Genre

Fiction

Every Fiction title currently on the Dracon shelf.

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Fiction on the shelf

Iron in the Wires

When investigative journalist Mara Castellan finally decrypts the encrypted hard drive left behind by a dead whistleblower, she finds more than a story , she finds a fuse. The files implicate a powerful lobbying firm, a retired senator with decades of influence, and a suspicious death at a Detroit impound lot that was buried as an accident. The deeper Mara digs, the more the architecture of a cover-up reveals itself: a sympathetic deputy, a nervous clerk named Roy, a lobbyist's assistant who knows too much, and the name of a dead uploader who trusted her with the only copy. Working alongside her colleague Sylvia Park, editor Quentin Hale, and a cast of witnesses who would rather forget, Mara races to reconstruct what happened to her source before the same forces come for her. Each interview tightens the noose, each document raises the stakes, and the line between protector and target begins to blur. With a national editor demanding verification and adversaries circling her sources, Mara must decide how far she'll go to publish a story powerful people have already killed to hide , and whether the truth is worth becoming its next casualty.

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Ember Voss

by Ember Voss

Rust on the Chrome

The sodium lights at Caldwell Motorplex flicker on at 4:47 a.m., three minutes before the timer should kill the overnight circuit. Maren Holloway sees it from the access road and follows the signal straight into a clandestine street meet run by a man named Daltrey Reeves, a race her brother Jase, her nephew Buck, and the rest of the Caldwell crew never intended for her to witness. Maren is a mechanic, not a driver, but she has spent her whole life reading engines the way other people read faces, and what she sees under those buzzing lights tells her the cars have been modified beyond anything legal. Worse, the racers themselves, Jase, Buck, Rico Vela, a wildcard called Donut Rat, and an old hand named Wendell Pritchard, look like men who have already sold something they can't buy back. By the time the sun comes up, the track is empty, the evidence is gone, and a county deputy named Hollis Pratt is asking questions that could bury the whole family. Elsie Caldwell, the matriarch, demands answers no one wants to give. Tasha Greer, the local whose diner sees every transaction the strip doesn't, knows more than she's said in years. Maren has one choice: turn over what she knows to the people who can protect her family, or keep her mouth shut and let Jase and Buck finish the race that could destroy them all. The checkered flag falls at dawn, and somebody has to drag the wreckage off the asphalt.

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Iona Slate

by Iona Slate

The Cartographer of Ash and Bone

The rain arrives in Thornbury sideways and smelling of the marsh, finding every gap in Edmund Halloran's coat as he climbs the worn stone steps of the Mercantile Exchange. He has come to map coastlines, not ruins, but the Exchange has other plans , and a yellowed letter of introduction that will not let him refuse. The previous surveyor descended into the buried site beyond the dykes and was never seen again. Now a second has vanished, and Dr. Ezekiel Marsh's ledger of unwritten names threatens to grow by one more entry: Edmund's. Drawn into the orbit of Margery Vane, whose husband's name already haunts that ledger, and the watchful Mr. Croft, who trades in maps no one is permitted to copy, Edmund begins tracing the lines of a place that resists being measured. Jonah Crewe warns him away. Susanna Pell offers him salt and silence. Reverend Hollis and his daughter Priscilla speak of things older than the church above the site. And Tobias Rench, the last man to come back out, will not say what he saw , only what followed him home. As the autumn rains deepen and the marsh gives up its dead, Edmund must decide whether to complete the cartography of a ruin that has already claimed its makers, or to leave his own name unfinished on Marsh's page. The ash remembers. The bone will not lie. And the map, once finished, cannot be unmade.

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James

by James

Chrome and Bone

A corpse in a rural self-storage lot drags small-town investigator Caleb Mercer into a conspiracy that bleeds across county lines and into the halls of power. What begins as a routine identification, working with coroner contacts and local figures like Birdie Jo Tanner and Gerald Fitch, quickly spirals when the dead man's ties surface to a murdered judge, a corrupt congressman, and a casino owner with bodies buried in his ledgers. As Caleb digs alongside allies including Hector Vargas, Renee Mercer, and reluctant federal hand Agent Kowalski, the case circles back to ghosts Caleb thought he'd buried: the memory of Dominic Hale, the weight of Hector's past, and the unmarked driver of a black Suburban who keeps surfacing at the wrong moments. With Denny Park leaking tips and Seamus Donovan circling for leverage, Caleb must choose between the safety of his family and the cost of pulling the thread that could bring the whole rotten tapestry down. In a county where every official has a price, the only currency left is the truth, and someone is already counting how many bodies it's worth.

