Stories by @penguininja

Ella and Ash

Three years after her mother’s death, Ella is left with an absent father, a cruel stepmother, and a magical pendant so powerful she must keep it hidden. The pendant is the only connection Ella has with her mother, and she will do anything to protect it—even if it means becoming a servant in her own home. To escape her wicked stepfamily, Ella finds solace under the branches of the weeping willow beside her mother’s grave. Ella thought she could practice her magic there in secret, but when she is caught by Ashwin, the son of the richest lord in the county, Ella fears she may lose her pendant after all. Ashwin gains Ella’s trust by promising not to tell anyone about the pendant, but Ella knows they are from different worlds, and she is reluctant to open up to him too much. When Ashwin invites Ella to a masquerade ball, she sees it as a chance to escape her life, even if it is for just one night. But her pendant isn’t the only secret Ella has been keeping. If Ashwin learns who she really is, will the truth ruin her chance of happiness with him, or will it set her free?

Street Rat

Street Rat, that's what they call me. My reputation precedes me. There isn't anything I can't steal, acquire or covet. I own the streets of Kingston Village, and everyone knows who I am. Except for the mystery girl Boo and I spend one lustrous night with. I need to find her, but she isn't from around here. She may have been trying to fit in, but she didn't fool me. When some rich prick tries to tempt me to find the underground club, The Lamp, I dismiss him until his phone rings, and her face flashes on the screen. He wants to throw cash at me to find something for him, except he forgets one thing Never trust a thief. Finding The Lamp, lands me in a world I never wanted to be part of. I become the prized fighter for the mafia Don. The upside, his daughter is the girl we spent the night with. Genie gives us an opportunity to be part of her world. Problem is she is engaged, and my best friend also has his eyes on her, and her bodyguard throws himself into the mix. Lucky for me, sharing has never been an issue.

A Cage of Gold and Lies

Growing up on the streets, Zari used to dream of a fairytale ending. Until she found out that magic was real, and witnessed the horrible consequences. On that day she learned that the billionaire who lords over the city keeps people with the gift of magic as his personal slaves. And none can escape him alive. When Zari's drunken father boasts that his daughter has magic, Zari will do anything to protect her little sister. Even lie to take her place as a slave. But how long can she survive the billionaire's cruel tests and tasks when she can't cast a single spell? In this modern day, urban fantasy retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, can a young woman escape a cage of gold and lies?

The Code of Us

When Mia and Arden Drew are in a horrific car accident, the dreams they shared for their future balance on a precipice. As a talented neuropsychologist working for one of the world’s foremost experimental human research facilities, Mia uses the resources at her fingertips to save her husband’s life. Mia’s grief-fuelled decision catapults her into the depths of a messy court case where her actions are subjected to intense public scrutiny. Her intentions, relationships, and career are put to the ultimate test as the people around her question how far she should have gone to save her husband, and whether he is still the man she fell in love with. Now, she must face the truth of what she’s done and try to piece together the shards of her shattered dreams, or risk losing her husband once and for all.

Thief of Dreams

When Prince Keir of the Court of Dreams sends out a summons in search of a bride, the Wraith King sees a chance to steal the powerful Dragon's Heart. He sends his best thief, Zemira Az Ghul, to penetrate the court as one of the potential brides. 

 All Zemira wants is freedom from the chains that bind her to the king, and if she finds the relic she'll have it. But the Court of Dreams is more dangerous than she ever expected, and Zemira must soon choose between her freedom—and her heart.


Star Daughter

If the night sky holds many secrets, it holds Sheetal Mistry's secret the closest. A secret that explains why her hair is the silver of starlight, or why some nights the stars call Sheetal by name. Stars like her mother, who returned to her place in the constellation Pushya years ago. Since that day, Sheetal has been forced to hide. But as her seventeenth birthday draws near, the pull from the sky is growing stronger. So strong that Sheetal loses control, and a flare of starfire burns her human father—an injury only a full star's blood can heal. Sheetal has no choice but to answer the starsong and ascend to the sky. But her celestial family has summoned her for a reason: to act as their human champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of heavens. Desperate to save her father, Sheetal agrees. But nothing could have prepared Sheetal to face the stars' dark history—or the forces that are working to shut the gate between the realms for good.

Ingo

Sapphire's father mysteriously vanishes into the waves off the Cornwall coast where her family has always lived. She misses him terribly, and she longs to hear his spellbinding tales about the Mer, who live in the underwater kingdom of Ingo. Perhaps that is why she imagines herself being pulled like a magnet toward the sea. But when her brother, Conor, starts disappearing for hours on end, Sapphy starts to believe she might not be the only one who hears the call of the ocean.

The Princess Must Die

In an Elven city beneath the streets of Chicago, the perfect storm rages, kept under control only by Marbella Mercy, the Storm Princess. Now she is of age, champions from each of the elven houses will play a game of wit and strength to fight for her hand – and for the chance to control the forces of nature. Baelen Rath, a warrior and leader of the feared House of Rath, is the only male Marbella has ever trusted. He'll risk everything to be her champion. But what he and the others don't know? The princess is fighting too. Because she's discovered that the winner is cursed to kill her, not marry her, and the only way to save herself is to win. But Marbella is fighting a power greater than herself, because someone believes that the perfect storm should be unleashed and for that to happen – the princess must die.

The Winner's Curse

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Passenger List

Atlantic Flight 702 has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board. Kaitlin Le, a college student whose twin brother vanished with the flight, is determined to uncover the truth.

