Open me for updates about an action-packed release week! ✨

Greetings Gentle Reader from the Land of Whimsical!

Can you believe it!? Fangs, Fate, & Mondays is HERE! Hold on to your hats everyone, because this week is jam-packed full of fun for our newest paranormal urban fantasy! 😎

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Happy Release Week, FANGS, FATE, & MONDAYS!

This week is THE week!! Now, we know you got the week update post over on Whimsical Publishing’s social media, but we’re here to tell you that Hayley Reese Chow’s latest Whimsical release will be in your hands on May 26th and YOU get to read the first chapter of this fang-tastic book here, today, right here in this newsletter! 🎉  Also, that means this is your last chance to preorder the book with all of the extra special goodies! If you want the  sprayed edges, printed end pages, interior and exterior dust jacket illustrations, interior book illustrations, embossed hardcover and printed hardcover, to come with the preorder incentives and more, you’ll want to preorder now, before May 26th to get a hold of your special copy**!

Not only that but the whole release week (May 21st – 27th) is full of exciting events:

• May 21st: You already saw it… the launch week post refreshing you on all of the below!
• May 22nd: Fangs chapter 1 releases in our newsletter for YOU to read! (Keep scrolling, we promise it’s here)!
• May 23rd-May 24th: Some social media love for all things Fangs!

• May 25th: Hayley Reese Chow live chats with Micheline Ryckman (our founder and Editor-In-Chief!)
• May 26th: FANGS RELEASE DAY!! 🎊
• May 27th: Giveaway of a copy of the special exclusive edition of Fangs, Fate, and Mondays!!

All preorders of the exclusive edition of this beautifully fantastic book is going to have:

• Exterior dust jacket art
• Interior dust jacket art
• Shiny foiling on the interior and exterior
• Glistening sprayed edges
• Hardcase art
• Printed end pages with character art
• Interior illustrations
• A bonus chapter

Excited!? Us too!

PREORDER HERE, BEFORE IT’S GONE

**After May 26th, you will no longer be able to receive the extra preorder incentive gifts and goodies, but there will be the opportunity to purchase the limited edition fancy version of Fangs, Fate, and Mondays. HOWEVER, there will only be so much stock left, so once they’re gone, they’re gone!

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Fangs, Fate, and Mondays: Chapter One

The moment you’ve all been waiting for… here is Chapter One so you can get a taste of what this stunning book is all about!

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Chapter 1: Friday
In which Dessa is definitely a failure

It took seventeen hours to drive from Hudson Valley, New York to Azalea Springs, Florida, and it took Dessa the first four to stop crying. At roughly 1,170 miles, it was probably some kind of record-breaker for figurative walks of shame. She entered the suburban Orlando area as the sun dipped below the horizon, and the tears started all over again. Because what would she say to her parents? What was there to say?

She’d left her hometown of A-Springs at eighteen in a storm of grief and failure, only to return in much the same manner. Except now, she was twenty-three without the college promise of a fresh start to catch her.

Ugly, hot tears flowed from her criminally puffy eyes as she drove by the house she’d grown up in, the “sold” sign still planted out front while elementary-aged children shot hoops in the driveway.

The happy scene just added insult to injury.

Dessa couldn’t even cry her way home anymore.

Instead, she drove to the RV camping ground on the border of the state park. An amalgam of aromas flooded the car—jasmine, citrus, and petrichor—the scent of a dozen different magics jumbling together, marking the territory of the paranormal community.

Thick trees crowded the road, and beneath their branches, Werewolves raced after each other in all three forms, changing seamlessly between overgrown wolves, their two-legged beast forms, and young, laughing humans. The lane approached the lake where a Vampire couple strolled in their usual formal attire—the man in a day suit and the woman in a long green dress. The woman held the man’s elbow while he brandished a parasol over them both, their expressions hidden behind dark glasses to protect them from the vestiges of the sunset. In the shallows, a gaggle of children splashed and squealed, but by the way the water wriggled in finger-like waves, it was safe to say there was at least one Magicker among them.

