In the vein of When You Trap a Tiger and Coraline, this contemporary magical realistic retelling of the Japanese folktale The Melon Princess and the Amanjaku follows one girl who must save herself and her loved ones from a deceitful demon she befriended.
THE VERY UNFORTUNATE WISH OF MELONY YOSHIMURA
by Waka T. Brown
Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, July 2023
Readers will be taken on a riveting, chilling, and alluring adventure led by a shape shifting, mischief making creature who promises Melony the world and often delivers. But with that comes a price to pay, and readers will be shocked when they find out what that is!
Though the Amanjaku acts like your best friend, its true aim is to take over your life. While it helps you get whatever you want and assuages any feelings of guilt you have about it it will also take whatever it wants. Its true form is a gray, fuzzy, Muppet like creature, but it can shapeshift to look like anyone…
This novel has the best of both worlds—a relatable, accessible tween heroine trying to achieve her autonomy and figure out who she is, as well as a touch of the fantastic, which will hook genre readers looking to get lost in the possibilities of magic.
Waka T. Brown is a Stanford graduate with a Master’s in Secondary Education. An instructor at the Stanford Program on International and Cross Cultural Education, she has won the national Franklin Buchanan Prize and the national 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher award.
In the realm of Awara, where gods, monsters, and humans exist side by side, Miuko is an ordinary girl resigned to a safe, if uneventful, existence as an innkeeper’s daughter.
WAR WIDOW brings the same elements that so enthralled readers in 
Blood Scion
Bitsy is no one’s ideal princess. She’s heard it all: that it’s a shame she’s so plain, so lacking in grace. That the best thing for her to do is hope some prince will grant her a happy ending. Then Bitsy pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into a world where cutthroats and con artists are more common than curtsies. As fate spins her deeper into this unknown place, she discovers that there’s much more to her than meets the eye, too.
Twelve years after the events of House of Salt and Sorrows, the Thaumas sisters are scattered across Arcannia. Camille rules over Highmoor as an efficient duchess. Annaleigh, Keeper of the Light, runs Old Maude with husband Cassius. Lenore is long gone, wandering throughout Arcannia. Honor is a governess in Foresia and Mercy lives at court, a companion to the two princesses. Despite dreams of adventures, almost-eighteen year old Verity has remained at Highmoor. She has no memory of the tragic events or her part within them. She spends her days filling hundreds of sketchbooks and canvases with portraits and paintings. Unfortunately, not all her subjects are alive. Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it. When Mercy sends word that the Duchess of Bloem is interested in having Verity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance. Verity is also quickly drawn to Alexander Laurent. Though a childhood accident left him without the use of his legs, Alexander roams the estate in a wicker wheelchair, taking Verity on adventurous and romantic outings as they grow closer. When he proposes she joyfully accepts. Even the constant revelry can’t hold back a new series of nightmares from plaguing Verity. She longs to confide in Alex but finds him much changed since the engagement. When she spots him walking through the halls of Chauntilalie one night, she fears that nothing is as it seems.