncovered, and the darkness has been faced. Maybe, when the book is closed, we will be different too. Then, we might have been changed too. Maybe we will also never be the same again.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Cold Read by Tara Laskowski, which releases on November 10th 2026.

They’re there to make a sequel. But someone came for revenge.

A decade ago, the release of the horror film No One Can Hear You Scream catapulted a young no-name cast into Hollywood fame. But below the surface, they were dealing with the fallout of their friend’s tragic death on set.

Now the cast is reuniting at the remote ski resort where the movie was filmed to announce the sequel and get a first glimpse of the screenplay. Cassidy, Jake, Ben, and Ruby—they’ve all followed different paths over the years, and each has their own reason for agreeing to return to a place they had sworn to leave behind.

At first everyone works hard to ignore the shadows of the past and focus on the opportunity ahead. But the reunion takes a dark turn during the midnight announcement to fans when a disturbing incident stirs up a long-buried secret.

Each of them has something to lose. Each of them has something to hide. And if they want to survive the weekend, they’ll have to deliver the performance of a lifetime…

EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

Saturday, January 10, 12:01 a.m., PST

The live feed starts off shaky. A glimpse of a flickering fireplace, dark wood paneling. Then an adjustment, and Izzy Bingham’s face appears, close to the lens, cheeks pink from the heat of the fire, blue bangs peeking out under the knit cap on her head.

The tiny red icon blinks in the corner of the screen as thou-sands of viewers flood into the feed.

“Horrified fans!” Izzy says. “Have I got the most terror-ific treat for you today!”

She grins, the camera’s speaker catching a slight tremor in her voice.

She zooms out to reveal the setting behind her: the Frostmourne Lodge’s lobby. The famous plaid couches. Antique skis mounted on the wall. Rustic wooden table lamps, the shades stamped with bears and eagles, casting a dull orange glow over the room.

Large windows like dark, gaping mouths.

“I know you can all guess where I am.” She pauses for dramatic effect, letting the silence stretch. “That’s right. The setting for one of the scariest horror films of the twenty-first century.”

She pulls the camera close again. “It’s been nearly ten years since the Lumberjack hacked his way into all our hearts . . . and spleens . . . and the backs of our heads.” Izzy’s grin widens. “Leaving his impression, if you know what I mean.”

She raises her eyebrows, as if teasing her audience.

“My fiendish friends, you of course are familiar with the most horrifying movie written and directed by Esme Duncan. A simple, but harrowing premise—five college students on New Year’s Eve, stuck in a blizzard on the way to their rental cabin. The creepy old ski resort they stumble upon and an even creepier lodge owner who makes all their nightmares come true.

“Well, now I’m here at Frostmourne Lodge for a very special announcement. But I’m not alone. Oh, no, freakish friends, I’m not at all alone.”

Izzy pauses and zooms the camera out to show the cast seated on a long couch next to a blazing fireplace.

“I’m here with our original cast members. Our favorite scream queen, Cassidy White, world-famous model and actress Ruby Morales, action-star heartthrob Jake Abbot, the elusive but smoldering Ben Hartman, and of course David Belfardy—the Lumberjack himself. Say hi, everyone!”

A chorus of hellos crackles through the feed.

The camera pans over the cast. Cassidy, perched on the edge of the couch, grips her knees tightly. Ruby, next to her, leans back, one leg crossed over the other, stiletto boots swinging in a rhythm. David, seated near the fire, narrows his eyes dramatically toward the camera, clearly trying to channel his iconic killer character. Ben stands behind the couch with Jake, hands buried deep in his pockets. Only Jake gazes directly into the camera with a dazzling grin, wearing a dark T-shirt that shows off his well-defined biceps.

Izzy swings the camera back to herself, the red light of the live feed reflecting faintly in her eyes. “And now, my friends, it’s midnight. A new day has begun. And we have the incredible news that you have been begging for. As fans of No One Can Hear You Scream, you have been waiting nearly a decade for this moment—”

The words hover in the air. The viewer count ticks upward. Thumbs-up emojis and heart icons fill the screen. The comment section scrolls by, almost too fast to read.

Lumberjack is my favorite monster ever.

I want to go to Frostmourne! No fair.

It’s haunted AF, I swear.

Get on with it already!

Izzy sweeps her bangs from her eyes. “As you know, Esme

Duncan purchased this land last year, and rumors have been circulating ever since about what she’s going to do here.

“Well, I’ve got the deets.”

Izzy holds the camera out so the viewers can see both her and the cast. The actors stand poised, their faces now plastered with rehearsed smiles, waiting—

And then the screen jerks.

Izzy’s face changes. Her smile drops.

Behind her, the cast looks at something off camera. Ben stands, rushes out of the frame.

“It’s opening,” Ruby shouts, her voice rising.

The camera jerks again, focuses on Izzy’s face, while behind her the lobby swirls. The sound muffles, as if someone’s hand is over the microphone.

Jake’s voice cuts through the noise. “What the hell is that?” Static. Hiss.

The blinking red icon dies.

The feed cuts to black.

For those watching, there’s a collective intake of breath, a silence that stretches too long.

Then the sound kicks back in—low at first, barely there, like something scraping against ice. The stream crackles back to life for a heartbeat. There’s a brief flash of Izzy, but her face is distorted, frozen in an expression of shock.

“Oh, shit,” Izzy says.

“Shut it down.” The voice is tense. “Now.”

A hand hovers over the screen. The feed cuts out.

A minute passes. The viewers wait. Confusion builds. Some think it’s a technical glitch, others feel the first prick of unease.

Where did they go?

What happened?

Is this part of the announcement?

But the screen stays black, hissing faintly, the sound like a distant, unsettled breath.

Excerpted from The Cold Read. © 2026 by Tara Laskowski, used with permission from Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Cold Read’ by Tara Laskowski appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Before I Disappear by Cate Quinn, which releases on November 10th 2026.

