Books

First written when I was a teen, the series called CJ’s Notebooks features a gang of girls around thirteen-year-old Queen Clair of Mearsies Heili. The M girls, as they come to be known, prefer their villains silly, their throwing pies gloppy, and their adventures fun. But villains don’t ask first if the girls want to be dragged into dangerous...

In this latest addition to the Dobrenica series, Ruli, a new vampire, is trying to adjust to this change in¿can you call it a life? She’s lost everything. But that including her old reputation for weakness and lack of direction, as she discovers the lure of badassery.

At the same time, Kim and the crown prince of Dobrenica are on their honeymoon...

Sherwood Smith’s media happy place tends toward braided tales, with characters growing and changing in a world both breathtaking and strange, where striving to become the best one can be matters. She found that in Chinese and Korean historical dramas, which kicked off years of immersion in East Asian history, literature, art, and language.

In...

In this third re-edited and amended edition, Kim is on the eve of her wedding. She’s still trying to get used to the idea of becoming a princess when she goes through the wrong door, and is caught Dobrenica’s liminal boundary.

It’s now 1795, the rise of Napoleon, and Kim finds herself a guardian spirit for a twelve-year-old kid who will either...

The final book in the Phoenix Feather and Sagacious series, Sagacious Blade brings the story full circle.

It would be difficult to find two boys more unlike.

Friendly, animal-loving Ki Mek, youngest of a sprawling family of gallant wanderers, was born with Essence talent—much to the dismay of the Kis, who only believe in the skills of their...

The Prisoner of Zenda meets Brigadoon by way of Buffy…

In this unrepentant wish-fulfillment series, Kim is back in the US, licking her wounds both metaphorical and physical when a vision of Ruli, the woman who married Alec Ysvorod, crown prince of Dobrenica and the man Kim loves, forces her to return to Dobrenica to face the mess she left behind....

The Prisoner of Zenda meets Brigadoon

Grad student and fencing enthusiast Kim Murray is in Europe trying to find her grandmother’s missing family when she sees her first ghost. Not that she knows it’s a ghost. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, because her grandmother never talked about her past.

Two days into her stay in Vienna, she comes across a...

In the darkness of defeat, can hope catch fire?

The greatly anticipated final book in the Change series. In a world of mutant powers and deadly creatures, one small town faces its worst nightmare…

In a single shocking night, Las Anclas is conquered. Voske rules the town, remaking it in his image. He brings Opportunity Day to Las Anclas, with its...

A starving English major desperate for a job goes on an interview, where she is turned loose in a ballroom full of books...

This story is an homage to those who love works with grace and wit such as Jane Austen wrote, who regard fan fiction as part of the river of story, and who wonder just what universal imagination can achieve...

Set in the tumultuous, magic-filled history of Tribute and the Phoenix Feather quartet…

The second half of the story of sixteen-year-old Lan Renti’s rise to the phoenix throne begins literally in the air, as she returns to her ship of wanderers, crying hard after leaving the brother she sought for four years. But her brother sees her as a young...

Set in the tumultuous, magic-filled history of the Phoenix Feather quartet…

How did scholarly, modest Lan Renti, lowest ranking of the troubled imperial clan, rise to become the Sage Empress, first woman ruler in the long history of the Empire of a Thousand Isles?

Aware of how the official records embellish (or sidestep) the truth, she’s...

A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, Stranger captures the excitement of The Hunger Games, the immersive world of Shadow and Bone, and the special powers of The Darkest Minds.

“A first-rate page-turner”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In the post-apocalyptic world of the Change, people with mutant talents are powerful and hated, and even the trees...

In this first in a series set in the world of the Phoenix Feather quartet, Bu is twelve and near-sighted, an unwanted daughter sent to a music audition. If she fails, she’s on her own. Elderly Granny Zim, who knows that soon she must retire as head of the music academy, is fascinated by YinYin, a student who might not be human. YinYin and Bu...

The Sartorias-deles series culmination is here!

The last book in the long series that began with Inda, continued through the Rise of the Alliance, Crown Duel, and The Norsunder War, comes at last to a resonant, deeply satisfying conclusion in Antiphony.

Liere has attained the home she always longed for, though there are compromises: her children...

“Written with searing intensity, this story of the redemptive power of love amid the shambles of war and the re-emergence of ancient powers builds to a white-knuckle climax.”

The war is over, all but the cleanup. And the emotional recovery, with its scars both visible and invisible. Liere Fer Eider learns on the run how to become a queen, while...

“Written with heart-piercing vividness and sly humor, a roller coaster of emotions!”

“Consistently brilliant, this series showcases what fantastic worldbuilding can be.”


The long-awaited conclusion to The Norsunder War is also the culmination to the entire Sartorias-deles arc. Find out why one reader on Reddit said, “Beginning with INDA, this...

“A damned good book.... A compelling protagonist with a vivid voice, a master’s control of pacing and tension.” —Tor.com

The second volume of four begins with the loose alliance of young rulers, mages, scribes, friends, and ex-enemies on the run. The only place of safety is a tiny agrarian kingdom no one has ever heard of, though hints begin to...

PRAISE FOR THE SARTORIAS-DELES SERIES:

“The book is set in a world so intricate and real that it’s hard to step out of and hard to forget. Filled with magic and glamour, it houses a culture unique for its openness and warlike ability.... Smith’s rich details and imagery tie this story together. Complex and compelling.” —San Jose Mercury News

“...

The Norsunder War 1.5

In the recently defeated warrior-kingdom of Marloven Hess, two enemies, one a defeated king hunted by the conquerors, and the hunter who did the conquering, duel for the soul of a conflicted young teen.

This short novel takes place between the events of the first two volumes of The Norsunder War: Ship Without Sails, and Seek...

Nobody sane wants war.

But what happens when war comes to you?

In this first volume of The Norsunder War, the allies introduced in The Rise of the Alliance find their world invaded. For Atan, Queen of Sartor, preserving lives and knowledge come before fleeing to safety. Jilo of Chwahirsland risks his life to resist the return of an evil king. And...