An Indie Book Bonanza!

After a hiatus I relaunched my Indie Author Spotlight and the response was huge! I thought it would be fun to gather all the new and upcoming releases for the season in one megapost. Whatever your favorite genre, you’ll find Indies there pushing the limits of storytelling. It’s a venue for traditionally excluded voices and a powerful human expression in our mediated world (no AI here–this is not a safe space for clankers!) So have a browse, and you may just find your next favourite author.

NEW RELEASES

Asha Kapoor’s travel tours are high on fun and (allegedly) light on history. Her co-worker Callum Kelly’s tours are heavy on history and (most certainly) lacking in whimsy. Luckily, they both run their own tours and don’t have to worry about each other’s distinct styles.

Until their boss combines both tours into one grand European expedition. Suddenly, Asha and Callum have to find a way to lead the tour without ruining the experience for the guests, throwing the other off a castle turret, or making out in the front of the bus.

But they are professionals, and the tour must go on. Now if only they could figure out what will happen to their budding vacation-ship.

BUY IT HERE

When a routine mission to the past goes awry, time traveler Cal Hunter returns to the 26th century to find he’s wiped out nearly all of humanity, and the colony on Mars he’s called home for seven years is failing. Their only hope of fixing the past comes in the form of 14-year-old Renata Carr, a time traveler who is put under Cal’s reluctant care. In the end, he must decide–sacrifice all of humanity for Renata, or send her to a certain death.

BUY IT HERE

America’s heartthrob, Jace Wilder, and Britain’s bad boy, Lennox Rome, have been cast in the most anticipated movie adaption of the year. Will these two rivals find a way to get along? Maybe a little too much …

BUY IT HERE

Poppy Thomas has spent years hiding behind stories instead of living one. A struggling writer battling depression, she’s shocked when she recognizes Summoner, the reclusive British rock legend who vanished from the spotlight years ago, in her local coffee shop.

Hoping an exclusive interview will revive her career, Poppy finds herself drawn into Summoner’s quiet world instead. As an unlikely friendship turns into something deeper, they help each other confront the loneliness, grief, and expectations they’ve spent years carrying.

But falling in love with one of the world’s most famous musicians comes with a price. Between relentless public scrutiny, their age gap, and the fears they’re both still trying to outrun, Poppy and Summoner must decide whether love is worth risking the lives they’ve carefully built, or if some songs are meant to remain unfinished.

BUY IT HERE

Fate brought them together. War divided them for decades. Nothing can keep them apart.

To save her runaway brother from an angry Crown, Charlotte Ashley disguises herself and takes his place as a runner in the Great War, never expecting to find her soulmate in the trenches of France: sullen sniper Alex Rook. Torn from him in battle, convinced her love has perished, Ashley spends the next twenty years haunted by the ghosts of what might have been. When the two are unexpectedly reunited, can their battle-scarred hearts overcome the deception of the past and fear of the future, or will the clouds of the next great war sever their connection once and for all in this sweeping tale of the pain and poetry of war, and connection that transcends time?

BUY IT HERE


COMING SOON

British Sign Language interpreter Ben Cooper excels at sticking to the background. Keeping quiet is literally the gig. And he loves it. The only problem is his unwieldy, unethical, entirely unrequited crush on his sole client, Simon Azie.

Overachieving Simon is everything Ben’s not. Career-forward and composed, the deaf PR agent sparkles through life, reversing celebrity scandals with a wink and a grin – until, that is, his insta-perfect image glitches.

Tagged in an anonymous sex tape filmed in a closeted client’s country pile, the agency cues Simon for cancellation before their reputation gets as muddy as a music festival. Panicked they’ll never work together again, Ben blunders in with the worst idea he’s ever had: what if the unidentified other man is him?

PREORDER NOW!

Alex Mercer was supposed to be untouchable: the golden heir to his family’s powerful law firm in Los Angeles, two years of associate experience under his belt, dispatched to Las Vegas to bring the chaotic Global Combat League to heel.

Instead, he met Jack Doyle.

What started as an interview ended with Alex stripped bare on Jack’s desk, claimed so thoroughly he could still feel it weeks later. What started as a contract became something neither of them had a name for. And what started in Las Vegas wasn’t going to stay there.

A dark MM romance about power, possession, and the cost of being chosen by a man who doesn’t share what he claims.

