duckprintspress

The Salt in the Sea by J. D. Rivers is Duck Prints Press’s next novella release! Meet Thoma and Victor, two men with complex pasts that include a previous bittersweet encounter with each other. The Salt in the Sea is a novella about building a life in the aftermath of disaster, about isolation literal and metaphorical, and about second chances. Oh, yeah, and there’s also a corpse to deal with…

Blurb:

A downtrodden ex-soldier.

After leaving the military, werewolf Victor is shunned in his civilian life. Money is tight, so when an ex-comrade offers him an easy job—getting a package from an island—he jumps at the chance.

A lost inn-owner.

When Selkie Thoma opens the door to a knocking patron, he wants to close it again immediately. Standing before him is Victor, his one-night stand from three years ago. The last thing Thoma wants is to have to explain why he left that night.

As Victor and Thoma cross paths unexpectedly, emotions flare anew. But Victor is only on the island for a week, and Thoma can’t face his past, the consequences of his decisions, or the resulting condemnation from his sea-going selkie family.

A dead body in a post office.

When a corpse is discovered, fingers throughout the community point at Victor. With time running out before justice is served, it’s on Thoma to find out the truth. Because on the island justice is deadly.

Our pre-order crowdfunding campaign for The Salt in the Sea begins April 1st 2025 (no foolin’!), with a minimum goal of $900 US. You can learn more about the campaign, and sign up for our newsletter to make sure you get notified when sales go live!

The pre-order campaign for To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh, a queer holiday novella with a trans male protagonist, ends on October 20th, midnight GMT-12 (8 AM Eastern Time on October 21st).

WE ARE STILL $500 AWAY FROM OUR FUNDING GOAL! Don’t miss this chance to buy a great book. Check out our pre-order campaignbefore time runs out!

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SPREAD THE WORD – please share this post. Hearing about To Drive the Hundred Miles for the first time? Read on to learn all about it…

Serendipity, WA is filled with Christmas cheer, beautiful mountain views, and trans man Will’s feminist Wiccan family. Home for the holidays, he avoids their clumsy attempts at support by hiding in the local coffee shop and flirting with Bea, a friend from high school.

The beautiful landscapes can’t make up for the the realities of being queer in a small town, and Bea wants out. Will grabs for a prosperity spell, and finds a new way to connect to the magic he’s become estranged from. New romance and optimism get them through the holidays, ready to face their next problems.

Author Alec J. Marsh describes his novel To Drive the Hundred Miles as a Hallmark movie made queer. With a trans male protagonist and an immersive first-person point of view, this novella will draw you in and hold your attention from start to finish. Join Will as he struggles with his family’s acceptance of him, and as he struggles with his own acceptance of the potentially bright future offered to him by the cute barista Bea. Ringing in the season with lows and highs, a whole lot of coffee and pancakes, and a modest dollop of spicy f/m content, you won’t want to miss your chance to get this touching book—now available as a gorgeous trade paperback for the first time ever!

In addition to offering pre-orders for the book in e-book and print editions, we’re also offering some gorgeous merchandise!

So come on over and get a great book and some gorgeous merchandise, and get your queer read on in time for the coming holidays!

Serendipity, WA is filled with Christmas cheer, beautiful mountain views, and trans man Will’s feminist Wiccan family. Home for the holidays, he avoids their clumsy attempts at support by hiding in the local coffee shop and flirting with Bea, a friend from high school.

The beautiful landscapes can’t make up for the the realities of being queer in a small town, and Bea wants out. Will grabs for a prosperity spell, and finds a new way to connect to the magic he’s become estranged from. New romance and optimism get them through the holidays, ready to face their next problems.

Excerpt:

I arranged a circle of tealights around an empty mason jar.

“Tell me what you’re doing,” she prompted.

“I don’t know why we put candles around everything,” I said. “But they feel right. Like a… magnifying glass, I guess. They enhance a spell.”

I poured in brown sugar. “To draw kindness and generosity to you.”

I added dried vervain. “For prosperity.”

I rolled a fresh spearmint leaf between my hands, and the sharp smell filled the air. “For luck and fortune.”

I added a single new penny, gleaming bright, and let it speak for itself.

By backing the campaign, you can learn how to make your own prosperity jar, too! Our gorgeous postcard, featuring art by Aceriee, includes the recipe!

Learn more about the book, and our pre-order campaign – running until October 20th! – now!

Alec J. Marsh, author of the holiday novella To Drive the Hundred Miles (pre-orders open now!) lives in the Pacific Northwest, where they write romantic adult fantasy and self-indulgent fanfiction. They make candles inspired by their favorite characters.

You can get to know him better by checking him out his preferred social media platforms:

• Etsy
• Instagram
• Twitter

Or you can get to know him by checking out his other Duck Prints Press publications:

• Heart’s Scaffold (m/m, explicit, science fiction, corsetry and bondage, dom/sub)
• A Mutual Interest (m/f, whispers of m/m/f, science fantasy, general audiences, the inherent eroticism of both pining for the same third person)
• Study Hall (m/m, explicit, modern college setting, orgasm control)
• To relish a love song, like a robin redbreast (f/f, historical, didn’t know they were queer), in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown

OR, best of all, you can get to know Alec by joining us for our first-ever Ask Me Anything session on our Discord Server! Join us on Discord, and attend this awesome Q&A session this Sunday, October 15th, at 3 PM Eastern Time!