Dessa sniffed and wiped at her nose, her mouth curving in a reluctant smile. These were sights a Nescient—a human ignorant of the paranormal world—would’ve skimmed over, their inflexible minds explaining away the extraordinary as a trick of the light. But for her, it was a sign that she was back in the only town she’d ever called home.

Which was like taking a blender to her already mixed feelings. Especially considering that she’d both left and now returned to this place with a broken heart. At this point, she was ready to take out the pieces and skip them across the lake.

Palm trees and a lush green lawn lined the drive as she searched for her parents’ recently acquired RV. At last, she spotted the maroon-and-white vehicle shaded beneath a thick copse of palms, her smiling mother waving her down from a lawn chair beneath the RV’s extendable awning. Aglow with joy, her mom shouted something at the RV, and her dad stepped out with an identically huge smile stretching across his weathered face.

Dessa waved at them in turn, drinking them in for the first time since Christmas nine months ago.

Even at a distance, she could tell they were a world away from how she’d left them her senior year. The four decades of long hours they’d put into their food truck had finally paid off, and now they were on the first step of their lifelong dream of traveling the country. Though her mother’s hair was more gray than brown now, and her father was completely bald, both of them with the padded bellies of joyful lives, they were at last opening a brand-new chapter. A bright, dreamy one that promised laughter, adventure, and plenty of well-earned rest.

It was something to smile about.

Which only made this annoyingly harder.

I will not cry. She sucked in deep lungfuls of her car’s stale air. She could not cry. Not when her parents were so happy. She wasn’t going to burden them with the dumpster fire that was currently her life. A brave face was necessary here, one that would free them to start the journey they’d always planned. There was no reason to tell them about Aiden or the start-up, because that way, they could leave with the confidence that she’d be fine here. Somehow. Dessa threw her old Toyota into park and straightened her shoulders before getting out of the car and pasting on a smile.

“Dessa Blue! My baby’s home!” Her mom ran to her with open arms while her father jogged behind.

Dessa’s lips twitched. Though she’d deserted that nickname and her signature blue-tipped hair when she’d left for college, here she would always be Dessa Blue. She barely took a step forward before her mother’s strong arms wrapped around her in a bear hug. In another second, her father’s arms folded her in too.

“My goodness,” her father said, his voice thick with emotion. “It’s so good to see you, sweetheart. The McKinneys are back together.”

And apparently, that was all it took for Dessa’s noble plans to dissolve into a blubbering, sobbing mess.

“Oh no!” Her mom held her at arm’s length while she exchanged a knowing look with her dad. “Come here, baby, and tell us all about it. What happened?”

“N-n-nothing.” Dessa scrubbed at her face with her hoodie sleeve and tried for a wobbly smile. “Just emotional about coming home, I guess.”

Her mom parked her in a lawn chair in front of their campfire and raised an eyebrow at her dad. Running an anxious hand over his bald head, he blinked his big owl-like eyes three times before finally clocking the hint. “Right. Let me, uh, get us some hot tea.”

With her father trundling off, her mother pulled up her own lawn chair and took Dessa’s hand, fixing her with a warm brown gaze. “Baby, Aiden’s mom called me and told me the whole thing.”

“Nooo.” Dessa hid her face in her hands with a groan. “Why would she do that?”

Though, in truth, Dessa didn’t have to ask why. When her mom and Britney Phillips met on college graduation weekend, they bonded instantaneously. Britney and her mom had cooed and fantasized about future wedding plans and grandchildren and family trips. After spending the week together, they’d already declared each other besties-in-law, and Dessa was well aware they’d even started a virtual book club.

Still, the bomb had only dropped two days ago, and she hadn’t exactly expected Aiden to spill all the details to his mother within the first forty-eight hours.

