[WATTYS 2026 SHORTLIST | ONC 2025 SHORTLISTED | FANTASY AMBASSADOR'S PICK, JUNE 2026] An amnesiac goddess must rewrite her destiny before the evil reaper strikes out her existence. ••• 𝙄𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙢𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙮 𝙢𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙖 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙩. When Ira wakes up in the corner of a dusty room with nothing but glowing rectangles around and no memory of her past, not even her name, she is convinced she has been kidnapped. But it is far from the truth. She isn't kidnapped; she is a new addition to Histoire, another lost character discarded by an author, waiting to be devoured by a vengeful reaper like countless others. Amd the same reaper of Histoire is now threatening to erase Ira forever. Rayer, the hundred-year-old caretaker of Histoire, asks her to drop it and accept her doom because nobody to date has been able to remember their story and rewrite their fates. But Ira isn't someone who would easily back out. Determined not to be forgotten, Ira must unearth the lost pieces of her story and sew them into one before the reaper devours her existence. But as she delves deeper, Ira begins to question her identity and purpose, realising she is more than just a character. WC: 52,000+ CC: Inky

[Wattys 2026 Shortlist | ONC Longlist 2024 ] Sydney 2112. Young men are disappearing without a trace. On the other side of town, an up-and-coming sculptor's works eerily resemble the missing men. Can the Inspector solve the riddle before her son joins the collection? *** Keya Sapkota needs to create artworks for her first sculpture exhibition at the prestigious Museum of Contemporary Arts, but a recent date-gone-wrong has left her a mess. She has no memory of what happened, but a feeling that something horrible transpired that left her with broken lips and bruised body. Keya hides in her loft, chipping away at her marble columns on autopilot. The more she chisels the more lifelike her statues become, ones she can't remember carving, but does she care? She needs exhibits for her show and the strange figures may as well be her pieces. The new Stone2Stone sculpture exhibition at the MCA catches the eye of Inspector Reina, who is desperately searching for her son who disappeared from a nightclub on his twenty-first birthday. Reina can't put her finger on it, but the sculptor, Keya, seems strange. Then there's the eerie marble statues that share their likeness with young men who have recently disappeared. Inspector Reina is determined to find answers before her son's sculpture turns up in the artist's collection. --- ONC Prompts: 60. "Look what you made me do." -Tayler Swift 3. Your greatest fear is monsters in the dark. The last thing you expect is to become the Monster in the dark. 95. "I will become as monstrous as I must." Features: - @Fantasy - Urban Fantasy (Oct 2025) - @paranormal - Investigations & Academies (Sept 2024) - @action - Thriller (Aug 2024) - @APIFantasy - API Fantasy & Science-Fiction Entries (March, 2024) Trigger warning: Slight depictions of SA. Please read at your own discretion. [Strictly no copy, translation or adapting of this story in part or whole is permitted without the author's permission.]

The river is a god. The god is hungry. For fifteen years, Osogó has carried its dead. He is the ferryman---the silent man who rows bodies across the water in the dark and asks the living nothing. He walked into the river once, to drown. It refused him. He has never learned why. So when a warlord's wife steps onto his jetty with a fistful of gold and a destination she will not say, he expects only another crossing. He does not expect the girl folded into the bottom of his canoe: eleven years old, a scar on her shoulder, a mouth that will not close, and more of this war already behind her than most men live to see. She tells him his boat smells of dead fish. She asks the questions no one can answer. And against everything he has made himself into, she is impossible to ignore. In a drowning country where the water takes whole villages and the war runs on children, a man who buried his soul at the bottom of the river is about to learn what it costs to come back up.

♱ WHEN LOVE REFUSES TO STAY DEAD ♱ Felix Harper, an indie filmmaker with his career on the rise, has always processed grief through horror. His new project is no different: an intimate retelling of Dracula meant to exorcise feelings he'd prefer to see dead and buried. But in his search for the perfect lead actor, the person he's least expected to see again walks into the audition room. Raphael Montrose is Felix's ex-best friend, the person who once knew him better than anyone. The person he hasn't spoken to in years, not since Felix sacrificed their friendship in a desperate attempt to protect what he loved. The person who still makes Felix's heart beat in his throat. Casting him would go against any sort of common sense. But when it comes to Raphael, Felix has never had any. As the two navigate filming a potential cult classic and rebuilding the fragile trust between them, old feelings resurface and the lines between past and present, performance and reality begin to blur. But when the ghosts of their past return to haunt, will they be able to face them, or will they be forced to bury their feelings for good? For readers who enjoyed If We Were Villains and The Picture of Dorian Gray, a gothic second chance/friends-to-lovers romance spanning years of yearning, tenderness, betrayal and artistic obsession. ♱ cover by the amazing @raizelrose3

𝑨 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒚𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒔 𝒖𝒑 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒑𝒑 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒄𝒉, 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆. You've Got Mail meets Beauty Shop when Paige Dela Cruz, a hairstylist aspiring to open the first Filipino-owned hair salon in the heart of little Winnipeg, falls head over heels for Christian Sato, or so she thought. ♡ Paige Dela Cruz is a hairstylist who falls head over heels for the charming and sexy Christian Sato, or so she thought. She's actually talking to Eddy, Christian's cousin, after she's forced by her best friend to download the hottest dating app, Flame. Eddy wants to let go of his facade and show Paige the person he truly is, especially after their messages take a steamy turn. Will Paige find a way to forgive him after he pretended he was someone else this entire time? As if her love life wasn't complicated enough, Paige faces another threat - her jealous, vindictive boss. He takes her clients, her tips, and her time. With her career and love life in shambles, Paige begins to doubt if she'll ever be able to open the salon of her dreams.

