Tengoku

Aozora Kaede, a lady of autumn, is on the run. Estranged from her parents and forced to flee from home after a violent disagreement with her aunt and cousin, she is a wanderer with a spirit wolf as her only companion. Homura Imari, a lady of a different court, lives in the lap of luxury. As the daughter of a daimyo, her duties are clear: stay home and learn how to rule the province she will inherit. But when fate brings the two of them together, Imari notices Kaede’s connection to the spirits and decides to ask for a favor. She needs someone to guide her to Hongshan, a faraway mountain where a magical blacksmith is rumored to live—a blacksmith who can hopefully replace her missing left hand. Together, they must travel across the treacherous Jade Sea, protect themselves from Kaede’s vengeful family, and perhaps even save the Empire from destruction.

Rae D. Magdon is a writer and author specializing in sapphic romance and speculative fiction. When she felt the current selection of stories about queer women were too white, too strictly gendered, and far too few in number, she decided to start writing her own. From 2012 to 2016, she has written and published ten novels with Desert Palm Press, won a Rainbow Award in the 2016 Science Fiction category, and was runner up in 2015 for the Golden Crown Literary Award in the Fantasy category. She wholeheartedly believes that all queer women deserve their own adventures, and especially their own happy endings.