
Part of Series
J. Chaucey Thatcher has a monster inside him, but this is the least of his worries. A murderer prowls the Iron City, slaying inventors. An angry mob storms close behind, blaming wizards. Any they find, they burn alive. Chaucey is an inventor. He is also secretly a wizard, and the only person who can help with this secret was just murdered before his very eyes. But when it comes to investigating, Chaucey is as dogged as his best friend is dog. With the help of his loyal pug butler, his sparky (almost? maybe?) girlfriend, and a sleuth of rambunctious bears, he has vowed to unravel the mystery of these murders and save the city from the grips of terror. But the monster inside him burns for escape. Will he save the Iron City? Or will the monster destroy it first?
Author

H.P. Holo grew up in a family where it was dangerous to profess boredom. She’s also an incorrigible smart aleck. So when her parents told her to read a dictionary, she did. And then she began writing novels they needed that dictionary to understand. Her first published ode to smart aleckery was YA fantasy The Wizard’s Way (with Jacob Holo), which readers have called everything from “quirky and fun” to “a veritable love letter to steampunk fans” to “2 stars. A book.” Between those milestones, H.P. has practiced varying degrees of smart and aleck. She briefly taught 8th Grade English Language arts before realizing she didn’t care to aspire to that level of sainthood. She thus left to work for her local library system, where she spent a decade as, variously, Page, Clerk, Teen Assistant, and now that she writes full time, frequent haver-of-overdue-fees. When not writing her latest novel, H.P. enjoys procrastinating, planning cosplays she’ll never finish, cooking weird meals out of random leftovers, saying nice things to her kitchen garden (especially the blueberries; they’re always a little sad), fangirling over terrible movies, and arguing that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is, in fact, the most perfect movie ever made. She lives in South Carolina with her husband, a bunch of plants, and a cat who thinks exactly as much of herself as she deserves.