“Britney said her ‘idiot son’—her words, not mine—told her he’d cheated on you with your start-up’s project manager, and you called the wedding off.” Her mother rubbed Dessa’s shoulder as her dad placed two steaming mugs of mint tea on the side table. “She was worried about you.”

“That about sums it up.” Dessa picked up the hot ceramic mug and blew out a long breath, the air mercifully cool for the first day of a Florida October. How was it that the catastrophic derailing of her whole life could be boiled down to one sentence?

“How did you find out?” her mom asked.

“In the classic way…” Dessa stared into the dark ripples of her tea. “They were working late on a pitch, and I dropped in to surprise them with dinner, only to find her in his lap with his tongue down her throat.”

Now she’d have to live with that stupid memory for the rest of her stupid life. Like seriously, if he was going to be a jerk, couldn’t he have just sent her a breakup text and spared her the retina scarring?

Her father swore as he settled into the chair on her other side, and her mother squeezed her knee, leaning closer. “Poor baby. What did you do?”

“What could I do? I stormed in, and they jumped apart. Then I slammed my engagement ring on the table and said they could have it, my resignation, and my half of the bed. Luckily, our apartment is tiny, so I didn’t have much to sell, and then I packed the rest and drove down here.” Dessa squinted at the last rays of sunlight stretching across the blue water, so jarringly beautiful against the unsightly backdrop of her upturned life.

“You’re done with the start-up, then?” her dad asked, the frown sagging deeper into his round face. His impossibly blue eyes, the same ones he’d given to her, shone with gentle worry.

Dessa nodded, the fresh pain of it stabbing into her. After all, she and Aiden had built their eco-accounting business from the ground up. It was their little brainy heart-child. They’d poured everything into it, and there’d been so much potential. Over the last year, they’d put in ten-hour days, seventy hours a week, and they’d been so close to making it fly.

“It’ll be okay, baby,” her mom said. “I always thought you worked too hard anyway. You just take a break while you get your feet under you again. I’m sure there’ll be tons of folks looking to hire a crack-shot finance manager. And Aiden, well…”

Pain flashed across her mother’s soft features, and Dessa winced. She and Aiden had been engaged for over a year and had dated for two more before that. Her parents had taken him in like a son, so losing him had to be a blow for them as well.

“He didn’t deserve you,” her father said, his voice gruff. “Good riddance to him, and he’d better hope not to cross me on a dark street.”

Dessa had to smile as she leaned into her teddy bear of a father. Her dad wouldn’t take on a feral chipmunk, much less a human being, but the words were comforting all the same.

“I’m sure he’ll live to regret it.” Her mom sipped her tea, the deep brown of her gaze swirling thoughtfully in the firelight. “But don’t you worry, we’ll stay parked right here as long as you need, baby.”

Dessa snorted, already feeling better as a cacophony of frogs welcomed the dusk with their chirrups and belches. Here, a world away from New York City, from Aiden, from her old work, she could pretend she wasn’t that betrayed person anymore. Like everything had happened to someone else. It was the same trick she’d pulled off six years ago with at least some amount of success. All she needed was a distraction.

A really, realllllyyy good distraction.

“No, Mom, I’ll be fine,” Dessa said, forcing confidence into her voice. “You and Dad will head out in a few days just like you planned. I know you made your reservations at the national parks ages ago, and I don’t want you to miss those.”

In truth, her parents had been honing their cross-continental itinerary for the last decade, their faces rosy with the hope of adventure in far-off places. Her parents had never been outside of Florida, and thinking about their joy so close at hand, Dessa couldn’t help but smile as well. Their ride-off-into-the-sunset happily-ever-after was finally here.

“Then what will you do?” her dad asked. “Are you going to try to find a place in Azalea Springs? Get a job? Or do you have somewhere else in mind?” Her dad looked at her, his wrinkled expression shrewd beneath his heavy brows, and Dessa realized that he’d probably given her clarity tea bought from a Magicker café. If she stayed, she’d have to readjust to the particulars of the paranormal community—or the PC as the locals called it.