Criminologist April Anderson wakes up in a remote motel with a new name, a new identity, and absolutely no memory of how she got there. Told she’s under police protection as the victim of a disturbing crime, she’ll have to stand as a witness on a major trial that she knows nothing about. April isn’t sure who to trust — the cop guarding her from an unknown threat, or the fiancé secretly tracking her.

As April’s memories start coming back in waves, she discovers a side to herself she didn’t know existed. A side she’d rather stay hidden.

With the trial drawing closer, the need for her to remember everything that happened to her the night of the crime becomes vital to her survival. But someone wants her silent, and her missing memories may be the only thing keeping her alive. Will she remember the truth… or disappear forever?

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

There’s a moment between sleep and waking when the realities that tether your life are unfixed. Your future is a set of turning reels, spooling out threads like Fates. Just in that moment, you could be anyone. And right now, as I wake to this unfamiliar bedroom, my first thought is I’ve failed to fully unstick from sleep. None of this is real. I don’t know who I am. As I blink my eyes open, the threads of possible futures are scythed away by an unseen knife.

The bed I lie on is made of knotty pine, with tangerine-hued varnish. A patchwork comforter tucked tight into the corners fails to keep out a noticeable chill to the air. The bare expanse of cream walls has been half-heartedly domesticated with a couple of chintzy pictures. I blink awake, trying to figure how I’ve been transported from the New York apartment to this strangely homespun room.

I’m used to traveling for work, delivering guest lectures as an associate professor of criminology for NYU. But this isn’t like any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. There’s a flickering pain in my head as I try to put the pieces together. The last thing I remember is standing in front of students, speaking about the links between crime and poverty. Now I’m here.

My head hurts, and there’s a slight patchy quality to my vision. Like reality is coming at a slower speed.

Did I drink too much at a conference? Unlikely. My fiancé, Chris, calls me “nauseatingly healthy” – and he’s not wrong. I was a track scholarship kid. Still train like I’m in college.

I pull back the bedclothes and look down. I’m dressed in a colorless gray T-shirt and equally faded sweatpants. Nothing I remember owning or purchasing. Panic is creeping in, and I have to fight it down. The last thing I remember wearing was a dress, blazer, and ankle boots combination from Bloomingdale’s.

Why am I dressed in different clothes?

The large room with its dated furnishings suggests my location is off a highway or in a backwater town – someplace land is cheap and glamour is absent. A homey kind of morel, I decide, looking back to the careless choice of wall art. There’s an illustration of a red barn in a cornfield and an oil painting of a steel windmill against a blue sky. Very different from my city apartment with my contemporary artwork and vintage couch strewn with my criminology lecture notes and heavy legal tomes.

My gaze lands on the pine bedside table. There’s a purse on it, which isn’t mine. A shiny faux brown crocodile skin with thick, rounded straps – about as far from my regular battered leather purse in style as is possible to be. I lean across to the bedside table and pull it toward me, pushing away my unease at snooping. Attached to the side by a thin strip of fabric is a plastic pocket, which houses a photo ID-a driver’s license with a familiar face. I swallow hard.

The woman in the picture is me.

But she isn’t me.

My hair is blond. I wear it in a practical ponytail, swept back in a way that tends to emphasize the almond shape of my green eyes. I look at the picture. All my life I’ve been told my face has a sculpted or angular quality – sometimes in a tone like it wasn’t all the way a compliment. Symmetry without softness. Beauty without sufficient demurral.

This picture shows me with brown hair, cut shoulder length with straight bangs, and a haunted expression.

My hair was never brown.

There’s a cheap little mirror swinging next to the ID pocket, and I lift it to catch my reflection. I stare in shock. My face in the mirror marches the picture in the ID.

My once-blond hair is now brown. Like the photo.

I lift a piece of brown hair in disbelief and peer at my bangs in the mirror. Images of my blonder self flash through my mind. I have no memory of changing my hair or even considering it. I’ve worn it the same way since graduating from college.

I stare, mesmerized, at the dark strands. There is nothing, no memory at all, of how my appearance changed. Just a floating void where the memories should be.

I’m in a room I don’t recognize, with an ID saying I’m someone else, and my appearance has been completely altered.

I read the name on the ID, my lips moving.

My name is April Anderson. Bur here, in bold text, it reads CONNIE LOGAN.

A name I have no memory of and feel no affinity with. The back of my head aches, and there’s a band of pressure around my skull. My first logical thought is I have been drugged and abducted. I once gave a lecture about the subtle clues to spot women in the grip of human traffickers. Frightening feelings foam in my brain as I try to remember my own advice.

Get out. Get to a safe place. Call for help.

I sit up and look around the room. That’s when I see there’s a man sitting in the corner.

I stifle a small cry and scoot back against the headboard.

He wears a police uniform and lies back against a white painted rocking chair in the corner. His eyes are closed, and he is snoring faintly.

From the badge on his arm, it looks like he’s a New York cop. I live in New York. That must mean something. But my mind won’t cognate past a pulsing need to get out of the room before he wakes up.

Slowly I slide my feet out of bed. One by one they settle on the creaking planks of the floor.

Standing makes my head spin, and I steady myself.

The policeman’s snores stop. Holding my breath, I rise to a standing position and pause. His breathing deepens, and he shifts in his sleep.

I slip silently to the door and slide my hand around the little round brass handle. The door is locked.

I look toward the policeman, slumbering in his rocker. Behind him is a window. The view outside is autumn trees. A wide dun-colored sky. In the middle distance is a rust-red tractor, wheels sunk deep into the dirt.

Definitely not New York City. Ground floor.

Something else catches my eye. On a table next to the slumbering policeman is his unstrapped holster, with a gun inside, and what looks to be my U.S. passport. Or what’s left of it. It’s been neatly cut in two. I lean over the remains, mesmerized.

The laminated picture of me, green-eyed with its slightly quizzical smile and blond ponytail, rests in pieces, and a slash of thick black pen stroke slices the front.

I pick up the sheared halves, exposing a flurry of international stamps in the fluttering pages.

