Lovely Creatures

Doomsday Dot will wake the day the world ends. That's what everyone says, yours truly included. Bryony's been searching for her big sister for ten years and change, and the trail finally leads her to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time's traveling show. There's a wolf who'll serve you tea, a lady who's sometimes a swan, and Bryony's sister sound asleep in a glass casket. All of them, rolling through the wasteland in a giant wooden Whale. The Whale's important, you'll see. But Bryony's not the only one on the hunt. Everyone on the Whale is running from something. And whether Bryony can wake her sister before they're caught, well, only the Devil herself knows. The Devil's important as well. You'll see that, too.   KT Bryski is a Canadian fantasy author. Their short fiction has appeared in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Apex, among others. They have been a finalist for the Sunburst, Eugie, and Aurora awards, and they co-founded and-co-chaired the ephemera reading series. When not writing, they frolic about enjoying choral music and craft beer.   "If a traveling circus had a fairytale soul, it would be this troupe of misfits. If a gothic house had a car, it would be this wooden whale. KT Byriski's Lovely Creatures is an astounding journey of finding family, escaping poisonous relationships, and telling tales the entire way. Pay your penny and step through the curtain. You won't regret it." - Fran Wilde "Lovely Creatures is gritty, surreal, and a spectacularly whimsical novella that interweaves fairytales, deliciously twisted, yet recognizable, in a warped wonderland, unravelling how all the stories and characters are all interconnected by the thread of death." - Ai Jiang "With the sure hand of a master of archetype and image, KT Bryski deftly pulls back the curtain to show us a world we've always suspected was there. This is where our bedtime stories go when the lights go off. It'll take your breath, but don't worry; you'll get it back by the end." - Kate Heartfield "A gorgeously wrought, dark, and unsettling twist on fairy tales where the Devil stalks a storm-whittled landscape, and where Bryony searches for her long-lost sister. It's written as a weave of tales, and Bryski's prose has a magic all its own. A woman finds her sister sleeping in a glass coffin. There's a wolf and swan-maiden, and a man who holds everyone in thrall with his stories. Bryski delves deep in heartache and guilt, love and friendship, and the landscape of the story is tightly intertwined with the people traveling through it. Beautiful, strange, and profoundly moving." - Maria Haskins