Dessa was saved from answering when a red Ford truck pulled into the drive next to her blue Toyota. The small candle of comfort she’d been nursing guttered. “Why’s Uncle Brad here?”

“Because I told him you were coming, and he wanted to see you, of course,” her father said, waving to his younger brother.

“Dessa Blue!” Brad swaggered over to them with a good-natured grin. At fifty, he was a decade younger than her father, his long brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail beneath a backwards baseball cap as his blue eyes twinkled above a full, gray beard. Though Dessa saw him every Christmas, his presence never failed to remind her of the day she’d made the mistake, the one that had sent her running as far as she could go.

The mistake that had almost ended her uncle’s career.

The mistake that had ruined two of her best friends’ lives and ended the third’s.

It was a memory that lived and breathed between them as surely as a slumbering dragon. Not something to be touched, but never something that could be forgotten. Still, Brad had always been like a second father to her, so there was little she could do but rise and fall into his strong arms.

“Hey, Uncle Brad.”

After giving her a squeeze, he pulled her back, staring hard into her face. “Do you want me to kill him?”

“No.” Dessa couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “He’s not worth it.”

“Good!” Uncle Brad spun her around to face her parents and threw an arm around her shoulders. “Because we’ll be needing some more McKinney-muscle around here now that it’s your parents’ turn to run off.”

“Dessa was just saying she was looking for a place to stay and a job to hold her over until she gets her bearings.” Her father raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Brad, something unspoken passing between them, and Dessa knew she’d been set up.

“I didn’t say—” she tried, only for Brad to cut her off.

“Well, what a coincidence.” He beamed at her, looking for all the world like a mix between a lumberjack and a young Santa Claus. “Because I happen to have a room over my office, and I’d be willing to let you rent it if you’d consider helping me out again.”

“Uncle Brad.” Dessa wiggled out from under his brawny arm, putting distance between them. “You don’t have to offer me some pity job. After everything that happened, you can’t possibly want me working in your office again. I haven’t worked with the PC since I left. I probably wouldn’t even be of any use to you.”

“Dessa Blue.” A gentleness infused her name that almost broke her. “People make mistakes. What happened was a tragedy, but it wasn’t your fault, and you were just a kid. We have to put that behind us now.” He propped his hands on his hips, his head bowing, and suddenly Dessa could see the six years that had passed as if they stood on his shoulders. Even before she’d left, he’d carried his own tragedies after what happened to Aunt Carolyn. He squinted at her with a rueful grin. “And it’s not a pity gig. I’m asking because, selfishly, I really do need the help. I’m getting called away to work on a federal case, and the Jowett girl is still missing. I’ve only got—”

“Wait. What?” Dessa’s spine cracked ramrod straight. “Which Jowett girl?”

“It’s Carly,” her mother whispered, putting a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, baby, I thought you would’ve heard by now.”

Her father nodded. “No one’s seen hide nor hair of her for a week. They think she ran away, but her parents want to know she’s safe.”

Dessa met her uncle’s gaze, and she knew they were both remembering the day Zach Whitmore had gone missing six years ago. She could still hear the chime of his mom’s text. Feel her phone vibrate as his dad called her. Their urgency climbing with each passing second, until finally everything had spiraled out of control.

Brad looked away, a deeper shadow passing over his face, one that spoke of even older wounds.

For a moment, the four of them said nothing. The fire crackled, the insects whispered amongst the long yellow reeds, and the night curled over Dessa’s bones. She’d thought six years would’ve been enough to come back to a fresh page. But with this new information, it felt like she’d walked out of her life only to step into the same web she’d tried to escape at eighteen.

She wanted nothing more than to get in the car and take off again until she ran out of gas. But she wouldn’t, because it would change nothing. The debt she owed the Jowetts wasn’t something that could be repaid, or run from, and they all knew it.