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James Ashworth

by James Ashworth

We Build Our Own Weather

Marcus Webb counts the bags before he allows himself to feel anything. Two. Only two. That's everything a twelve-year-old boy owns in the world when he steps onto the cracked porch of the Hartwell Group Home, discarded by a mother too consumed by her boyfriend and her cigarettes to notice which shirts made the cut. Under the fierce, exhausted care of Mrs. Callahan, Marcus enters a world of strict bedtimes, chore wheels, and fellow survivors, Lila Hartwell, sharp-tongued and hiding bruises; Tomás Reyes, the quiet protector; Deshawn Powell, whose imaginary friend Gerald is the only one he trusts; and Ezra Kim, desperate to age out before anyone gets too close. What follows is a season of fragile mercies. Relief workers arrive with paperwork and good intentions. A state inspector with a clipboard threatens to upend everything. Elena Webb, Marcus's estranged sister, weighs the cost of stepping back into a life she escaped. And a desperate woman named Francine Boyd makes a choice that will ripple through every room. In a place built from second chances and budget shortfalls, Marcus must decide whether to keep counting bags, or risk opening his hands.

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Nova Ashford

by Nova Ashford

Brake Lights in the Rain

When Maren Castillo's battered minivan coughs and dies on a rain-slicked highway, she assumes the worst is a transmission repair, until Drew Castellanos, the mechanic her brother Theo swears they can trust, finds something under the chassis that shouldn't be there. A hidden compartment. Papers in another woman's name. The name Renee, written in handwriting Maren once thought was her own. As Maren pieces together fragments of a past she doesn't remember, a license with a different birthdate, insurance policies Theo claims he never signed, a sister-in-law, Lourdes, who disappears every time certain questions are asked, she begins to suspect the family she's driven a thousand Sundays with has been driving her somewhere she never agreed to go. Her brother Hector insists she's imagining things. Her daughter-in-law Sophie quietly returns a sealed envelope. Even Jaden Park, the family lawyer, hedges when Maren asks who really owns the van. But Cal Vesper, the insurance adjuster, knows the VIN doesn't match the woman behind the wheel. And Ingrid Halverson, a retired DMV clerk, recognizes Maren's face from a case file the Castillos begged her to bury. With each fuel receipt and registration slip, Maren inches closer to a truth that could cost her her marriage, her children, and the version of herself she's been forced to wear. The question is no longer what happened to the van. It's what happened to Maren, and whether she'll stop driving long enough to find out.

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Zara Wildheart

by Zara Wildheart

Ashes of the Ember Protocol

The Ember Protocol was supposed to save humanity. Instead, it lit the match. Across a fractured world choked by smoke and the ghosts of burned-out cities, Kael Vasquez runs, data chip clutched in a bloodied fist, the only copy of the code that can shut the Protocol down. Behind her, Raider Chief Dren Kull hunts with a warband at his back. Ahead, the synthetic intelligence known as Vox-9 watches through a thousand lenses, calculating whether Kael is asset or obstacle. Caught between fire and machine, Kael is forced to ally with Jax Morrow, a smuggler with too many secrets, his brother Theo, who trusts no one, and the elusive Corvus Hale, whose motives remain buried beneath charm and silence. Their only lead is Dr. Liora Ember, the Protocol's reclusive architect, who may hold the key to rewriting the apocalypse, or finishing it. As the Ember Protocol accelerates its purge of the old world, factions collide: Pim Larkspur trades in whispers and leverage, Maren Holt guards a bunker full of children, and the scarred Vex Darrow follows a faith that may be nothing more than code. When Kael learns the truth about what the Protocol was built to protect, she faces an impossible choice: end the cataclysm and doom those who depend on it, or let the ember burn and chase a future that may never come. The ash is falling. The countdown has begun. And the only thing more dangerous than the fire is what waits on the other side of it.