The destruction has a tidy, administrative feel. Nothing personal, we’ve just ended your existence. The laceration divides my name into equal squares.

Dr. April.

Anderson.

My entire identity has been snipped into pieces.

Before I can process this, the policeman is suddenly awake. Some kind of latent muscle memory kicks in. Instinctively I grab for his gun holster on the table. His eyes widen as he realizes I’m diving for the weapon. He’s fast but not fast enough. I grab his gun, pull it free, cock it with an alacrity that I didn’t know I had. ”

Freeze!” I shout, channeling every cop movie I know. “Put your hands in the air!”

He raises his hands, eyes on my face. Kind eyes, I notice. Trustworthy.

“Easy.” His voice catches, still thick with sleep. He clears his throat. “It’s OK, April,” he says.

“Who are you and how do you know my name?” I demand. I train the gun squarely on his chest.

“I’m Detective Hollister of the NYPD Organized Crime Force,” he says, arms still raised. “You witnessed a crime, April.” He pauses, his eyes soft with pity. “You’re under witness protection.”

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Before I Disappear’ by Cate Quinn appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Mark of Moriarty by Jack Anderson, which releases on November 10th 2026.

Here is a mystery fit for the late Sherlock Holmes, and his surviving nemesis, Professor James Moriarty, is just the shadowy genius to take it on.

Disgraced socialite Viola Bellman is found barefoot in a snowy New York alleyway. There is no sign of how she got there, and she is too traumatized to speak. The only clue is the twelve-word note scribbled in the King James Bible she’s clutching: “The Arcane Society of New York holds close the fortune you seek.” But what is the Arcane Society?

The puzzle intrigues young Dr. Clara Mendel. She decides to join the Sabel Club, whose members are devoted to solving the riddle of Viola Bellman. Clara takes Viola on as her first official patient and is determined to help her speak again—with or without the assistance of her old sparring partner, Professor James Moriarty.

But when Moriarty returns and the Arcane Society strikes, Clara must fight to protect her friends and patient. In the mounting chaos, she also faces a disturbing question: Is she more like James Moriarty than she’d like to believe?

The Mark of Moriarty is a delectable treat for Sherlock Holmes fans everywhere.

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The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Mark of Moriarty’ by Jack Anderson appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Too Cold for Comfort by Nisha J. Tuli, which releases on November 10th 2026.

Photographer Aadya Williams has trekked all the way to northern Canada to nab a career-making shot of a polar bear … and to put 1,500 miles between her and a messy breakup. Despite expecting freezing temperatures, nothing’s colder than the welcome she gets from Reid Doerksen, the gruff owner of the Northern Wilderness Polar Bear Lodge. Even worse, the lodge is overbooked, so now she has to share the private family wing with him for the next two weeks.

At least Aadya has plenty to keep her occupied when she’s not out searching for the perfect photo op. But when a storm strands Aadya and Reid together at the lodge, it’s impossible to avoid the heat simmering between them. As the snow comes down, so do Reid’s walls, and Aadya begins to realize the most important shot of her life may not be one she takes with her camera.

EXCERPT

Chapter 1

My breath catches as the Twin Otter hits the solitary runway with a lurch, engines whirring as the roar of the wind envelops us like we’ve just ripped through Velcro. The tiny aircraft hurtles along the pockmarked pavement, wings tipping and tilting before slowing down and coming to a gentle stop.

I peer out the small oval window, taking in miles of blank white tundra rolling in every direction, like a painter’s canvas, ready for its first dip of color. But spring is ages away, and this landscape will remain mostly unchanged for the next six months.

At first, it would be easy to think there’s nothing out here. Just snow and rocks and spindly trees, and you’d mostly be right as long as you don’t count the thousand-pound mammal covered in white fur that’s now regarding me and my fellow passengers with a pair of curious black eyes.

He definitely counts.

“Folks, we’ll have to wait this out,” our pilot, Andy, says, slinging an elbow over his seat and smiling at us like a polar bear blocking our way is the most normal thing in the world.

He looks exactly like a bush pilot who lives at the edge of nowhere should. A thick reddish beard that’s due for a trim, sun-kissed skin with freckles bridging his nose, and one of those plaid hats with the floppy things that go over the ears, lined with sheepskin, of course.

I’ll say this for northern Canada—they’ve got their branding down pat.

Andy sports only a thick plaid jacket, suggesting a seasoned immunity to the cold. Conversely, the plane’s other six passengers and I are bundled into thick parkas with fur-trimmed hoods.

Andy scratches his chin and wrinkles his nose, watching the polar bear watch us. “Hopefully, Hector won’t hang around long.”

The bear’s expression seems to suggest we’ve very rudely interrupted his afternoon nap.

Meredith and Wesley, an elderly white couple from New Zealand, occupy the two seats in front of me and have their faces pressed to the window. We met in Churchill’s tiny airport before we boarded the half-hour flight to the middle of nowhere.

Meredith picks up the iPad on her lap, flips open the case, then holds the tablet up with one hand while trying to keep it steady enough to snap a clear picture with the other.

The passengers on the far side of the plane have unbuckled their seatbelts and are now leaning over the aisle, trying to get a better look at the bear. I also release mine with a click and twist to face the window.

Unsurprisingly, Hector is massive. He’s all bulk with limbs like tree trunks, a giant round butt, and paws the size of dinner plates. He swings his massive head toward us and sniffs the air to the sounds of wonderous gasping at this rare glimpse of untouched nature.

“This is one of the biggest boys you’ll find wandering out here,” Andy tells us, pride in his voice. Like this monster is a blue-ribbon pet he’s lovingly raised and plans to enter in the local polar bear show.

More phones and cameras find their way out of coats and bags and are aimed through the tiny, slightly fogged airplane windows. The blonde woman leaning over me tugs off her mitten with her teeth, smacking me across the cheek.

“Ouch,” I say, rubbing the spot where the plastic toggle on the wrist caught the corner of my eye. She either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care that I’ve been aggressively assaulted by her winter gear because all she does is lean closer, her entire body crowding my arm and shoulder and thigh. I sigh and press myself against the wall of the plane, resigned to my fate with another inconsiderate tourist of the world.

