[ COMPLETED AND ON THE WATTYS 2017 SHORTLIST - Excerpt Only] In an era where the drums of war echo over the Northern plains, when the arrival of the next Copper Moon brings about whispers of a shadowy threat, Nell Yngram is only concerned with struggling to make ends meet. Earning a living as a Lampgirl, and having serviced the Moreighs for the last couple of years, she yet dreams of being assigned to the family's ancestral home at Ashenlight. Despite talk of dark secrets plaguing the Samarna Palace, Nell only seeks to earn a good enough sum with which to send back to her family and allow her to return to them. At present, however, such a wish seems impossible. Yet when the former Baron passes away under unforseen circumstances, and his exiled son returns with a foreign bride-to-be, it seems that things certainly are about to change... A story about intertwining lives and internal struggles, dark magic in a rapidly-changing society, and the acceptance of Fate. Cover by: @elphadora

"A great many things have happened in that garden - things you oughtn't to know about. Some good, some bad, and all akin to magic." Yorkshire, 1910 Sixteen-year-old Mary Lennox has said her goodbyes to the sun. Plucked from India and the only life she's ever known, Mary must find her place within the walls of Misselthwaite Manor - her estranged uncle's sprawling and dreary estate. It is only with the discovery of a locked and forgotten garden that Mary's spirits begin to lift. Claiming it for herself, the garden becomes Mary's paradise and the first secret she's ever had to keep. But, the garden has secrets of its own. Deaths, disappearances and visions have long ridden the winds of the lonely Yorkshire moors. And then there's Mary's cousin Colin, bed-ridden and fated to spend his life in the dark. Misselthwaite's mysteries begin to unravel as Mary's connection to the garden and a young gardener by the name of Dickon deepen. Is the garden the cause - or the answer to everything? A re-telling of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'THE SECRET GARDEN'

"As soon as you believe you are a monster is when you become one." After many years of war, the kingdom of Edria is finally in an era of peace--peace obtained by one thing and one thing only. A deal. King Regol has made a deal with the devil, or rather, a beast. A monster. Or so he claims. When he uses the deal for his own advantage, he threatens a girl named Zara, who has had everything but her family taken away. Zara is ordered to kill the beast Regol made a deal with, unbenownst to her that the deal even exists. When her attempt fails, she is left with two choices: to never go back home, or to learn from the beast so she can take back what is hers. She faces dangers on the castle grounds she thought were only stories; magic, creatures that kill a person in a single puff of air, and lastly, the beast, who can barely control the darkness that has buried itself in him for years. The longer she is on the castle grounds, however, the more she realizes everything is more than it seems... ...and that she has a power she could only dream about. **** A retelling of Beauty and the Beast Wonderful cover by @nicegirlsreadbooks Highest rank: #1 in Fantasy #4 in Adventure

CLOSED All you need to know about the Watty Award style contest that is just for retellings and stories heavily inspired by fairytales, folk tales, legends, myths, nursery rhymes, historical figures, and classic novels or plays! Fondly called the FCRAs for short. To enter your retelling in our contest, take a look at our rules and then just tag your story #FCRAs2016 This year's theme for our special award category is People of the Sea! But don't worry! There are plenty of other areas that a story could win in that has absolutely nothing to do with the special award category! ------ Cover made by @Pennywithaney

A fabled wall, marking the territory of the werewolves and adorned with the severed skull of a once great alpha, stands between Natalya and her prey. When she finds the body of Anesa, her beloved mentor, she is determined to hunt down the vampire responsible. Crossing the border into Claw Haven to follow him is sacrilege though, and the undead werewolves whose skeletal bodies wane and wax with the moon are more terrifying than the vampire she seeks. But there she meets Voren, a werewolf who is a living contradiction to everything she has been led to believe. Her journey into the lives of the pack entwines her and Voren's fates with that of a master vampire's: Arkadith. Defeating him may lift Voren's curse and bring peace to Valwood and Claw Haven, but Arkadith is determined to bring an end to this vampire huntress as well... Thank you to katerin1018 for the amazing book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTpc3J4SDbc&feature=youtu.be The full novel is now available on eBook and paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Veil-Jessica-Majzner-ebook/dp/B01G9JAB36/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1465353000&sr=8-6&keywords=beyond+the+veil

A girl walks into the woods...and finds a dead body. #FCRAs2016 Eleanor's life is complicated enough--struggling in school, zero love life, and fights with her mom. That's before she finds a corpse on a hike. Her only solaces are climbing with her friends and reading. Eleanor chats online with Wes, a mysterious recluse, and discovers they have a lot in common. But then her friend, Jo, is attacked outside a bar--by a freaking vampire. Eleanor is plunged into a world of horror and secrets. Vampires are real. And one is killing in her town. She sets out to hunt it, but what she finds--the truth about family and friends--changes her life. Things are more complicated than predator and prey...vampire and human. Can she trust a vampire to help her? Or will her own feelings cloud her judgment? Can trust and love turn a monster back into a man?

Florida Forest Service duty officer Ray Lumley is in love with a white fringetree. Not an I-read-Walden-in-high-school love; a sweaty, sappy, I-want-to-rub-against-you-'til-I-get-splinters love. It's awkward. So, he's relieved to learn that he's really hot for Trivia, the dreadlocked, radical environmentalist nymph who lives inside the tree. Better yet, she wants to share an eternity of Arcadian delights with him. But first she has to kill the man she holds responsible for a spate of forest fires--Ray's boss, a mid-level bureaucrat (and soccer dad) who she insists is the King of the Woods. -- King of the Woods, or Trivial Pursuit retells the myth of rex Nemorensis as an urban fantasy. Updates every Tuesday.

[ROMANCE/VAMPIRE/HISTORICAL FICTION] Cinderella isn't new to hardwork and being ill treated by her stepsisters. She has dreams and held on to it. One day Cinderella hopes it'll come true. A true prince just for her. But fate might give her something unexpected. Current cover by: @goatsaye

Book One in the Soul Seeker Series. At fifteen Amelia is forced to move in with her birthfather when her mother passes away. A man she's never met before in her life, stern and unfair, he is almost never at home and forces his family to move whenever his job calls for it. For three years Amelia has looked after herself and her younger brother Hayden but when she tranfers to Riverwood High everything changes. She finds herself friends there despite the efforts of her stepsister. One teacher in particular takes an interest in her, the 25 year old Nathaniel Flynn. The first time he laid eyes on her he knew, he just had to have her. At eighteen Amelia has to look after her baby brother, hold her own against a stepmother and mean stepsister and battle feelings she's never felt before. After all... Dating your teacher is forbidden, not that Nathaniel seems to care about that. Add into the equation that both her new found friends and teacher aren't who they say they are... Their diet consisting mainly of blood.

Alethea has always been awkward - eccentric, even. On a typical day she spends her time cloistered inside a tiny apartment hiding from the world she doesn't really understand. When her therapist encourages her to push herself outside her comfort zone, Thea makes an ill-fated trip into the city. Even though her therapist assured her nothing would go wrong, Thea gets attacked and sent to purgatory, which is, for someone who is agoraphobic, claustrophobic, germaphobic, the worst nightmare imaginable. Even worse? She may never be able to get back to the comfort of her apartment. She may not even want to. Cover made by the talented @Tanii915