THE 2026 PUBLISHING DERBY BOOKS

Some truths never die, they simply wait.The world is barren, broken, dying, and the people left struggle to survive day to day. The walking cities, sentient and strange, do their best to safeguard their Magnates, for without them, there is no life and no future.Nima, Magnate of Rust, does her best to safeguard her city and its people, but a secret from the past chases her, even if she does not know the origin.When Nima must leave Rust, when the only way for her city to live is to find the Stones of myth and somehow harness their power, she vows to complete her task or die in the attempt.But there is more to her task than Nima could ever imagine, and the deeper she sinks, the more an ancient prophecy takes hold.
When power speaks, older than campfires, will she be enough?

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A man on a mountain wants apples.He has forgotten those who loved him and what he was, but that does not matter.Thousands die, families are broken, and an old religion burns. New friends follow him to form accords with ancient daemons, through ice and death, to a place beyond existence where no one living can return.He really wants those apples.

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An ancient forest spirit is dying, and she knows that. Where she once received offerings from whole villages, she now only receives the occasional thank you from hunters and travelers. In order for her magic to operate, she needs those gifts to survive. And as the autumn progresses, she comes up with a desperate plan. The forest spirit makes a deal with a violinist grappling with a heavy loss and a disgraced prince to bring offerings to help keep her alive. But magic has a cost, and meddling with fate can bring consequences. Is it worth the risks to try and save herself?

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Three hundred years ago, the decades long war between humans and the merfolk came to a disastrous end when the entire world was flooded in an act of rage. The only remaining humans live under a magical dome. Now, the dome is failing, the magic of the merfolk is all but depleted. To bring it back, a joint mission between humans and the merfolk is planned, led by an experienced human captain and the princess of the merfolk.The two of them, together with twelve other women, six humans and six of the merfolk, set out in a state of the art underwater ship to find Lemuria's statue and the magic within it, to restore the dome and save everyone. During the weeks all alone on board the ship, friendships form, even romance kindles. But will the mission be a success, or will secrets and hidden agendas doom everyone?

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Lord Edmund Butterworth has built his respectable life on two principles—always dress for the occasion, and ensure the dead remain buried.The first is considerably easier.By day, Edmund writes popular etiquette pamphlets and performs aristocratic stability while his estate crumbles around him. By night, he vents his frustrations by dispatching the restless dead before they can inconvenience the living.Then Tarquin Poncenby returns to Bellweather with the season’s most exclusive attraction—a private exhibition of post-mortem animation.The guests are appalled... until someone asks about the commercial applications. Soon, bankers are discussing investment, landowners are considering obedient labour, and grieving patrons are promised that even death itself may be negotiable.Edmund knows the truth. But exposing Tarquin could reveal the Gravewardens, ruin Edmund’s reputation, and destroy what little remains of Butterworth Hall. As more bodies vanish and Tarquin digs into Edmund’s buried past, Edmund must decide how much he’s willing to expose before Tarquin takes something he can't replace.Polite society has always had an appetite for novelty.
Unfortunately, this novelty has an appetite of its own.

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Heretic. Sacrifice. Superior.For four years, Arlene Defontra has been heralded as the town omen, condemned by the Ashen Church and its leader, Elric. When Mount Superior, the lifeblood of their town, erupts and Arlene is accused of murdering a town local, the townspeople offer her as the next Mother Superior—a sacrifice meant to appease the monstrous spirit who dwells within.Arlene expects death. Instead, she finds the real Father Superior, the ancient God forged of fire and stone who has watched over her people for centuries. Yet those same people stray from belief and continue to dig deeper into the volcano—to disastrous consequences.Together, they must face a village who fears them, a crumbling faith built on lies, and a question neither has dared to ask.What if the monster of the mountain is the only one who was never a monster at all?Mother Superior is a fast paced, fast burn that revolves around human nature and religious fanaticism, and is perfect for readers who want a quick, engaging read with a little spice to their romance.

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For a thousand years, the Order of the Silver Scythe has defended humanity from the monsters of the desert.Darius has spent seven of those years preparing to join its ranks. He may not be the greatest fighter in his class, but alongside his three closest friends - brilliant Qeb, fearless Masika, and unmatched Ankhu - he is finally ready to graduate.Then the monsters attack.Creatures that have never cooperated before descend upon the Order’s headquarters. A Grandmaster is assassinated, nearby cities fall to the monsters, and Darius' team is forced to flee into the desert, where some of them disappear without a trace.Darius is searching for answers, and his only lead comes from an impossible ally: a Hybrid who claims that not every monster is their enemy.To save his friends, and the Order itself, Darius must enter a city that moves with the sand, face the mysterious Council, and uncover the truth of the Old Kings. Or risk the end of humanity.But the greatest threat may not be waiting beyond the Order’s walls.It may already be inside them.