(And don’t forget to pre-order To Drive the Hundred Miles!)

You can now pre-order the queer holiday novella To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh!

Serendipity, WA is filled with Christmas cheer, beautiful mountain views, and trans man Will’s feminist Wiccan family. Home for the holidays, he avoids their clumsy attempts at support by hiding in the local coffee shop and flirting with Bea, a friend from high school.

The beautiful landscapes can’t make up for the the realities of being queer in a small town, and Bea wants out. Will grabs for a prosperity spell, and finds a new way to connect to the magic he’s become estranged from. New romance and optimism get them through the holidays, ready to face their next problems.

Author Alec J. Marsh describes his novel To Drive the Hundred Miles as a Hallmark movie made queer. With a trans male protagonist and an immersive first-person point of view, this novella will draw you in and hold your attention from start to finish. Join Will as he struggles with his family’s acceptance of him, and as he struggles with his own acceptance of the potentially bright future offered to him by the cute barista Bea. Ringing in the season with lows and highs, a whole lot of coffee and pancakes, and a modest dollop of spicy f/m content, you won’t want to miss your chance to get this touching book—now as a gorgeous trade paperback for the first time ever!

Want a free preview of the story? We’ve got that! Download the first chapter as a pdf!

What can you get?

• To Drive the Hundred Miles e-book (ePub and PDF formats)
• To Drive the Hundred Miles print book
• a spell jar recipe two-sided postcard
• a circular sticker with a skyscape and mountainscale
• a deer antler pendant
• Patreon exclusive extra! People who support us on Patreon at the $10/month or $25/month level and also back the campaign will receive a hand-made snowflake ornament!

Want it all? Get a Bundle!

• To Drive the Hundred Miles E-Book + Merchandise Package
• To Drive the Hundred Miles E-Book + Print Book Package
• To Drive the Hundred Miles E-Book + Print Book + Merchandise Package

Learn about the book, the author, the campaign, the budget, and fulfillment timeline, and more, by visiting the campaign pre-order page NOW!

Our pre-order campaign for the sapphic fantasy novel Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley ends at midnight, GMT-12 (so, 8 a. m. Eastern Time on October 1st, 12 p. m. GMT). Make sure you order this fantastic, fun, dramatic debut before we close the orders. We’re less than $500 from reaching our next stretch goal!

Not hooked yet? Read the blurb!

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

Today, we’re sharing our last teaser before the end of the campaign!

“Subterfuge isn’t one of my strength,” Droplet admitted. 

“You’re literally posing as a wealthy human businessperson, back home. What do you think that is?”

“That’s easy subterfuge. Every rich human thinks they’re better than all the other rich humans in the room. I know I’m better than all the rich humans. Nobody suspects a thing.”

–excerpt from “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley

Don’t miss the chance to get this awesome, entertaining book by an up-and-coming queer author. Pre-order Many Drops Make a Stream!

Pre-orders for Adrian Harley’s debut sapphic fantasy novel Many Drops Make a Stream are now open!

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

Many Drops Make a Stream, Adrian Harley’s debut novel, is the stand-alone first book in a series of related fantasy-mystery-heists featuring the shapeshifter Droplet and the friends and found family who work alongside her to fight the corrupt powers-that-be. Many Drops Make a Stream is rated general (adult) audiences and features shapeshifting shenanigans, a nascent f/f quarrelers-to-lovers pre-relationship, a wonderful extended cast of family and pseudo-family, necromancy and blood magic and spellwork (oh my!), and one (1) very angry goose.

For this campaign, we’re offering:

• Many Drops Make a Stream e-book (ePub and PDF formats)
• Many Drops Make a Stream digest-sized trade paperback book (bonus: every single print book comes with a bookplate signed by Adrian Harley!)
• Droplet!Dux Die-Cut Sticker
• Many Drops Make a Stream Cover Art Print
• Shapeshifting Droplet Enamel Pin
• Patron-exclusive extra wooden coaster (for people who support Duck Prints Press at the $10/month and $25/month level on Patreon and back this campaign)

Better yet, you can get a discount by picking one of three bundles:

• Many Drops Make a Stream E-Book + Merchandise
• Many Drops Make a Stream E-Book + Print Book
• Many Drops Make a Stream E-Book + Print Book + Merchandise

You can learn all about the book, the author, the campaign, and our offerings by visiting the pre-order page NOW!

Want a chance to win a trade paperback copy of Many Drops Make a Stream? Help us spread the word about this campaign by liking and signal boosting our posts on any of our platforms that including “sharing” functionality (such as Tumblr, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook), and you can get up to 4 entries per platform where you share!*

Campaign backers will also get bonuses based on the number of signal boosts our posts receive! All the social media links for sharing are on the linked pre-order page, so help us tell the world about the awesome book, and who knows – you might win a copy! (But only if we fund, ’cause we can’t afford to print the book if we don’t fund, so help us make sure people who want to buy The Awesome learn that The Awesome exists!)

*sweepstakes rules and conditions