2026 Watty Awards Shortlist Finalist! Helena Pierce has it all. A company built from nothing, wealth, a best friend who knows her better than she knows herself, and a brother who would move mountains for her. On paper, her life is flawless. But perfection doesn't fill the emptiness. Helena is lonely and love has never come easily, and when it did, her need for control always pushed it away. She rules every part of her life with iron precision, and that same power keeps her from letting anyone in. Helena doesn't know how to surrender - and maybe, deep down, she fears what would happen if she did. ❁ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ˋˏ༻❁༺ˎˊ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ❁ June Holloway refuses to back down. Words are power, and behind a screen, she wields them all. Declared deaf at six, though she had struggled to hear long before, she controls her world from home, safe from the noise and chaos she can't fully navigate... but safety has a price. She has her work, a best friend who never leaves her side, and a brother who would give his life for her. Yet love has always been complicated. Speaking, hearing, connecting - it should be simple, but for June, it's a battle she fights again and again, never easily won. Even so, she keeps trying. Even so, she refuses to be silenced. ❁ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ˋˏ༻❁༺ˎˊ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ❁ Since June starts working for Helena, things begin to unfold and feelings grow quietly, almost unnoticed. Both hide behind screens, careful and measured, yet there is a pull between them they can't ignore. Every word, every message lingers a little longer, makes them think a little more. Neither is ready to admit how much they want it to go further. Helena doesn't know June is deaf, and could that secret change everything between them? #1 under #lesbian 1/9/26 #1 under #wlw 1/11/26 #1 under #sapphic 1/12/26 #1 under #girls 3/15/26

[Slow Brew Series 2 of 2] [Completed] Bea's dream was always to open a cozy, charming little book cafe. My dream-me, Jules, it's my story now, bitches-was to avoid unnecessary stress, talking about my own feelings, and James Hale. So naturally, the universe decided to shove all three onto my lap. Now I'm thrust into managing Beaumont's Books & Brews-aka Bea's pride and joy (aka the haunted mess of a coffee shop we're scrubbing, gutting, and dragging into existence from the afterlife). Which would be great... if she didn't have to share the title of "co-owner" with a walking migraine in designer loafers. James Hale. My archnemesis. My best friend's boyfriend's brother. Also, somehow, my boss. We made out once. It was a mistake. A moment of weakness. A tragedy for the history books. And now he's here. Every day. Breathing my air, drinking sugary, over-creamed monstrosities he dares to call coffee, and always-always smirking at me. I take my coffee black. No syrup. No foam art. No pulling out emotional baggage mid-espresso. The way coffee should be. Just pure, tasteful pleasure-with a bitter finish. Welcome to Beaumont's. May the odds be ever in my favor. [2 of 2: Slow Brew Series] Dual POV | Romantic Comedy | Coffee Shop Romance 18+ for suggestive dialogue, some explicit scenes, language

Madelyn Chung is one of the best clinical psychology PhD students Harvard has ever seen--the most controversial, too. After discovering academic fraud conducted by Harvard's star faculty, Dr. Charlotte Shelby, her future career seems uncertain as whispers accuse her of being a burdensome whistleblower. With a potentially groundbreaking research project in the line, she is appointed to work with Dr. Alex Manning, Harvard's young neuroscientist and professor who revolutionized several research in his field. A life-changing opportunity for Maddie--but she must deal with the fact that Alex was one of Charlotte's past collaborators, and his career was at stake because of the scandal. Maddie has always been careful when trudging through endless hours of clinical shifts and research. But when she doesn't know if the longing stares from Alex every time he tries to make her life harder are an indication of hatred, or if they mean something else, she starts to feel unprepared. Because Maddie knows she is a falling star, and if she holds onto the fragile trust between her and Alex too tightly, she will only fall harder.

[2026 Wattys Shortlist] In which Madison, a gifted pianist who hides her music behind locked doors meets Theo, a passionate filmmaker with a camera always in hand, who sees something in her that she's been too afraid to see in herself. He offers her a deal: let him document her senior year, capturing every practice session, every setback, every terrifying step toward her dream conservatory for his summer film project. In return, he'll help her find the courage to finally play for someone other than herself. Over one unforgettable summer, their days unfold like a melody, capturing moments that will echo long after the song ends. ──── ♪ ──── COMPLETE

Grand Favourite Ambys 2024 𝑯𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒈𝒊𝒇𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔. Elizabeth Reid learned, at seventeen, that she was going to die. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, she's faced with a question that no one should have to answer. How do you leave a mark on a world you're about to leave behind? Desperate to do something meaningful with her life, Elizabeth goes on a journey to create something that will outlive her. One final act to save lives, even as her own ends. But will she run out of time to do it?