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Silas Blackwell escaped Ashcross years ago and swore never to return. But Ashcross has a way of calling its own back. Lissa has never left the town. Raised under the watch of its oldest families, she has spent her life trying to be the kind of girl Ashcross rewards: quiet, obedient, and careful not to draw notice.
Because in Ashcross, notice can kill. Some monsters wait in the darkness beyond the town. Others have been living in its foundations all along. And when the truth finally claws its way to the surface, both Silas and Lissa will have to decide what they are willing to become to make it out alive.

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Clumsy, sarcastic, and riddled with anxiety, Elista never imagined she would find herself serving as lady’s maid to Princess Imra, the most notorious elf-hating royal in the kingdom.But Elista has bigger ambitions than serving tea and ducking away from the princess’ thrown slippers. She wants to prove herself worthy of joining the uprising, a secret organization determined to free the elves at any cost.Her first assignment? Spy on the princess.Simple enough.Except Princess Imra is guarding secrets far more dangerous than Elista expected. The more Elista learns about the royal court, the more she begins to question everything she has been taught about the princess, the uprising, and the night humanity stole the elves’ freedom.Uncovering the truth will take Elista far beyond the palace walls and force her to place her trust in the last person she ever expected. Because something ancient is beginning to awaken. And if Elista hopes to free her people, she may have to reclaim the power they lost before the kingdom destroys it for good.Starting a revolution was always going to be dangerous.Elista just wished it involved fewer thrown objects, less horseback riding, and significantly fewer panic attacks.

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The things of the sea will always return, and the kindness of strangers is never forgotten.When hardship reignites the unlikely friendship between a siren and a sailor, they both find themselves with a chance to reclaim some of what they lost. Natalie wishes to honor her father's legacy. Corothylia wishes to restore her people.Together, they may be able to change things. But change does not come without cost, and the Reefmaker will have its price.

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History remembers the American Revolution.The woods remember something else.Pennsylvania, 1776.Armies march through the forests sowing discord. With her father and brother called away on a secret mission, sixteen-year-old Ruth is left to look after her younger brother and keep a promise to the neighbors they've sworn to help. But strange things are moving through the forest.A giant wolf leaves food on doorsteps.Strange animals wander the woods.
And a forgotten magic is awakening beneath the scarlet leaves.The war may shape a nation...
...but what waits in the woods could change Ruth's world forever.Scarlet Woods is an atmospheric historical fantasy filled with Revolutionary America, hidden magic, Irish folklore, adventure, and the quiet hope that even the oldest legends can still choose compassion over fear.

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Xia, the unrivaled lord of an army of victorious gods, nearly drowned on his very first day as a lowly mortal. Thankfully, there was a fishing boat nearby, and a very confused old man inside.Hyier, a very confused old man, didn't quite know what to do with the lunatic claiming divinity, but taking him home for a change of clothes seemed like a good first step.Eryn, Xia's protective and more cautious younger sister, has determined that the only thing standing between her kin and crushing mortal doom is her. And she will keep her brother alive at any cost...

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In the secluded village of Xinat, children aren’t born with a name. Instead, they must earn theirs through a heroic deed by the time they are sixteen or are banished. One month away from her birthday, Unue’s time to find a task is running out. Scrambling to find anything worthy, she catches wind of reports of wild beasts attacking other villages, with even some of the townsfolk disappearing when the creatures retreat.Convinced this is how she can earn her name, Unue sets out to track the beasts down and save the kidnapped people alongside her best friend. But there is more to these mysterious animals, secrets that threaten to upend everything she knows about her world. And when her family becomes a target for attacks, Unue will have to put everything on the line to save what she loves.

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Osheru wasn’t looking to bond with a dragon, but when she stumbles on a secret plot to sell off her ancestral home’s dragon eggs, she can’t help but take one for herself. When the dragon hatches gold, a color that hasn’t been seen for hundreds of years, she knows that she needs to find a way to conceal her origins, enroll as a dragon rider, and keep her head down as she tries to find enough evidence to unravel the conspiracy of The Unwanted Wyrmling.

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He woke on an altar, his memories gone, left with only a lingering half-recollection of death.Now the newly-named Niemann must cross the realm to find the fragments of a sword that might help him remember - or spell the realm's doom.But others know his past better than he does... and they will stop at nothing to prevent him from regaining his memory.

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Jacek is a botanist and is working with others on a new planet. Until one day a coworker found a strange stone and lead to have the goverments Order of the Silk Call involved.
He gets blamed for stealing this stone and gets banished to the planet Oblivion World, a dry, desert planet. There is found by Aero and Briar, who take him with them.