My own camera and a variety of lenses are stored safely in the bag at my feet, but a photo snapped through a hazy plastic window is not the shot I’ve traveled 1,500 miles to get.

What I need is something award-winning. Nature-channel worthy, to make women and children weep. Something that will inject a dose of life into my wilting career.

If it also proves to Christopher that my decision to choose my travel writing and photography over my relationship with him was the right one, well, then I’ll happily kill two birds with this stone. Metaphorically, of course. I respect nature in all its forms.

Wesley, the elderly man from the first couple, turns to Andy and asks, “How big do they get?”

“Anywhere around a thousand pounds and up,” Andy replies. “The females are a bit smaller. If we’re lucky, we might see a mom and her cubs this week, but they won’t be anywhere close right now. The males see the babies as tender little appetizers, so the moms avoid them after giving birth. ”

A round of gasps circles the cabin while the woman pressed against me straightens up, relieving the pressure on my internal organs. I inhale a gusty breath, glaring at her, but she still doesn’t acknowledge my existence.

“How long is this going to take?” the woman asks, framing it as a question that sounds more like a demand. I roll my eyes. There are two types of people in the world. Those who understand the wild can’t be poked or prodded into compliance. That nature doesn’t live by our rigid, man-made rules or schedules. And those who want to experience the wilderness but don’t actually want to be inconvenienced by the wilderness.

After going on dozens of these trips, I know there’s always one. Usually more. And I can already tell this lady is going to be their ringleader.

“As long as it takes,” Andy says with a wink that could be called rakish if we were starring in a Regency period drama. This guy is the perfect type for this job. Calm. Cool. Collected. Fazed by almost nothing. Even Karens in overstuffed Gore-Tex who would like a word with the manager. She huffs and drops back into her seat across the aisle.

“Steve, tell me when something interesting happens,” she says to the man seated in front of her, who I presume is her husband. She digs into her pyramid scheme–brand backpack, pulling out a domestic thriller in which the fed-up female protagonist plots to murder her philandering husband and get away with it.

“Yes, my bride,” Steve says with what sounds like several decades of threadbare weariness.

In front of them sit two other women, probably in their mid-thirties, a few years older than me. One holds up an expensive camera and points it at the window. She has pale white skin and short, straight blonde hair cut in a bob. After snapping a photo, she frowns while checking the screen on the back of her camera, probably realizing this isn’t the ideal vantage for photos.

“Get a few with your phone, Erica,” she says to the other woman, who has deep brown skin and corkscrew curls pulled into a high knot on top of her head.

Erica pulls her phone from the chest pocket of her navy Canada Goose parka and aims it at Hector. “We’ll get more later,” she says before pecking the blonde woman on her cheek. “We can’t leave until you make full use of that ridiculous thing. It’ll be the only way to get our money’s worth.” Her words are pointed, but there’s affection in her tone. The other woman grins and goes back to fiddling with the buttons and knobs on her camera.

I turn to the window to find Hector, who’s still watching us through lowered eyelids like he can’t quite figure out what we’re doing on his runway. Fair enough, dude. I’d be annoyed if these people dropped into my bedroom too.

He settles his giant furry butt onto the tarmac and then raises an eyebrow that suggests he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Andy huffs out a noise of frustration and cranks open the window on his side of the plane. “Go on, Hector. Get outta here.”

Hector shifts his black eyes to Andy, regarding him haughtily for a brief moment before they slide closed again. Dismissed.

“Wake him up,” the Karen says, looking up from her book. “I didn’t spend so much money to sit in a tin can all day!”

Andy grins, sloughing off her ire like a phoenix from the ashes. “Patience…what’s the name?”

“I’m Stacy,” she snaps.

“Stacy,” Andy says, rubbing his hands. “This is the wilderness. The great outdoors. The thing you really paid for. Mother Nature is the boss out here, and she doesn’t move to anyone’s clock.”

Stacy narrows her eyes, and even I can feel the stinging heat of her wrath. But Andy is only a red-blooded human, and his smile finally slips before he spins around to grab the airplane radio. “Okay then, let’s see if we can get another bear guide out here to shift old Hector, shall we?”

He gets on the radio, mumbling something against the crackle of the line. It’s impossible to decipher everything he’s saying, but it sounds a lot like “unhappy” and “get out here,” and I swear I’m not imagining it when he says “Karen.”

I cover my mouth, stifling a laugh. Stacy shoots me a dirty look, finally noticing me, I guess.

While everyone watches Hector, we wait a few minutes before we hear the roar of a quad flying at breakneck speed from the opposite direction. A man with short black hair and medium-brown skin, swathed in a bright red parka, straddles the machine and brings it to a skidding halt just short of the plane. He hops off and slings a silver rifle over his shoulder before circling around to the other side of the aircraft.

“Like me, Sandeep here is a trained bear guide,” Andy tells us. “The guns are for our protection, but in twenty-five years of operation, the Northern Wilderness Polar Bear Lodge has never had to fire a single shot, thanks to our extensive preventative measures. When approached correctly, there’s no reason for the bears to turn on us. We do everything we can to ensure their preservation and protection. Nature is to be respected out here, not tamed, and certainly not controlled.”

His gaze flicks to Stacy for a fraction of a second, and it’s clear where he’s directing that final statement.

Sandeep rounds the plane and approaches Hector slowly while keeping his distance. It’s obvious he’s relatively comfortable around the bear, despite the fact that it could likely squish his head with its enormous jaws.

Hector perks up, looking at Sandeep like a puppy who’s just heard the key in the front door. Sandeep reaches down, picks up two palm-sized rocks, and clicks them together.

We’re all watching so intently that the windows begin to fog with our breath.

Steve, Stacy’s partner, makes a scoffing noise, folding his arms awkwardly thanks to the bulk of his puffy coat. “What is he doing? He’s planning to scare him off with a couple of rocks? That’s ridiculous.”

