2021 LODESTAR AWARD for BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

Some love heals. Some love consumes. Which love wins?Learning the truth about the malevolenci war changes everything. The fairies, jinn, and vampires have already rebelled, and now zealots threaten to go a step further by siding with the enemy. Traitors are everywhere. Covert plots disrupt centuries of peace. Those still loyal to the Order must end the war quickly, or else there won’t be an Order left to save.For Esme, their greatest ally’s reappearance is soul-shaking. She knows they must work together, but what does this mean for Esme and Owen’s relationship? And what is Esme’s place now that she’s not this world’s only protector? Do they even need her anymore…or want her?By invading the heart of the malevolenci world, Esme and Owen have a chance to end this war once and for all. Their elite cavali team is ready to face the dangers of the demons’ hellscape, but the greatest threat is one they never see coming.

A relentless, horror-inducing psychological suspense for fans of The Push and Baby Teeth by New York Times bestselling author CG Drews. Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden-retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect. Then Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls. He says their renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it–something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son? Then the one secret Elodie has been hiding is revealed, and no one is safe anymore. A pulse-pounding, clever take on the haunted house novel, You Did Nothing Wrong examines the complexities of motherhood and the twisted bonds of family as it races to its shocking ending.

CG Drews, New York Times-bestselling author of Don't Let the Forest In and Hazelthorn, weaves a disturbing and intoxicating siren-call in Scorpion Deep, about a lonely boy who accidentally awakens an obsessive eldritch sea god.The only thing Jonathan Covey wants from the gloomy, moldering isle of Kelcarrow is to leave it. Summer is ending, and his friends are looking forward to college on the mainland, unaware that Jonathan was not accepted to join them. He'll be left behind with nothing but the ocean's haunts and a rising dread of being abandoned.In an act of wild desperation, Jonathan pays a tithe to Scorpion Deep, an eldritch sea god who many of the locals have dismissed as myth. He wants to forget the past, he wants to follow his friends, and most of all he wants to finally escape.To his shock and horror, the ritual works—Scorpion Deep awakens. And despite his terror, Jonathan can't help but feel drawn toward the ageless entity that seems just as mutually obsessed with him. As scales start growing down his spine and Scorpion Deep's adoration of him turns bloody, Jonathan realizes the only way to end the nightmare is to destroy the monster one way or another.But once a god has awoken, the only way to be free is to pay a price of blood.

From C.G. Drews' Patreon: This short story is a crossover between Hazelthorn and Don't Let The Forest In. It contains major spoilers for Hazelthorn, but you could still read it even if you haven't read Don't Let The Forest In yet (it only contains minor spoilers for it). [...] This story is by Laurie's POV and it takes place during the October when Don't Let The Forest In was happening. The story takes place in the lead up to Chapter 16 in Don't Let The Forest In (and this all happens before the events of Hazelthorn). [...] Writing this was a chance to explore Laurie's previously untold perspective and I thoroughly loved being in the head of my wretched, snarky boy. The story turned out to be 9,000-words so, well !! Turns out Laurie had much to say. I hope you enjoy reading a little more forest rot. Available as free text (everyone) or epub (paid subscribers) on author's Patreon (@ Paper Fury)