“What kind of help do you need?” she whispered.

“Well, I still have Melba for tech support, and I just got a brand-new legal analyst who’s wet behind the ears, but I don’t have a PC liaison or a finance manager, and honestly I could use both.” He adjusted the sweat-stained cap on his head. “Though technically speaking, for the first couple months, I can only bring you on as a paid intern. I’ve been called up on so many federal cases lately, the local office has been floundering, and our funding’s been cut. Until we can show concrete results, they won’t let us fill any of our permanent vacancies.”

Dessa pulled on the ends of her long, dark hair, feeling like she was sixteen years old again, and her uncle was asking her for a little admin help. The Azalea Springs Records and Intermediary Office had sounded very adult back then—something she hadn’t learned until much later was a bug and not a feature. With an AzRIO badge, she’d been so excited to soak up the ins and the outs of the paranormal world she belonged to.

She’d taken to it like a brand-new fledgling to spring air, and her future seemed to spill out before her. A permanent position in AzRIO had been all she’d ever dreamed of.

But then, when she’d failed, she’d failed spectacularly.

And if she was being honest, she still owed Brad for vouching for her. For bailing her out. Even if she did him this alleged favor, she would never stop owing him.

Just like the Jowetts.

In some ways, it really wasn’t a choice at all. Her uncle would’ve already had a federal position years ago if it wasn’t for her mistakes, and she knew how badly he wanted it.

Still, she averted her gaze to the golden moon just rising above the trees. “I…I don’t know how long I’ll be staying, Uncle Brad.”

He nodded with a bittersweet smile. “That’s okay, Dess. We’ll have you for as long as you’ll have us.”

Dessa’s gaze skated to a Magicker standing on the shore, stroking the snout of a glassy-eyed alligator, and she tried to consider A-Springs with fresh eyes. This wasn’t just any town on the marshy edge of Orlando suburbia. It was a place of magic and danger. The place where she was born, where her parents were born, and arguably a place that would always have its talons in her.

Even now, the magic bubbled up in her core, begging for exercise.

She reached out to Brad with her senses, the lilac scent of the gift that labeled him as an Uncanny answering hers in kind. Brad’s grin widened as his gift spooled from his essence, the magic passed down through their blood humming in a harmony only they could hear.

It was a song that held secrets they could never tell. Secrets she could use to help people. To help Carly Jowett in a way that she had failed to help her siblings. But they were also secrets that could destroy her. She breathed in the dark-honey scent of their magic, the web of Azalea Springs folding her in once more. Or perhaps it had never truly let her go.

One thing was for sure, it was certainly a good distraction.

Or maybe a really bad one.

Either way, at least it would take her mind off of Aiden.

She blew out a long breath, bracing herself for what lay ahead. Preparing for the familiar faces ready to break open old wounds that perhaps had never really healed to begin with. She could take those hits though—anything to give her time and space for her newest hemorrhage to run itself out.

Hex her to death if it didn’t all just royally suck.

But she couldn’t deny that it sucked because of her. She was the common denominator here. The one who always made the wrong choice when it mattered most. Who’d been tried and found wanting. And yet moonlight glinted off the calm confidence in Brad’s gaze.

“You really think I’m the right person for the job?” It wasn’t the real question she wanted to ask, but she had a feeling he knew what she meant. Do you really want me after what happened last time?

“Dess, I think you’re the only person for the job. No matter what trials we’ve faced or failed before, you lived to be stronger and wiser for them.” His craggy face softened into a hundred wrinkles earned through hard-won smiles. “Even when it doesn’t feel that way.”

Dessa’s lips tightened, warm tears filling her eyes all over again—wanting to believe him so badly, and yet not quite able to. In this moment, she was neither strong nor wise. She was a hundred shards of glass scattered in the dark. But this was a world she knew, and a job that she’d once been good at. A place where she could pick up the pieces.