Andy grins and gives Steve what I’m coming to decide is his signature wink before Hector suddenly heaves himself onto his enormous paws. He stretches out, a ripple running over the hairs on his back, then he yawns, his giant snout opening to reveal a set of sharp white teeth. Everyone starts gasping, murmuring, snapping photos at light speed.

Hector flicks his head as if waving “see you later” before he turns around and pads away.

Steve blinks, his mouth dropping open and his face turning red.

“I guess these guys know what they’re doing,” I say. He pins me with a frown, a deep line forming between his eyebrows that I sense has been thoroughly worn, thanks to Stacy.

Sandeep is talking into the radio secured to his shoulder, and a few moments later, two large vans trundle over the horizon like a pair of white horses here to deliver us to our castle.

“Okay, everyone out!” Andy says. “It’s just a short walk to the lodge.”

“Walk?” Stacy asks, wrinkling her nose. “Why can’t we take the vans?”

“That’s for your luggage. Don’t worry—the fresh air will do us all some good.”

Stacy harrumphs, her pink cheeks puffing out, clearly not buying that shit for a second.

The main door to the plane swings open, and Erica and her partner are the first two to exit, followed by Meredith and Wesley. Steve leaps out, not waiting for his wife, and Stacy finally scoots out of her seat, grabbing her bag and stuffing her book into a pocket.

“Steve! Where are you going? Wait for me!”

I dig out my bag from under the seat and hop off the plane, my boots striking the pavement, before I inhale a deep breath of fresh air. I close my eyes while the cold breeze kisses my cheeks, and I embrace the stillness of my surroundings. Immediately, my shoulders relax, and the tight knot of anxiety I’ve been carting around since I fled New York three days ago eases from the center of my chest.

It was a long journey that included a flight from LaGuardia, with a layover in Montreal, to the city of Winnipeg, in the province of Manitoba. There, I boarded a train for a forty-eight-hour ride through mostly unpopulated prairie and boreal forest to the small, coastal town of Churchill, known as the polar bear capital of the world. Nestled on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay, it boasts a population of a mere nine hundred residents, who welcome visitors from dozens of countries every summer and fall, thanks to its proximity to some of the best wildlife viewing in the world.

A moment later, Stacy shatters the silence, yelling at Steve in the too-near distance. He marches a few steps in front of her, his head down and his collar turned up, while she trots behind him with her backpack bouncing from an elbow.

Heaving my camera bag over my shoulder, I trudge behind the group, staring up at the clear sky. It’s a pale blue streaked with gentle whisps of clouds, like puffs of locomotive smoke. A bird screeches in the distance, its cry both beautiful and mournful, and I absorb another cleansing breath into my lungs.

I’m so relieved to be away from the city for the next twelve days. I was suffocating there. My skin felt too tight between Christopher and my mother, and the constant noise. Like I’d been stuffed into a pair of wrong-size pantyhose and couldn’t yank and pull them in the right direction to stop them from pinching.

I once craved the bustle of the city, but it’s beginning to feel more and more like living in a cardboard box without holes to let in air or light. When this assignment came up, it was an answer to a wish I’d forgotten to make.

While I’m terribly sorry Barry Ferguson tripped and fractured his fibula on the Spanish Steps, he can have one of the next life-changing assignments reserved mostly for the elder millennial and middle-aged white dudes.

Before making it official, my editor, Grant, was sure to mansplain everything about this trip and the story and photos he wanted in great detail—as if I haven’t done this a hundred times before. Though truthfully, it has been awhile.

I catch up to the group and pass Stacy and Steve, who are busy bickering. Or rather, she’s doing the bickering, and Steve just looks like he wants to die.

As we crest the gentle slope, I catch my first sight of the lodge up ahead. It’s bigger than I thought, based on the photos I looked up online. It sprawls out in all directions, crawling along the flat landscape of the taiga, where we’re currently standing. I learned this from my research. We aren’t technically in the tundra this far north; we’re just south of it, in a subarctic area known as the taiga. But most people tend to refer to it as the tundra anyway.

Mansplain that, Grant.

The lodge is made entirely of different shades of wood, with peaked roofs and decorated gables. Smooth stones inset along the bottom half give it that rustic aesthetic. I read that since there are no roads this far north, everything had to be trundled in on huge vehicles with treads like tanks instead of wheels. I can’t imagine what a feat of planning and organization that must have been.

A high chain-link fence surrounds the entire building, giving it the slightly menacing air of a prison compound, except for the fact that I know the lodge inside embodies the very best in top-notch luxury.

The fence is to keep the bears out, not the inmates in.

We arrive at the gate, and Erica and her partner enter first, followed by Meredith and Wesley.

On the wide steps up to the lodge stands a white man with wavy, dark brown hair that falls just past his chin. He has light grey eyes, tanned skin, and the kind of cheekbones and jawline you see in GQ magazines. A day or two of dark scruff covers his chin, and I can’t help but note the tantalizing swell of biceps and thighs encased in a light denim shirt and fitted jeans.

Rugged is the first word that comes to mind. Windswept is the second.

Hello. Who is this?

He’s absolutely fucking gorgeous. Instinctively, I start smoothing the nest of my black hair around my face, trying not to appear like I just spent the last two days traveling. Hopefully, he can’t smell me from this distance.

It seems I’ve ceased walking because I hear Stacy say, “Oh my,” as she stops and presses a hand to her chest. I’m not sure why that annoys me. I glare at her and then turn back to the man, who’s now staring at me. Except it’s definitely not with the same approving interest.

If anything, it’s more like flesh-melting lasers shooting from his eyes.

I turn around, wondering if someone else is behind me, but nope, it’s just me. When I turn back again, he’s still watching me, his arms crossed, and his forehead furrowed. Stacy is now lurching up the steps, her posture supplicating, her hand held out.

“I’m Stacy,” she says, a little breathless, and fuck, I can’t even blame her for that. He looks down at her because he’s rather tall and nods.