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When scientists unlocked the secret of wormhole travel, they expected it to drive them into the next phase of human evolution. Inaccessibility would be a thing of the past. Food moving to impoverished areas would no longer spoil in transit. Help would never be more than a portal away.But humanity is greedy.Those who control the wormholes care only about lining their pockets. Technology is sold to whoever can pay and withheld from those who can’t. For anyone willing to pay a little extra, the would-be guardrails can easily be dismantled. Rules are bent. Eyes turn away.And sometimes, people don’t come out of the wormholes alone.The things that sneak through became known as Extra-Dimensional Entities. Sometimes they are nothing more than an inconvenient prankster or a snooping shadow on the wall. Other times, they wreak havoc. Thus, the Cleanup Crew was born.Shayne has worked for Cleanup Crew #42 for the past seven years. He’s seen plenty and questioned more. But if he’s learned anything in this business, it’s that there’s no such thing as a routine call.

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Every world has a last war.The Infinite Company has been fighting them all.Kristoff Maclean is recruited from a dying world and brought to the Bastion, an impossible fortress existing beyond the boundaries of time and space. Here, soldiers from countless civilizations are gathered into a single army. They are given weapons, armor, and a purpose—but not the truth.The Company claims to protect worlds that cannot protect themselves. Yet the deeper Kristoff goes into the Bastion, the more he realizes that its soldiers are not simply recruited.They are collected.Their worlds. Their memories. Their deaths.Everything has been part of a plan.When an operation in the Bastion's Red Sector uncovers evidence that the Company's war is far older—and far stranger—than anyone knows, Kristoff is forced to question the only thing he thought he could trust: the Company itself.Because the Infinite Company does not exist to save the dying.It exists to ensure that something survives them.

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No one knew what killed the world, the deadly virus, the nuclear winter, or the mutant organisms left behind. What matters is the world was dead. Decades later, it is up to the survivors to search the everfog for anything left worth saving.When a disciple of a post-apocalypse cult mistakes a scavenger for a savior, faith must confront fact and science must confront sorcery. Told through transcripts, letters, and clerical records from the Sanctuary of Our Lady Betty Crocker of Perpetual Mercy, Scavenger Rites is a novella of humor and horror and what people turn to when they have nothing left.

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Lyssa has served the Order for three years. Clean record. No incidents. She has never questioned an assignment.Then a street artist starts painting wings across the city, the true kind, the kind Lyssa's own body was built to wear and never once permitted to raise.Something in her wakes up.What follows costs her everything she thought she was: colleagues she has to end with her own hands, comrades turned enemies, answers from the Order that turn out to be curated lies wearing the shape of mercy.She was never going to find freedom in knowing the truth.Only in choosing.

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Humans are not meant for eternity.It is the Martian War. It has been since the Mebas arrived. It has been since forever.There is only one way to end it: reach the Tower and destroy it.Jay's squad has been trying to accomplish their mission for the last eternity. But when the rules of the iteration start to change, a new possibility emerges. There may, finally, be a chance to finish it — if they hold on to their memory and each other. Before they lose themselves to eternity.

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Mitch works for Wholesale Heroes, the company with the lowest-ranked heroes in the city. Despite his technokinetic gift, they only want him behind a desk, processing unlimiter, a chemical that gives heroes a temporary increase in power.City safety takes a downward spiral when someone starts dosing animals with illegal, unprocessed unlimiter. With the resulting monster attacks on the rise, Mitch is finally sent out into the field with other heroes.Despite his best efforts, every mission crashes into a dumpster fire. Every failure hammers home that he'll never be the hero he wants to be.After a chance meeting with a mysterious vigilante named Glorious, Mitch's perspective shifts. Maybe he COULD do more than wallow in his basement office.With unlimiter going missing, tech being stolen, and a whole zoo of animals kidnapped, Mitch and Glorious race to stop the looming destruction of the city.

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Proceeding to the funeral of his recently departed father, Travis Grant returns to the small town that he grew up in to pay his respects. Travis encounters many of the old friends and family that he left behind while moving away to pursue a failed music career.As Travis begins to rekindle old connections with the people that he left behind, he begins to learn about the type of person that his dad was. Travis has to grip with the death of his father and why his father might have taken his own life.

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Innocent the lead singer, creates an elaborate scheme about a fake ex boyfriend. Layering the lies to everyone, including her boyfriend Lua, until they become reality.When the lies consume her and the line of reality and delusion blur together. When will she stop? Or will the bottle of vodka she grips onto be her saving grace?Will she fall in love with her "ex" or will things work out with Lua? Will Innocent be able to handle the pressure of rising fame and fortune?