Well, maybe.

She swallowed hard, not quite able to smile. “I can at least fill in until you get back.”

Dessa’s parents shared a relieved glance, and Dessa’s shoulders relaxed with them. Despite her sore eyes and tear-stained cheeks, it was their peace of mind that made it worth it. Because if she had a job and a place to stay, then they could enjoy the retirement they’d earned. Meanwhile, she’d have time to plot out a new course…Unless the troubled waters of Azalea Springs sank her a second time.

A possibility she couldn’t rule out.

“There are no coincidences,” her mother whispered over her tea, her contented gaze shifting from her father to Brad to Dessa to the now glittering constellations above. “Only the strings of fate glinting in the starlight.”

Dessa swallowed, the weight of the words sinking into her, mixing with the magic in her bones—with the secrets that hid there. She imagined the threads of time tying her, the Jowetts, and Azalea Springs together in an inescapable loop. Perhaps if she found the youngest Jowett, she could atone, in part, for the Jowetts she’d failed, and for Zach Whitmore, the missing boy who, at this point, would likely never return.

Dessa couldn’t deny the strands of providence had drawn her here, and she knew better than anyone that you couldn’t ignore such calls. Even if they did feel like a noose around her neck.

Which only left her with one more question. “When do I start?”

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More Excitement: “Fangs” is also Digital!

Yep, you read that right!

You can get this in e-book format right from Amazon, or read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited: Pre-order the e-book here!

This book will ALSO be in audiobook format! 🎉 For those of you who prefer to listen, Fangs, Fate, and Mondays is currently in production to become a full audiobook, available on Audible later on this summer. 😎 Read to you by Chance Carrasco, this book will be just over 9 hours long, and available for purchase or for free with one of your Audible credits.

Release day announcement for the audiobook coming soon!

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In-Person Events in Canada Where You Can Pick Up “Fangs”!

Thank you to all our readers we met in April at CalgaryExpo! It was such a pleasure to meet all of you and we’re constantly blown away by all the love y’all give us and our authors! We’re excited to remind our Canadian readers that this is just the beginning of our events!

Here are some other places to catch us:

• May 23rd: Saturday farmers’ market in Nelson BC
• June 2nd – 4th: Junction Public Market in Vancouver BC
• July 24th – 25th: Friday and Saturday farmers’ market in Nelson BC

Not able to make our event (or even if you are)? We’ve got a special treat for ALL of our readers! We’re having a bookish sale on our entire site (excluding preorders) from May 30 – June 1st! 30% of our entire shop with the code MAYBOOKS30 ! Whether the summer sun has arrived or you’re still dealing with snow, this is your chance to get a new read!

 We hope to see you in person or in our inbox! Come take a selfie with our table, or our books, and share it and tag Whimsical Publishing on Instagram so we can see it! ♥️

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Remember to snag this beautifully fancy edition of Fangs, Fate, and Mondays with its pre-order goodies before they’re gone!

Make sure to mark your calendar for these upcoming Whimsical dates! We have a lot more in store for you all this year. 

• Fangs, Fate and Mondays launch week: May 21st – 27th
• Whimsical at the Farmers’ Market in Nelson: May 23rd (9:00 AM – 2:00 PM PST)
• May Bookish Sale: May 30th – June 1st
• New Whimsical Title Reveal: June 2nd
• Whimsical at the Junction Public Market in Vancouver: June 2nd, 3rd & 4th (11:00 AM – 6:00 PM PDT daily)

If you’ve read all the way to the end, you deserve a cup of magical coffee from “The Witch’s Brew” (psst, read Fangs so you know what this is)! ☕

As always, thank you all so much for supporting our journey thus far. We’re a small team and we appreciate and see all your comments, messages, and orders. As a family run press, it means the world! 

Until next time,
Whimsical Publishing 🩷🦩