“I’m Reid,” he says, not deigning to shake her hand. “Welcome to the Northern Wilderness Polar Bear Lodge.”

His voice is emotionless, but Stacy doesn’t seem to notice as she nods eagerly and enters through the door that he’s now holding open. She disappears into the lodge, and then Reid turns back to me, gracing me with one more angry look before he disappears through the door and lets it slam shut with a definitive thud.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from One Good Thing by Alexandra Potter, which releases on December 1st 2026.

Liv Brooks is in shock. Newly divorced and facing an uncertain future, she impulsively trades her fast-paced London life for the tranquil hills of the Yorkshire Dales, determined to make a fresh start. But fresh starts are harder than they seem. Feeling lost and lonely, she adopts Harry, a grumpy old dog from the local shelter, to keep her company while she renovates the dilapidated cottage she has optimistically taken on.

However, Liv soon discovers she isn’t the only one in need of a new beginning. During her and Harry’s daily walks around the village, they meet Valentine, an old man perpetually gazing out his window, suffering from loneliness; Stanley, an introverted little boy hiding behind his garden gate; and Maya, a teenager at odds with the world. Gradually, as these unexpected relationships develop, they each begin to rediscover themselves, all with the help of the lovable Harry.

Utterly relatable and tender, this novel explores the beauty of friendship and the joys of living an unexpected life. When everything falls apart, sometimes all you need is one good thing to turn your life around and make it worth living again.

EXCERPT

Chapter 1: YORKSHIRE

“So, what do you think?”

Having finished showing me around downstairs, the real estate agent pushes open a stripped pine door and ushers me into the primary bedroom.

It’s an innocent enough question, but probably not the wisest one to ask a recently divorced woman who has made the impulsive decision to leave London and all her friends, resign from the teaching job she’s held for ten years, and move several hundred miles away to the Yorkshire Dales.

I think lots of thoughts. Mostly that I’m still in shock. That I can’t believe my marriage is over. That I haven’t slept properly in months. That I’m clearly having a midlife crisis. That yesterday I looked for my keys everywhere and found them in the fridge. That I’ve gained five pounds—oh, who am I kidding? More like fifteen. That I feel lost and bewildered. That I lie awake in the dark thinking this is all a bad dream. That it’s all my fault.

That I love him.

That I hate him.

That secretly I wish I were the kind of woman who did crazy, angry, vengeful things to a cheating ex, things with frozen prawns and spray paint. Instead, I’m the kind who dutifully irons my husband’s shirts after he’s told me he’s leaving me for another woman, folding them neatly into trash bags, and leaving them in the garage for when he comes to pick up the rest of his things.

“It’s very nice,” I say politely, looking around the dimly lit room, with its old-fashioned flowery wallpaper and faded brown carpet, darker in parts where the furniture used to be.

A strong musty smell reaches my nostrils and I feel painfully homesick.

Only I no longer have a home to miss. It’s been sold as part of our divorce settlement. The new owners, a couple with two young children, are due to move in after New Year’s. My ex-husband has moved in with his new girlfriend. His son, Will, my beloved stepson, who spent weekends and holidays with us, has finished university and gone off traveling. It’s just me and an empty house filled with memories.

Which is why, a few weeks before Christmas, while the rest of the world is shopping for gifts and decorations, I’m shopping for a new place to call home.

“On your search criteria you said you’re looking for a flat, preferably something that doesn’t need any work done, but I thought I’d throw in a bit of a wild card for our final property.”

It’s been a long day, but this is my last viewing before I make the five-hour return trip to London. This morning, I caught the express train from King’s Cross station at first light, then changed at Leeds to the local railway line, which took me on a slow but breathtaking journey through dramatic landscapes before pulling into a small windswept station on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

There I was met by Mr. Hardcastle, my real estate agent. We’d corresponded by email after he replied to my inquiry into properties for sale in the Yorkshire Dales. Ruddy-faced and larger than life in his waterproof jacket, he’s nothing like his slick-suited counterparts in London. After cheerfully squeezing the life out of my fingers as he shook my hand, he drove us deep into the countryside, past fields filled with cows and sheep, showing me everything on the market he could find while providing a chirpy commentary on the weather in an accent that is pure Yorkshire.

“They’ve given rain . . . It’s a bit nippy . . . You’re lucky, yesterday it was fair tipping it down . . . There’s talk of snow on the tops . . . Looks like it’s clearing, I can see a patch of blue . . . With any luck, weekend should be grand after all . . .”

Considering it’s the beginning of December, his optimism about the weather is remarkable—as is his ability to see anything positive in this over-three-hundred-year-old stone cottage, originally built for farmworkers in the small but picturesque village of Nettlewick.

It’s steeped in history and still has a lot of its original features, like the inglenook fireplace, but with its dark, poky rooms, rotten windows and nicotine-stained walls, it’s old and tired and in desperate need of a makeover.

I know the feeling.

“It’s got a certain charm, don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure charm is the word I’d use.” I point to some scary-looking mushroom growing out of the wall. I peer more closely at the suspicious-looking pinprick holes in one of the large beams running across the ceiling.

“The seller is very open to offers,” he continues brightly, rocking on his heels. “And there’s a lovely westerly view from the back garden. There are a few houses, but mostly you can see straight across the Dales.”

“What’s the view from the front?” Walking across to the sash window, I pull back the graying net curtain. “Oh—a graveyard.”

“At least it’ll be dead quiet.” Mr. Hardcastle chuckles at his own joke. “Apparently the owner inherited the house from his greataunt,but he lives in Singapore and has no use for it.”

It’s dark outside, and my reflection stares back at me in the windowpane.

I look tired and pale as a ghost.

No use for it.

That’s how my husband must have felt about our marriage when he walked out. The thought drops like a weight on my chest. With my back still turned, I squeeze my eyes shut, pinching my tear ducts with my thumb and forefinger. I mustn’t cry here.

“Well, like I said, it was a bit of a wild card.”

