The first in a spellbinding new urban fantasy from USA Today bestselling author and TikTok sensation Piper CJ. Fantasy author Marlow has been haunted by what she believes is a figure of her imagination: a mysterious and alluring man she calls Caliban. But when Caliban disappears, her quest to find him throws her into the very world of gods, demons, and monsters her books have been based on for years.
THE DEER AND THE DRAGON
No Other Gods, Book 1
by Piper CJ
Bloom Books/Sourcebooks, May 2024
The deities you call aren’t always the ones who answer.
Marlow needs to believe she’s crazy. The alternative would mean embracing the gift—or curse—shared by her mother and grandmother: she can see angels and demons, including a dark and haunting entity who’s been with Marlow her entire life. At least, she believes that’s all he is until a fae from the Nordic pantheon strolls into her life and informs her that she’s been sharing a bed with the Prince of Hell.
Marlow needs to believe she’s crazy. The alternative would mean embracing the gift—or curse—shared by her mother and grandmother: she can see angels and demons, including a dark and haunting entity who’s been with Marlow her entire life. At least, she believes that’s all he is until a fae from the Nordic pantheon strolls into her life and informs her that she’s been sharing a bed with the Prince of Hell. A Prince who’s now gone missing.
Before she knows it, Marlow is deeply entangled in a centuries-old war, stumbling straight into a battleground between mighty beings of myth and legend from powerful pantheons around the world. And who will come out on top may just depend on her and the love she never dared to believe in.
Piper CJ, author of the bisexual fantasy series The Night and Its Moon, is a photographer, hobby linguist, and french fry enthusiast. She has an M.A. in folklore, and a B.A. in broadcasting, which she used in her former life as a morning show weather girl, hockey podcaster, and in audio documentary work. Now when she isn’t playing with her dogs, Arrow and Applesauce, she’s making tiktoks, studying Vietnamese, or writing fantasy very, very quickly.

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