Pan's Whisper

When you’re fighting to forget, what would make you remember? Pan Harris is brash, loud and damaged. Ordered into foster care, Pan is full of anger at the mother who abandoned her, and the older sister who kept her from her father. Pan is certain that she knows the reality of her past – until she meets Hunter, the boy who understands her story better than anyone else, and who just may be the key to unlocking the truth of Pan’s memories. But are some memories best left forgotten? And is Hunter worth Pan breaking her most important rule – Never. Trust. Anyone.

When Stars Come Out

Anora Silby can see the dead and turn spirits into gold coins, two things she would prefer to keep secret as she tries to lead a normal life at her new school. After all, she didn’t change her identity for nothing. As it turns out, hiding her weirdness is just one of many challenges. By the end of her first day, she’s claimed the soul of a dead girl on campus and lost the coin. Turns out, the coin gives others the ability to steal souls, and when a classmate ends up dead, there’s no mistaking the murder weapon. Navigating the loss of her Poppa, her mother’s mistrust, and Roundtable, an anonymous student gossip app threatening to expose her, are hard enough. Now she must find the person who stole her coin before more lives are lost, but that means making herself a target for the Order, an organization that governs the dead on Earth -- and they want Anora and her powers for themselves.

The Fall of an Eagle

To the wild, threatening uplands of Anatolia comes Virginia, who, since the death of her husband, has made her career as a professional archaeologist. She is kindly received by Meldum, an American engineer and the pretty Turkish woman doctor who, with the chief of Police, comprise the English-speaking population of the little town. This is a hard land, parched and poor. In spite of the efforts of the Turkish Government, its inhabitants are heirs to centuries of hopelessness and poverty. There is, however, another visitor, a Kurd educated at the American College in Istanbul, who presence seems as disturbing to the authorities as it is to Virginia's feelings. The passionate affair that develops between them, an affair which Meldrum watches with outward cynicism and inward concern, leads rapidly to a conclusion as unexpected as it is violent.

The Edge of Sleep

When a night watchman finishes his shift at work, he is terrified to discover that everyone in the world who went to sleep the previous night has died. Now he and a band of survivors must stay awake and uncover the secret of this global epidemic, before they fall asleep.

Our Life: Beginnings and Always

Grow from childhood to adulthood with the lonely boy next door. It’s a wholesome experience that faces large steppingstones of life, while having a focus on familiar everyday moments.

Fathomless

Celia Reynolds is the youngest in a set of triplets and the one with the least valuable power. Anne can see the future, and Jane can see the present, but all Celia can see is the past. And the past seems so insignificant -- until Celia meets Lo. Lo doesn't know who she is. Or who she was. Once a human, she is now almost entirely a creature of the sea -- a nymph, an ocean girl, a mermaid -- all terms too pretty for the soulless monster she knows she's becoming. Lo clings to shreds of her former self, fighting to remember her past, even as she's tempted to embrace her dark immortality. When a handsome boy named Jude falls off a pier and into the ocean, Celia and Lo work together to rescue him from the waves. The two form a friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for Jude's affection. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the ocean girls, there's only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity. She must persuade a mortal to love her . . . and steal his soul.

The Perfect Suspect

Dr Tom Hackett had the perfect life - young, successful and a dream job working in New Orleans. All that changes when his wife is murdered, her body mutilated, the victim of a seemingly random attack. Desperate to leave those memories behind, he returns home to Australia and accepts a job in Sanctuary, an idyllic resort far from the dark shadows of New Orleans. But there is no sanctuary from his past, and when a spate of gruesome murders hits the sleepy town, Tom suddenly finds himself the prime suspect - all the victims are women he knows, and all who are killed have an uncanny similarity to his wife. With Tom's life on the line, can he afford to trust anyone? With the police and the killer closing in, Tom must uncover Sanctuary's chilling secret, or remain the perfect suspect.

Lakesedge

There are monsters in the world. When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster. She knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem. There are monsters in the woods. As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn… There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name. Now, to save Rowan—and herself—Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under. 

The Narrowboat Girl

Young Maryann Nelson is devastated at the loss of her beloved father. But worse is to come when her mother, Flo, sees an opportunity to better herself and her family in a marriage to the local undertaker, Norman Griffin. Though on the surface a caring family man, Norman is not at all what he seems, as Maryann and her sister Sal soon discover. Unable to turn to their unsympathetic mother for support, the girls are left alone with their harrowing secret. But for Sal it is too much to bear . . . The chance of a new life opens up for Maryann when she befriends Joel Bartholomew. Aboard his narrowboat, the Esther Jane, she finds herself falling in love with life on the canal as she is swept away from Birmingham and all her worries. Until Joel's feelings for Maryann begin to change, awakening all the old nightmares that she had thought were long buried, and in panic and confusion she takes flight . . .

The Tulip Girl

Abandoned as a baby, spirited Maddie March has had to fight her way through life. So when she finds a home at Few Farm with Frank Brackenbury and his household, she welcomes the chance for a fresh start. Work on the farm is hard, but believing herself truly loved for the first time by the farmer's son, Michael, nothing can mar Maddie's newfound happiness. But 1947 brings a harsh winter, sweeping devastation over the farm and threatening the Brackenburys' livelihood. All seems lost, until Maddie has an idea that might save them all from poverty. But then she discovers she is pregnant...