PREORDER NOW!

Love often appears where you least expect it—and sometimes, it brings more than you bargained for.

Arlo’s never bought into the idea that Alphas and Omegas are destined for each other. In his experience, Alphas are good for one-night stands and little else. But when he stumbles across Liam, the most alluring Alpha he’s ever met, he seriously considers breaking his one-night rule.

If only Arlo knew that Liam isn’t just a handsome, charming fling—he’s also the new head of one of the most powerful crime organizations in the city. And he’s convinced Arlo is his fated mate.

REVIEWERS WANTED!

After years of supporting her ex-husband’s dream of being a pro ball player, Jane Morris has returned home to the small city of Red Rock, Alberta to fulfill hers, running her bakery Batter Up! and chasing a multi-year contract with the local Triple A club. Finding her old friend Carter on the team is an unexpected bonus.

After a car accident left him badly injured, all Carter Cook he wants is to prove he can still play at the highest level, and return to the big leagues.

When Jane invites Carter to move in with her — platonically, of course–their chemistry can’t be denied. But Jane’s life is in Red Rock, and Carter will be gone as soon as the big club calls, forcing them to ask: Is chasing your dream worth giving up a chance at love?

REVIEWERS WANTED!

As a child, Cassiel Lim named himself after the angel of time. Now he repairs watches, and his life runs like clockwork. He’s autistic, keeps his world quiet and manageable, and his mother is afraid he’ll die alone. When a family dinner for a major Korean holiday looms, he books a date through an app.

May Huang is a dishwasher in Chinatown, managing a brain injury and ADHD with color-coded notebooks and phone alarms. He’s chatty, good with parents, and needs the money, so he takes the gig. They meet on a Thursday to build their cover story, then again the next Thursday.

It was meant to end after one dinner. Instead the days stretch into Christmas, then into a new year. The fake life is starting to look real, built on money neither mentions and a story that was never true. Neither of them is ready for what happens when the arrangement stops being one.

REVIEWERS WANTED!

Dr. Lacey Bonds is a respected pediatric cardiologist, good girl, who has never been allowed to want anything for herself. She was taught that desire was shameful. On discovering infidelity, something long buried in her cracks open. Or maybe it finally wakes up. Guided by her hedonistic, pansexual best friend, Lacey begins saying yes to the desires she has suppressed her entire life. Soon she’s saying yes to everything. Every temptation. Every fantasy. Every dangerous impulse. As shame transforms into arousal and arousal spirals into obsession, Lacey’s carefully ordered world starts to unravel under the weight of cravings she can no longer control. She does not know how to stop. She is not sure she wants to.
This all changes when she finds herself falling for the formidable father of her favorite little patient, a desire very much not allowed.

REVIEWERS WANTED!

A tease, a taste, and a case of mistaken identity

Chat, I cannot resist this book release any longer. I thought that I’d “wait for the right moment” but there are no right moments any more. There is only Now.

In that spirit, please enjoy the pivot, the piquant moment, the inciting incident upon which my next release hinges. A case of severely mistaken identity, when my MMC Stuart first comes face to face with the woman he will inevitably find he cannot live without. It’s messy. It’s ethically disastrous (if we’re being honest.) And it’s the reason why I’ve spent five years wrestling this plot into something like a story. Because their first meeting is too good to leave in the drafts:

She wasn’t much of a looker, badly dressed in a high-necked travelling suit of faded orange and brown printed chintz, her hair pulled back too tight and a stunned expression on her unpainted face. An unusual gambit, but perhaps he’d ordered a ‘governess’ and forgotten. Hopefully she performed other services, as he was unprepared to broach the subject of a breeching in this raucous company.

“Which one of you is the marquis?” the woman demanded in a tremulous tone. If she were acting the governess, she was playing it too timidly. Untrusting his tongue despite the great number of wrong things he wished to say, Stuart waved to her.

Tall chairs ringed the table, behind them the expectant faces of a dozen of his chums. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman pulled her skirts about her and began picking her way along the table, stepping around the plates and glasses until she stood looming over him. She was breathing hard, her nice breasts pushing against her bodice. She was going to be a treat to undress.

“You’re the marquis?” she said, looking him over in horror.

“At your service, m’ dear. And you are?”