As he flicks off the bare bulb overhead, I open my eyes and linger for a moment by the window. My reflection has disappeared, and my gaze extends over the high stone wall and through the skeleton branches of the trees into the graveyard’s dark recesses. It’s only four o’clock, but it’s already pitch-black.

“So, what makes you want to swap the bright lights of London for the Yorkshire Dales?” he asks curiously.

“I fancied a change,” I say vaguely. “I vacationed here as a child. My grandparents used to live in this very village. Happy memories,”

I add, forcing a smile.

Is this a terrible mistake? Maybe I should call this whole move off. Admit I’ve made a rash mistake. Rent something in London and beg for my job back. After all, this is so unlike me. I don’t do impulsive. I’m risk-averse, according to my financial adviser.

Plus, all the self-help books advise against making major decisions for at least a year following a divorce. I have a whole stack of them on my bedside table emphasizing that point.

“Going back to the new apartment with the roof terrace that you liked, ten miles from here. There’s been a lot of interest in that one, what with it being in a bustling market town near the big shops, station and amenities . . .”

In the background, the real estate agent is giving me his sales pitch.

“So, if you’re serious I’d advise acting quickly.”

Still gazing out the window, I catch sight of something. A flash of pink. White spots. I peer more closely. It’s started to rain, and drops are hitting the window, forming rivulets down the glass. It’s an umbrella. A bright pink polka-dot umbrella. I watch as it moves across the cemetery, its owner hidden underneath. Something about the scene makes me smile. It’s so incongruous, this spotted flash of color bobbing cheerfully along in the wintry bleakness, weaving in and out of the graves. Like a beacon of light in the darkness.

“I’d like to make an offer.”

Turning away from the window, I look across at the real estate agent, who is studying his smartphone. He looks up with an expression like one of my students caught misbehaving.

“Christmas shopping,” he explains sheepishly. “Perfume. For the wife. I get her the same present every year.” He quickly puts his phone away. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I want to make an offer.”

“Oh! Excellent! A very wise decision. Our warehouse conversions are always popular with professionals such as yourself—”

“No, I want to buy this house.”

“This house?” he repeats, as if he can’t quite believe his sales pitch worked.

His incredulity only makes me more determined. There’s something about this house—the way it’s been neglected and unloved— that’s stirred something inside me. It needs someone to love it back to life. I begin descending the steep, narrow staircase.

“I’ll offer close to the asking price, as long as it’s taken off the market and we can close by New Year’s.”

“Right. Yes. Absolutely . . . I’ll get straight on to the seller.” Mr. Hardcastle’s footsteps follow hurriedly behind me. “Rest assured, Ms. Brooks, at Hardcastle and Son, your problems are our solutions.”

“Oh, and, Mr. Hardcastle.”

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I turn to see him banging his head on the low beam and wincing.

“Buy your wife something different this Christmas. Take it from me, she’s sick of that bloody perfume.”

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘One Good Thing’ by Alexandra Potter appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Bishop family enjoyed a moderately successful life in New York City … until a tragic accident upended their comfortable existence. Daniel Bishop planned to celebrate the turn of the century at the family’s lake home in Maine, but when his wife Isabelle spiked a fever, she and their eldest daughter stayed behind. In a cruel twist of fate, this illness saved the pair, as the ship Daniel and his other three children took to Maine sank during an unexpected storm.

Left with just her mother and 18-year-old Mariah, Isabelle sees only one way to secure her remaining family’s future: she must remarry—and marry well. Enter John Whitten, an extremely wealthy widower who is looking to marry again and produce an heir. Isabelle sets her sights on John, but he has a different plan in mind: It’s not Isabelle that he wants. No, John is determined to marry young Mariah. And with that much money and power, John Whitten gets what he wants.

Peregrine Hill is a beautifully executed novel that captures the grandiosity of this bygone era, while detailing the struggles that women of every station have long faced living under the thumbs of men. Desperate choices are made by each female character in order to not just survive, but to try and break free from their expected roles. Which leaves the reader pondering a central question: What are you willing to sacrifice—and what may be taken from you—in the pursuit of the life you want to live?

de Gramont’s writing is so smooth, while still feeling natural and authentic to the time period. She tells a dramatic story, yes, with no shortage of twists and turns to keep the plot interesting—but it is also full of heart and truth.

So much truth, in fact, readers may be surprised to learn that Peregrine Hill was inspired by the author’s own family history. While this novel fully stands on its own, I’d be lying if I said this fact doesn’t make for an even more interesting read. Protagonist Mariah Bishop is inspired by Nina de Gramont’s own great-grandmother, Dona Maria. As a teenager, Dona Maria was married off to a 57-year-old man who originally came to court her mother. Like Mariah, Dona Maria was trapped in a marriage forced by her family—but also like Mariah, she found ways to rebel against these restraints.

As she spends day after day feeling like a bird trapped in a gilded cage, Mariah leans into her love of writing as an escape. Mariah’s journey is also bolstered by a handful of intriguing secondary characters with adventures of their own. Mariah’s maid, Hetty—who also serves as an editor for her writing—is sure to be a particular favorite of readers with her sharp intellect and brazen nature. And jaws will drop as readers follow the unexpected storyline of Mariah’s mother, Isabelle.

In all truth, I don’t read a lot of historical fiction because so many of these stories tackle the same subjects and events without bringing fresh energy to the page. Nina de Gramont is an exception, though. She filters the past through a  compelling new lens that keeps the pages turning, so count me in for whatever she is writing!

Peregrine Hill is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of November 10th 2026.

Will you be picking up Peregrine Hill? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair comes a sweeping novel set in Gilded Age New York where a forced marriage, family secrets, and the fight for freedom collide in an unforgettable story about a desperate mother and headstrong daughter navigating a world built on men’s appetites and women’s silence.