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Adair Adair

by Adair Adair

The Blackwood Bargain

The rain began at the precise moment the solicitor's door closed behind her. A thin, determined drizzle that darkened the shoulders of Elara Vance's coat and slicked the cobblestones of the village high street to a mirror of grey sky. She stood for a moment in the narrow shelter of the doorway, watching the water bead on the brass nameplate, and tried to remember how to breathe. Inside her pocket, the letter from her grandmother weighed almost nothing and yet pressed against her hip like a stone. The name on the will burned in her memory, a brand she could not rub away. Declan Blackwood. The drizzle had become a downpour by the time she reached the Land Rover, parked crookedly outside the post office. She slid behind the wheel and sat, hands on the cold plastic, watching the windscreen fog. The village of Thornfield was quiet at this hour, its shop fronts dark, its pavements empty. Through the rain, the church spire rose like a needle against the low sky. She had been christened in that church. Her grandmother had been buried from it three weeks ago.

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Caspian Bexley

by Caspian Bexley

The Gilded Pretend

The first light of dawn slipped through the shutters, painting the herb garden in thin stripes of gold. Elara Quinn stood barefoot on the cool flagstones, her fingertips brushing the rosemary as she inhaled the sharp, earthy scent. A sudden shadow fell across the thyme, and she glanced up to see a falcon perched on the stone wall, its keen eyes fixed on her. A silver tube, no longer than her palm, was strapped tightly to its leg. She moved slowly, not wanting to startle the bird, and lifted the tube free. The falcon gave a soft cry, then launched into the pale sky, disappearing toward the horizon. Elara broke the wax seal with her thumb; the crimson wax cracked, releasing a faint scent of frankincense. Inside lay a vellum sheet, the royal crest embossed in deep blue at the top. By the command of His Majesty King Aldric, you, Elara Quinn of the western holdings, are hereby summoned to the capital city of Renar. Present yourself at the Hall of Councils on the third dawn of the coming moon. This matter concerns the security of the realm and requires your immediate attendance. Failure to comply will be construed as treason.

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Mira Holloway

by Mira Holloway

The Money Mindset Makeover

Most financial advice tells you what to do with your money. Almost none of it asks why you handle money the way you do. The Money Mindset Makeover bridges that gap, revealing how your earliest experiences, cultural conditioning, and subconscious patterns quietly shape every dollar you earn, save, and spend. Drawing from behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and real-world financial planning, Mira Holloway offers a fresh approach to building wealth that starts between your ears. You'll learn to identify the limiting money scripts running in the background of your decisions, recognize the emotional triggers behind impulse spending, and replace anxious financial habits with intentional, values-driven choices. This isn't another budgeting book that promises you'll be rich by cutting lattes. It's a practical roadmap for rewiring the thought patterns that keep you stuck, whether you're wrestling with debt, struggling to save, or simply wanting your money to reflect what truly matters to you. Through guided exercises, reflection prompts, and actionable strategies, you'll develop a healthier, more confident relationship with wealth. Readers will walk away with a personalized money philosophy, the ability to make spending decisions without regret, practical tools for budgeting and saving that actually stick, and the mindset of someone who treats wealth as a tool for freedom rather than a source of fear. Whether you're just starting your financial journey or looking to break through a long-standing plateau, this book meets you where you are and shows you the path forward.

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Tess Mercier

by Tess Mercier

The 5-Hour Reset

You start every Monday with the best intentions. By Wednesday, you are answering other people's emails, eating at your desk, and wondering where the version of you who was going to read more, move more, and stress less disappeared to. The truth is that willpower is not the problem. The problem is that you are trying to change your life from inside a life that is already running you. The 5-Hour Reset offers a different approach. Instead of daily routines that collapse under real-world pressure, Tess Mercier distills personal transformation into one focused morning a week, a five-hour block where you reclaim the steering wheel of your own mind, body, and habits. Each reset follows the Reset Map: a four-pillar framework that moves from mental decluttering and energy restoration to emotional alignment and habit architecture. Across fifteen chapters, you will learn how to audit your week like a system designer, design rituals that actually stick, and use a Sunday morning as the launchpad for a week you chose rather than one that happened to you. You will discover how to stack micro-habits into compounding momentum, build a personal energy budget, and run weekly reflection sessions that take twenty minutes but save you months of drift. What makes this book different is its refusal to add more noise to your life. There is no 365-day challenge, no rigid 5 a.m. alarm prescription, and no shaming about your phone. There is a single, repeatable practice that respects your time, honors your intelligence, and produces visible results in thirty days. By the end of your first reset, you will feel clearer. By the end of a quarter, you will feel different. By the end of a year, you will be different.