“The late marquis’ widow.”

“Tha’s quite an odd—oh, Christ!”

She gasped like he’d struck her. With matched expressions of horror they stared at one another as muttering spread around the room. Colm was speaking, meaningless noise that buzzed past Stuart’s ears and did not change the fact that yes, his father’s brand new bride was imminently expected from Leeds. That according to Derbyshire she knew nothing of her husband’s passing. That she was standing in front of (or rather over top) of him at this very moment, and that he’d presumed her to be a badly-dressed whore.

How To Inherit A Husband comes out on e-book & paperback November 2026. Preorders open soon!

Indie books I read in 2025

I just can’t get into them. I find the characters hollow, the plots too focused on trauma, and I keep quitting them partway through.

I’m unfortunately talking about the last ten times I tried to read mainstream literary fiction.

I hope you didn’t think I was talking about indie i.e. self-published books. My favourites this year have all been indie published.

Here’s a list of what I read (with some very subjective commentary. There’s a reason I stay out of online review spaces and why I’m not tagging any of these authors in my post.)

The Flowered Blade – by Taylor Hubbard (trans hypertwink elf prince subverts his orc captor’s expectations and gets absolutely railed for his trouble. A queer fantasy fan favorite, but Taylor pls see me after class re: filter words)

Disasterology 101 – by Taylor Donovan (surprisingly strong, a powerful portrait of extreme OCD, though the ending felt abrupt)

Geist Fleish – by Christian Baines (A five-book series’ worth of horny supernatural story set in Weimar Germany and crushed into a novella. Insultingly short, I require another hundred thousand words pls)

What a Nobleman Needs – by Merry Farmer (Peak Merry Farmer, as Regency noblemen boink their way through a comedy of errors with a side of mortal peril)

The Full Moon Problem – by Kay Claire (Charming story about a shy werewolf and a trans herb witch. First person present tense is not my favorite POV)

A Boy Called Rainbow – by Robin Knight (I wanted more from this premise of a deaf artist and an uptight appraiser, but I ended up skimming the last 1/3 of the book)

Junker Seven – by Olive J. Kelley (top tier, excellent space-chase themed sci-fi with a heavy dose of trans politics)

Peter and the Wolves – by Merry Farmer (ABSOLUTE FILTH but, like, really good. Fantasy setting, endless gay sex, it may have reshaped my frontal cortex *PLEASE NOTE * does not contain wolves)

They Were Roommates – by D.C. Emerson (sweet trans guy 4bi guy slowwwwwburn omg just kiss you ding-dongs)

Nine-Tenths – by J.M. Frey (I never knew where this book was headed, every plot point was a heavy hitter. Out of these, this is one that I might read again. Especially when Book 2 comes out)

My first read of 2026 is a Sapphic rom com rewrite of Pride and Prejudice set at a romantasy cosplay event. Honestly, how could it be bad?

I’ll have lots of time to catch up on my TBRs (virtual and physical) next month while I’m recovering from a medical procedure which I am not talking about in detail (yet) though if I’m bringing it up here I’m clearly okay with discussing it. Later, because it’s going to be a long story. 2026 is literally the year that everything changes.

Neurodiversity in Queer Romance: the anthology

Let’s start the year with something exciting! Well, I find it exciting, but it’s rare to be asked to write a story where a character’s neurodiversity makes a difference. 🏳️‍🌈

The Neurodivergence in Queer Romance BookFunnel Promotion aims to increase accurate, authentic, compassionate, and respectful representation of the vast and varied neurodivergent experience.

Discover brand new novellas celebrating neurodivergence in queer romance, now available for free! All stories are by a queer neurodivergent author and feature various neurodiverse and queer representation. These are only available to download until January 31.

There’s something for everyone — authors you know and love, authors sharing their debuts, stories from many subgenres, and a range of angst and spice levels.

My book ‘The Worst Boss in the World’ is an enemies-to-employee-to-lovers romance about a strangely compassionate supervillain and the desperate, dangerous man he can’t resist.

Despised by his criminal family, rejected by the law-abiding, Leo Blofeld needs a break. Like a job as a wealthy supervillain’s personal assistant. Not just for the paycheck but for the chance to get his hands on Desmond Desolate’s assets, his wealth, his obliviousness. Just what Leo needs to show up his arrogant family while he puts his plans for vengeance into action.