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Paige, a fine dining server waiting for her Broadway big break, is thrilled to attend her best friend’s destination wedding—even if Madison has only known her fiancé for a matter of months. When the bride announces that she’s hoping the lead-up to the big day will spark a second whirlwind romance, Paige starts to wonder if she’s got a shot with the groom’s adorable brunette friend.Abigail, a shy, nerdy engineer, doesn’t understand how she got a bridesmaid invitation to her best friend Joey’s wedding. Meeting the rest of the gorgeous, charismatic bridal party just leaves her feeling more self-conscious; surely the crush she’s developing on a certain elegant, black-haired bombshell is hopeless. When Abigail learns the bride and groom plan to play matchmaker on a tiny private island, she becomes so focused on being the perfect wingman for one of the groomsmen that she just might overlook her own chance at love.During four days of icebreakers, ocean waves, and spontaneous dance lessons, Paige and Abigail will each need to navigate their own insecurities if they’re going to stay together at the end of their long first date.

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Rosamund Valehart was raised on stories of honour, magic, and loyalty to the crown, until the king executed her father for treason and left the rest of her family to rot.
Now the last hope of House Valehart rests on a marriage she never wanted.When her sister flees on the eve of her betrothal, Rosamund takes her place beside Prince Dorian Mordane, the kingdom’s feared Prince of Death. Cold, and cursed with a magic that decays everything he touches, Dorian is the last man Rosamund would ever choose as a husband.Dragged into the dark, glittering court of Aurelmere, Rosamund finds herself trapped in a nest of vipers where every smile hides a knife. But behind the walls of Blackthorn Hall, she begins to uncover dangerous truths and monstrous secrets buried beneath the kingdom itself.As rebellion stirs in the shadows and enemies gather at court, Rosamund is torn between vengeance for her father and the devastating pull of the prince she was raised to despise.Perfect for readers of Gothic Romantasy, The Traitor’s Daughter is an enemies-to-lovers fantasy filled with dangerous court politics, forbidden magic, slow-burn romance, and a prince who would burn the world down for the woman brave enough to see the man beneath the monster.

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A standalone adult romantasy featuring enemies to lovers, childhood friends turned enemies, forced proximity, slow-burn romance, dual POV, elemental fire-and-water magic, a living-weapon heroine, a rebel prince, political intrigue, and a rebellion built in the shadows.For eleven years, Leonor has been the Flame.Once, she was a girl who could summon fire. Now she is the Mantle's most feared weapon, sent ahead of its armies to hunt the kingdom's remaining mages. Obedience is the only mercy she has left to offer. If she refuses an order, someone else suffers in her place.To Nico, the Flame is a monster.Known as the Drowned Prince, Nico survived the Mantle's stripping chambers and escaped into the rebellion. Now, with an army preparing to cross his river, he as one impossible task. Kill the Flame before thousands of soldiers reach the other side.Instead, he finds Leonor.The girl who helped him escape eleven years ago. The girl whose blade he still carries. And the woman he has crossed an army to kill.So the blade falls.
The river rises.
And when the Flame goes under, only Leonor comes out the other side.Now the Mantle wants its weapon back. The rebellion wants answers. Leonor must learn how to make choices no one else has made for her, while Nico confronts a possibility that could unravel everything he believes.Perhaps the girl he spent eleven hears hating was never his enemy at all.Perfect for readers of The Bridge Kingdom who love enemies divided by war and loyalty, morally complicated heroines, political fantasy woven tightly into the romance, and stories that ask what happens when everything you were taught about your enemy turns out to be wrong.

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In the Hidden City, citizens need nothing more than that which can be found in their boroughs. When Connor Leclerc, a listless courier, encounters an enigmatic girl claiming to be an Outsider, he finds the City holds secrets that threaten to collapse the entire system.As the truths Connor has been taught from childhood begin to unravel, along with the carefully constructed systems of the Ancients, can he survive the forces of the City long enough to complete his task?

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Lauren Rodney came home for a funeral. She never expected to investigate a murder.Ten years after her cousin Natalie was killed, Lauren returns to Bellemere for her grandmother’s funeral, just as the man accused of Natalie’s murder goes on trial. But something about the case doesn’t sit right with Lauren. The evidence seems too convenient, the answers don’t quite fit, and the more questions she asks, the more convinced she becomes that the wrong man may be on trial.Someone knows she is asking questions. First comes a threatening note. Then another. Lauren tries to dismiss them, but whoever is watching her knows where she goes, who she talks to, and what she is looking for.And they are running out of patience.As Lauren closes in on a secret someone has spent ten years protecting, she must discover the truth about Natalie’s murder before the person determined to silence her gets the chance to finish what they started.

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