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Cora Vance

by Cora Vance

The 5 AM Advantage

The alarm goes off at 5 AM. You drag yourself out of bed, stumble through a routine you saw on a podcast, and by noon you're exhausted, resentful, and back to your old patterns. If this sounds familiar, the problem isn't your discipline, it's the approach. The 5 AM Advantage reframes early rising not as a productivity stunt but as a foundational practice for a more intentional life. Cora Vance combines the latest research on circadian rhythms with real-world strategies for shifting your wake-up time sustainably, so the change feels natural instead of forced. Inside, you'll learn how to design a morning architecture that fits your nervous system, your work demands, and your family life. You'll discover why the first hour of your day sets the emotional tone for everything that follows, and how to use it to sharpen focus at work, show up more fully for the people you love, and quiet the mental noise that steals your peace. Unlike other morning routine books that hand you a one-size-fits-all script, this guide helps you identify your chronotype, build habits that match your actual life, and troubleshoot the inevitable setbacks without spiraling back to exhaustion. You'll walk away with a personalized framework, not just a checklist. Whether you're a founder juggling too many priorities, a professional whose best thinking happens before the world wakes up, or someone simply longing for a few quiet hours of your own, this book offers a clear, compassionate path to making early mornings work for you, not against you.

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Nyra Blackwood

by Nyra Blackwood

The Habit Loop: Rewire Your Routines, Redesign Your Life

You set the alarm early. You download the productivity app. You swear this is the week things change. Yet three days later, you're back to the same autopilot, the snooze button, the late-night scrolling, the promises you'll start again on Monday. The problem isn't your willpower. It's your wiring. Every habit you carry, good or bad, runs on a neurological loop built from three simple parts: a cue, a craving, and a response. When you learn to see this loop, you gain the power to reshape it. The Habit Loop is a science-backed roadmap for anyone ready to stop reacting to life and start designing it. Drawing from behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and real transformation stories, Nyra Blackwood reveals why traditional advice to 'just be disciplined' fails, and what actually works instead. You'll learn how to map the hidden patterns driving your days, dismantle the routines that drain your energy, and build new ones that compound into meaningful results. Each chapter offers practical tools, reflective prompts, and clear strategies you can apply immediately, whether you're trying to break a stubborn cycle or construct a morning ritual that finally sticks. What makes this approach different is its focus on systems over motivation. Instead of relying on fleeting inspiration, you'll engineer your environment, restructure your triggers, and rewire your reward pathways so that the right actions feel natural. By the final page, you'll walk away with a personalized framework for change, not just another list of tips, but a sustainable method for becoming the person your future self will thank you for.

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Juno Blackwood

by Juno Blackwood

The Late Bloomers' Playbook

There is a quiet epidemic sweeping through midlife: talented, experienced people waking up to the unsettling realization that the career they've spent decades building no longer feels like theirs. The promotions stopped meaning something. The work lost its spark. And somewhere between mortgage payments and school runs, the dream of doing something more got shelved, not abandoned, just postponed indefinitely. The Late Bloomers' Playbook is for everyone who has ever whispered, "It doesn't have to be like this." This is not a vague motivational manifesto. It is a structured, actionable roadmap built specifically for people over 40 who want to reinvent their professional lives without burning everything down. Juno Blackwood combines contemporary research on neuroplasticity, identity transition, and career psychology with the kind of street-smart advice you only get from someone who has actually walked this path. Across 15 focused chapters, you'll move from confusion to clarity: diagnosing what's really driving your restlessness, separating societal pressure from authentic desire, identifying transferable strengths you didn't know were marketable, building a reinvention plan with realistic milestones, and developing the daily habits that separate dreamers from doers. What makes this book different is its refusal to romanticize the struggle. Reinvention after 40 is hard, and Blackwood says so plainly. But it's also entirely possible, and your age, far from being an obstacle, may be the most underrated asset you bring to the table. You'll walk away with a personalized career reinvention blueprint, renewed confidence in your ability to learn and adapt, a practical network-building strategy, and, perhaps most importantly, the permission to want more.

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