“A luminous, entrancing novel…The Gilded Age springs to vivid life in these pages, but beware, for not all that glitters is gold.” —Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series

At the dawn of the 20th century, widow Isabelle Bishop still believes in love—but she knows only money can save her. After losing her husband and three of her children in a shipwreck, she has one chance to rescue what remains of her family: her daughter Mariah and her elderly mother. When Isabelle captures the attention of John Whitten, one of New York’s wealthiest men, she dares to hope that fortune might finally favor her.

But Whitten’s interest is not in Isabelle—it’s in eighteen-year-old Mariah, still reeling from a romantic but disastrous scandal. When Whitten discovers the secret mother and daughter have tried to keep buried, he uses it to his advantage, threatening to expose them unless Mariah accepts his proposal. For the sake of their survival, Isabelle makes a devil’s bargain: She will urge her daughter into a marriage she knows could destroy her.

Mariah quickly realizes her husband’s home is a gilded cage. Yet even under his watchful eye, she begins to carve out passions of her own, finding an unexpected ally in her ambitious maid, Hetty, and daring to imagine a life beyond her constricted world. Together, she and Hetty risk everything to claim a measure of power and self-determination in a world that attempts to deny them both.

From the glittering parlors of Gilded Age New York to the windswept cliffs of Rhode Island, Peregrine Hill is a novel in the tradition of Edith Wharton and the Brontë sisters, about unlikely love affairs and the impossible choices women have always been forced to make.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Ghosted by Talia Tucker, which releases on November 10th 2026.

An entirely unhinged and spooky story about getting ghosted and getting revenge. What if you got ghosted and had the chance to do the funniest thing by haunting him right back? What if it consumed your every waking thought like a girl possessed, fighting for brain space with your sleep paralysis demon and your first serious girl crush? What then???

Keziah is very familiar with ghosts—after all, a sleep paralysis demon has been her closest companion for the last few years, and she’s constantly getting ghosted. Which isn’t really helping her get a date for the Homecoming dance. And then she meets a guy who just transferred to the all-boys school nearby. He’s charming, cute, and—unlike with her other dates—she actually sees potential with him.

Too bad he ghosts her, too.

This time, though, she isn’t going to take it so easily. Not when Guy and his friends mess with her real true love, Mr. Kim’s food truck, and especially not when she finds out the real reason Guy transferred in the first place. If he wants to ghost, she’ll haunt him right back to where he came from.

Enacting revenge while her sleep paralysis demon keeps bugging her certainly won’t be easy but, with help from a cute girl, let the real (and well-deserved) ghosting begin!

EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

IT STARTED IN JUNIOR HIGH—the nights when my consciousness would be awake while my body remained asleep. I’d be trapped within myself, unable to move or scream. I could only watch, wait, and regain control by moving one finger at a time, until my hands worked, then my arms, then the rest of me.

Naively, I believed I could simply outgrow my need to sleep. But after a few days without it, I felt like I was being followed by unseen eyes—yet no one would be there when I turned around. After a few weeks, a figure began appearing at the foot of my bed at night. It didn’t have a face or a body; it was only a pair of dazzling yellow eyes, deep set in corporeal darkness, staring at me.

Realizing I did, in fact, need sleep, I tried to find rest, only to awaken to those haunting eyes and an unrelenting pressure on my chest. I’d struggle to scream but wouldn’t be able to make a sound.

It didn’t take long for me to realize it was my sleep paralysis demon who had been watching me, waiting patiently for me to close my eyes.

Countless sleepless nights eventually led me to the conclusion that if I couldn’t beat him, I’d have to endure him. We entered negotiations wherein I promised to sleep every night to keep his hunger satiated, and in exchange, he would no longer need to paralyze my body.

I named him Steve, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

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Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and cover for In Her Grace by Reema Zaman, which releases on May 4th 2027 and now available to preorder from Blackstone Publishing, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.

But first, here’s what Reema had to say about her upcoming release:

“Set in a near-future America where women’s autonomy has been steadily dismantled, In Her Grace follows Grace, a dauntless woman who uses a controversial technology to fight back against her abusive husband, and Helena, the attorney who defends her when she’s put on trial for his death. This deeply moving, propulsive thriller explores the urgent questions: How far would you go to protect yourself and your child? What does self-defense mean in a society that has stripped women of the right to protect themselves?

I loved writing the relationship between Grace and Helena; I was their spellbound witness as they confront a legal system stacked against them, with exhilarating courage that inspires a cultural reckoning. The novel explores dark territory, but their profound sisterhood and pursuit of justice fueled my writing, and act as the engine for the novel. And there are some insane twists! I’m excited for readers to fall in love with Grace and Helena the way I have.

My gratitude goes to Alenka Linaschke, whose gorgeous cover captures the soulful complexity of In Her Grace.”

In 2052 America, the laws that once protected women’s autonomy have been steadily dismantled under the guise of protection and order. 

Grace Banks knows this intimately. Once a promising ballerina, Grace is now trapped in a glittering cage of an abusive marriage to trillionaire Preston Banks, living under constant surveillance. Pregnant and running out of options, Grace uses Merge—a controversial new technology that allows one consciousness to inhabit another person’s body—to enact a brave, desperate choice. 

The result is Preston’s death.

Was this murder or self-defense? With her freedom on the line, Grace becomes the center of a trial that captivates the country. Her defense rests in the hands of Helena Variss, a once-renowned attorney struggling with grief and her own disillusionment with a legal system increasingly hostile toward women. As the case unfolds, what first appears to be a shocking act of violence becomes something far more complicated and revealing: a reckoning over female agency, motherhood, and the stories society chooses to believe about women.

For readers of Jessamine Chan and Naomi Alderman, IN HER GRACE is a gripping near-future novel about resilience, sisterhood, and justice redefined, with two unforgettable heroines who refuse to be erased.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Reema Zaman is the author of the memoir I Am Yours and the forthcoming novel In Her Grace. Her work has appeared in Vogue, The Guardian, Salon, The Rumpus, and other notable platforms. She sits on the board of On the Inside, a non-profit that provides wellness and writing classes to incarcerated women across the United States and Australia. She lives in Los Angeles with her chihuahua, Fia.

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