New to the villainy game, Desmond didn’t realize when he hired an assistant that he was getting a nervy, angry, savage little narcissist with a hunger for submission and an overpowered vendetta. A hatred based on nothing, at least from Desmond’s point of view.

Someone broke Leo, made him hate the world. Made him distrust everyone. Even himself. Something’s making Desmond want to patch him back together.

🏳️‍🌈 Learn more about each book at https://tinyurl.com/ndiqr-info

🏳️‍🌈 Download all of January’s books at https://books.bookfunnel.com/neurodivergenceinqueerromance/f1vshns6ec

And look for another announcement in February for even more original books in Part 2 of this amazing event.

Rewriting the rules of magic with Benjamin Twigg

Sometimes you’re the Chosen One, and sometimes you’re the Chosen One’s dad…

You know me, I love any twist on a genre standard (like Magical Teen) so I’m glad to see books like this. More middle aged protagonists, please!

DAD MAGIC

Welcome to Spellford
A city where enchanted coffee shops serve lattes with a side of prophecy, and fried chicken is delivered to your door in mere seconds. Here, Brent Abernathy, an ordinary dad with a not-so-ordinary past, is about to have his world flipped upside down. His teenage daughter. Victoria. Is not just any teen: she is the key to an unimaginable power. And sinister forces have taken notice.
Armed with nothing but his wits, some dad jokes, and the help of his half-orc best friend. Paxton Grimtusk. A loveable geek with a heart of gold. Brent sets out on a spellbinding adventure.
As secrets unravel and betrayals sting like cursed nettles Brent finds himself tangled in an age-old conspiracy that threatens the balance of magic itself. To save Victoria, he will need more than just a dad bod and fire spells. He’ll have to face down ancient forces and do the impossible: rewrite the rules of magic.


Benjamin Twigg is a fantasy writer from Australia. As a queer author, Ben strives to write stories that have authentic representation, queer joy and a sense of wonder.
As a child, Ben dreamed of being a fantasy author and dived into those books, devouring the stories and world they created. As an adult, his love for fantasy world-building continued with role-playing video games, and he has racked up hundreds of hours of gameplay, immersing himself in character stories with amazing arcs.

Magical musical murder with A.C. Merkel

One of my favorite things about indie publishing is the diversity of storytelling! Not just DEI-style diversity where every voice is represented, but real diversity of stories, where we can tell any story we like. Today’s Spotlight is on A.C. Merkel, who blends fantasy with political consciousness and rock and roll to tell a story like no other!

HER NAME IS MURDER

“We can’t waltz forever, Grant.”
“We can damn well try.”

Magical musician Murder LaVoe is tired of running. She’s been running for almost 500 years. When you don’t age, people take it personally. She has returned 40 years later to her favorite borough in New York City.
Her hope?
To finally settle down and hide her secret by taking the identities of falsified heirs.
A public attempt on the life of her Rock-N-Roll alter ego, Lady Dreamscapes.
A chance meeting of subservient immortals in need.
threaten to take away the life she holds so dear. Can NYPD detective Grant Noble III solve her mysteries in time to save her?
Or is it him that needs saving?

A.C. Merkel is the author and creator of The Lady Dreamscapes series and Witch Vs. Witch, infusing magical tales with a musical heartbeat 💓 🎻 🎸 🌈

A maze of monsters with Sarah Cook

Welcome to the next installment of the Indie Author Spotlight, my ongoing series highlighting the latest in independent storytelling. Today’s featured author is Sarah Cook.

Promotional graphic for Sarah Cook's book A Maze of Monsters of Men, showing the book's cover against a backdrop of stars.

Set in 1900, A Maze of Monsters & Men sees two rival archaeologists, and ex-lovers, leading opposing expeditions to Crete. However, whilst on the island, they are both called to labyrinth seated at the heart of the mountain… And a minotaur who is willing to love them both.

Sarah Cook is a historical fiction author who writes about the Victorians in all sorts of japes. Her debut novel Diary of Murders is a dark erotic murder mystery. She plans to finish the series whilst also releasing an upcoming Victorian sports romance and a dark fantasy.

“You open your safe and find ashes.”

