New this week

The latest additions to The Library's collection

If you have a complete or in-progress work you’d like added to The Library or an indie-published book to include in the Buy Indie section, follow this guide, and we’ll help spread the word.

And thanks again to everyone for helping us support indie authors!

In the stacks

Graphic Novel & Comic Book

This Memoir Will Be Written By Robots | Carolyn Cohagan | Speculative, Memoir, Humor | (GN) (I) (F)

This serial graphic novel is Carolyn Cohagan’s (ridiculous yet plausible) imagined memoir from the year 2028 exploring what our worlds might become with the onslaught of artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The story follows the future Carolyn Cohagan as she struggles with being an artist while AI is creating all of the content people want to consume. The novel is comprised of prose written by the real Carolyn Cohagan and images created by a mixture of AI and Photoshop. She is creating this graphic novel in real time each week as a way to track the progress of AI. You will see the advancements in sophistication and intelligence in her Substack first hand.“Bingeworthy…I stop what I’m doing every time this new Substack drops and devour it. Utterly ingenious and crackling with wit and poignancy.” —May Cobb, best-selling author of The Hunting Wives and My Summer Darlings. “ . . . one of those rare artistic projects that is both an inspired concept and continually inspiring in its execution, too. I eagerly read each newsletter as soon as it hits my inbox!” —Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, Texas.

Nonfiction

CHOICE: Personalized Learning, Personalized Technology | Stephen Woicik | Education and Technology (B) (I) (F)

Many well-funded and well-intentioned technology initiatives fall flat. Failing for any combination of reasons: planning, implementation, culture, understanding, communication, money, and hundreds of others. Having worked in a school system, you have scars from projects like this. A simple idea turns into a monolithic project involving countless stakeholders and issues you never imagined. That is a reality of working in public education. This book is about one of those large-scale technology projects, the 1:1 device. Giving one device/computer to every student. We’ll go through lessons learned, pitfalls to avoid, and learn how to navigate the myriad of obstacles that come with large-scale projects.

Speculative

Only One Death | Alexander M Crow | Dark Fantasy (NA) (C) (F)

A serial fantasy fiction, introducing characters and locations, some of which will reappear in other Tales of The Lesser Evil. This is not quite grimdark, but it is on the darker, perhaps less shiny side of fantasy. At its heart, Only One Death takes the well-loved trope of a group of adventurers on a quest, then turns this upside down and inside out, demonstrating how danger, secret motives, and hidden desires can swiftly tear apart the strongest of groups.

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Dust and Death | Alexander M Crow | Dark Fantasy (NT) (C) (F)

A serial fantasy fiction, introducing characters and locations, some of which will reappear in other Tales of The Lesser Evil. This is not quite grimdark, but it is on the darker, perhaps less shiny side of fantasy. Dust and Death takes two of the surviving characters from Only One Death and continues their story. In a land of dust, some things are best left buried, terrors that can strain the very balance of the mind: fear is one thing, but this goes far, far beyond that.

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Death and Taxes | Alexander M Crow | Dark Fantasy (NA) (C) (F)

A serial fantasy fiction, introducing characters and locations, some of which will reappear in other Tales of The Lesser Evil. This is not quite grimdark, but it is on the darker, perhaps less shiny side of fantasy. Death and Taxes—the only certainties in life—examines the lengths one woman will go to in order to provide security for her family. Lengths which keep getting longer and longer. Get it right, and Merie will be free. If not, there’ll be four more orphans on the streets.

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A Clean Death | Alexander M Crow | Dark Fantasy (NA) (I) (F)

A serial fantasy fiction, introducing characters and locations, some of which will reappear in other Tales of The Lesser Evil. This is not quite grimdark, but it is on the darker, perhaps less shiny side of fantasy. An assassin, her apprentice, and one final murder. A city where it is law to wear a mask in public. And someone—or something—hiding in the shadows. Something that wants them to fail. Fatally.

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The Beginning of Nations | Kim Hardy | Speculative (NT) (C) (F)

Do our origins arise from the evolution of stardust? Or were we created by an all-knowing God? The Beginning of Nations, a five-part speculative serial, uses key verses from Genesis to bind the age-old story to a future where we finally find out.

