Witches of the Wheel

In her metaphysical mystery Witches of the Wheel, Lindsay Merbaum weaves a spellbinding tale of mythology, bartending, and queer belonging.

Gold grows up knowing only a few things about herself: something lets her see ghosts and read her neighbors' secrets, and her mother seems to hate her. But when she strikes out on her own, she stumbles into a job at The Wheel, a literally-underground lesbian bar where a coven gathers every Thursday and each entrance requires a painful sacrifice. It feels like the first place she's belonged.

But the bar, its patrons, and its history are more complicated, and more dangerous, than Gold ever realized. As she entangles herself in her new community, she learns more about herself than she wanted to know―and attracts an ancient goddess's deadly attention.

Lindsay Merbaum is a queer feminist author and high priestess of home mixology. Her award-nominated short fiction has appeared in PANK, Anomalous Press, The Collagist, Epiphany, Gargoyle, Day One, Harpur Palate, and Hobart, among others. Essays and interviews can also be found in Electric Literature, Bustle, Bitch Media, The Huffington Post, The Rumpus, and more. A 2021 Foreword Indies Finalist, The Gold Persimmon was her first novel with Creature Publishing. Her second book, a smutty horror-comedy novella called Vampires at Sea, was a LibraryReads Bonus Pick. Lindsay lives in Flint, Michigan with her partner and cats.