As authors, we are constantly on the receiving end of all sorts of advice about how to promote our work, much of which rely on magical thinking and/or spending a lot of money (or both.) Selling books in person, selling books at a discount, selling yourself as a brand, but for pure return on your investment, nothing beats giving away free books.

I’m not handing out paperbacks on the street, but I’m not the only one who believes in the power of free. Attract abundance by being abundant. Give books to everyone who wants one: that’s how you win fans for life.

Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Readers win too, because *ahem* book tastes are subjective. I honestly don’t expect everyone in the world to enjoy what I write. I would rather you read my free stories and decide that my work isn’t to your liking than make you pay money for a book that you end up hating. Costco has it right: give away as many free samples as you can. Your fans will find their way to you.

Visit my Free Reads page for bonus material from my series and some standalone shorts. I’ll be adding to the page in the next few months as I build up to the release of a series I’ve been working on for ten years. Mary Mac and her band of merry perverts have some deep lore, y’all. I have stories for years.

The Indie Author Spotlight – a brief introduction

One of the best things about independent AKA self-publishing is the variety of stories we are telling. Publishing companies are under pressure to sign *profitable* authors, but when has the profit motive ever produced the best art?

The best stories are happening underground. Indie publishing is all about helping each other. My book might not be your next favorite, but I bet you’ll love something by one of my friends. I have been profiling fellow authors on my newsletter for a few years now, and thought this blog would be a good platform to expand the reach of this feature. Anything to get me off ordinary social media…

I’ll be back in a few days with the first installment of this new series. Or join my readers club if you want to find out more about my books: http://willforrest.com/newsletter/

Why choose?

Reverse Harem and the (r)evolution of Romance writing

If you aren’t an avid ebook reader, it’s likely you’ve never heard of the genre, which has begun to call itself “why choose” because algorithms are prurient snitches. Yet it’s the strongest trend in self published romance, with no signs of slowing down.

It is also an astonishing indicator of where culture is headed. Because two out of every five ebooks sold are romance, and reverse harem tropes are EVERYWHERE.

So what the heck is it? Nothing more or less than a romance story where the heroine gets ALL the boys. Without having to choose between them, favoring one and only one. Without lying or cheating, with the consent of all the men, which is perhaps the most fantastical aspect of the genre, that three or more cis-het guys could get over their egos enough to get along with their partner’s metamour.

OK so what the heck is a metamour?

It’s the point at which the Why Choose genre gets really interesting. Because, pardon me if I’m wrong, but this is polyamory. A metamour is your lover’s lover. Not your competition, just “the other person who loves the same person as me.”

Meaning the strongest trend in romance writing is a vigorous, fun-loving, open-hearted repudiation of the nuclear family. One of the lynchpins of Western society, blamed repeatedly (and quite sensibly) for maintaining women’s inferior status. Less than half a decade ago, women in the US were being arrested for wearing pants. A wife needed her husband’s permission to open her own bank account. The assumption was nearly universal that all women wanted was safety. That women weren’t sexual, weren’t interested in freedom in being their own person, in existing for any reason besides replicating DNA aka having babies.

Oh, my sweet summer child…

That has never been enough. And hear me out, this is not some Sandberg gaslighting about how every woman miraculously can have it all aka a high paying high pressure job as well as a functional marriage, happy children, and time enough to seek personal meaning. Such women usually have nannies. And they are frequently miserable. The women, not the nannies, though I reckon a fair few of them are less than thrilled with what often functions like a sort of indentured servitude.

This is of course not universal. But that’s the point. Women want different things. Women can finally have what they want. And yes, RH is a book trend. It isn’t a sign of the death of marriage. But it is certainly a sign that the Overton window has shifted hugely in the direction of even more freedom for women. And for men, who must bear the brunt of being denied softness, emotionality, compassion. Who are taught they must defend their tiny tribe against an entire world which wants them dead. Truth is, the world usually isn’t paying attention. Truth is, modern marriage isn’t a siege state. Wives are not chattel, nor are they princesses, to be kept in a tower and denied the world.

Women are raw, and horny, and also nice and pretty and kind, but still red-blooded, salivating, alive. And we are tired of being told what to do.

There is a world filled with possibilities. Even it’s only words on a page or a screen. A world where women get exactly what they want, and men are happy for it to happen. So come on over! Sometimes the grass really is greener even once you’ve hopped the fence.