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The Devil Sings in D Minor | hiragi | Gothic horror/romance | (N) (I) (F)

Dee, a failing musician, accidentally sells his soul to the Devil in return for YouTube subscribers. He’s convinced his childhood hallucinations have intensified after his friend’s grisly suicide, but they may in fact be real - and desperately trying to warn him about something.He takes a risky chance at fame after his band (and relationship) falls apart in the wake of the frontman’s grisly death. His agent, Luci, convinces him that the return of his childhood hallucinations are signs of supernatural attack, and that the only way to save Dee is through magic. With increasing reasons not to trust anyone else in his life, including his good friend Theon, Dee does as he’s told. Because Luci loves him, he must know what’s best, right? But if Dee really wants a life of his own making, he’ll have to look the Devil in the eye and confront the monsters he pretends he cannot see. The Devil Sings in D Minor is a gothic novel with a touch of romance; Hellblazer meets Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

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The Americans Used to Go This Way | Michael P. Marpaung | Science Fiction, Adventure | (NT) (C) (F)

500 years after the Three Days of Darkness, the people of Earth continued to live in the ecumenopolis left behind by the Dark Age Civilization. Prince Edward of Texarkana journeyed underground to the Bayuu to claim his bride, but Texarkana had many enemies. On their way home, the prince and his beloved must brave the dangers lurking within the dark undercities.

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Shade | PennPowel | Action-Adventure | (N) (I) (F)→($)

Free for the first 4 chapters, paid after; complete and will be fully available to paid subscribers by March 2025

Alyssa Knight thought getting caught in a bushfire at thirteen would be the worst moment of her life. Then she went to New York. The city has been under martial law since a gang war in 1989. Only Marine officers, like Alyssa’s father, and rebels get to leave these days - the Marines to visit their families, the rebels to prison cells. The worst of these rebels - Shade - has just escaped, and he has a score to settle with Colonel Knight. Fearing Shade will go after his family, the Colonel brings them to New York, where he and his men can protect them. Alyssa thinks this is a bad idea. She’s not wrong. 

Thriller & Mystery

Sweet Things Dying | R.R. Scott | Historical (N) (I) (F)→($)

Prologue and first two chapters are free; remaining chapters require a paid subscription.

1887—Adam Cole, a private investigator living in London’s East End, is drawn into the mystery of Heather Bloom, a popular local coffeehouse girl and Cole’s former lover. Heather has suddenly vanished, leaving behind a series of clues which do not add up. Cole is met with several challenges, including an unfinished letter sent by Heather moments before she disappeared along with push-back from Heather’s stern father, a local reverend who has an unsettled history with Cole. At the same time, he must deal with the mad pleas of his own father who is an inmate at Broadmoor Asylum, locked away for the murder of Cole’s older brother – a childhood memory that haunts him throughout his investigation. Over several days and nights, Cole uncovers secrets about Heather’s family and neighbours that lead him through the shadowy alleys of East London and to the sea-sprayed streets of Whitby. As Cole pieces together one shocking suspicion after another, he’s left with a terrible realisation about the Bloom family, along with guilty feelings about his own failed relationship with Heather – and if that weren’t enough, he is dealt one final, horrific blow regarding the childhood murder of his own brother.

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Are you publishing a book, comic, or story/poetry collection on Substack that you’d like to add to The Library? Send it our way!

Buy Indie

Double Decker | Chris J. Franklin | Urban Fiction (NT) Amazon UK

On the morning of a strike by London Tube workers, a man finds himself left with no choice but to commute by bus where he ends up next to an irritating passenger he soon becomes determined to silence - by any means necessary...

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From the Archive

Featuring a different, randomly selected book every week

Playing in the MAGIC: How to Manifest Whatever You Desire in the Simulation | Sol Luckman | Health/Wellness (B) (C) ($)

In this inspiring, empowering ebook, renowned sound healer and international bestselling author Sol Luckman shares a major download of profound (as well as absurd) insights into the “magical” nature of our so-called reality. Riffing off the red-hot research of author Jason Breshears while adding a delightfully stimulating and idiosyncratic take with some critical missing pieces to the manifestation puzzle, Luckman distills an array of life-altering concepts into an easy-to-grasp-and-follow theoretical model for interacting productively (and even miraculously) with “reality.”

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