Lynn Strong

September 2025: Haroun and the Study of Mischief is a 75,000 word standalone novel in the world of the Catsprowl.

“Don’t get a torch too close to his djellaba.”

“It might catch fire?”

“You might see it.”

Venerable Haroun, the blind saluqi priest of the dog-headed god Yepuet, has come to the wild and collarless Tel-Bastet, the City of Cats, for an education in mischief. 

And Haroun has never met a crime of fashion he wouldn’t commit.

Shai Madhur, the disabled human priest of Upaja, thought accepting Haroun’s leash meant being Haroun’s seeing-eye human. He wasn’t prepared for the political machinations… or for Haroun’s sense of humor.

When a kind prophet-prince goes missing, Haroun smells iniquity in the air. (Iniquity, it turns out, smells like kumiss spilled on a tomcat in dire need of a bath.) 

The problem with everyone in Tel-Bastet knowing what a Good Boy their Shai Madhur is, is that people keep trying to rescue him, whether he needs it or not. Not that he’s complaining, exactly. But Madhur swears he is never going carousing again… no matter how soulful Haroun’s puppydog eyes are.

With a splash of Studio Ghibli, a sprinkle of Roshani Chokshi, and a dash of Terry Pratchett, when the cats and dogs need to learn to live together, Haroun and Madhur take on the difference between what is seen and what is true.

July 2025: Chaotic Cupids is an anthology from Wordfire Western. (My story is “The Necessary Arrangements,” which is not connected to the Catsprowl stories, but if you like Najra, you’ll probably like Roshana.)

Love is in the air…or is it? When it comes to love, anything can go awry.

What if Cupid’s aim isn’t so perfect after all? What if the arrow finds the wrong target, or the right target at the wrong time?

Romance can blossom in an ancient castle, at a local café, or on an interstellar generation ship. But what happens when magic, technology, planetary alignments, or sheer bad luck turn romance into a disaster?

What if the meet-cute is not so cute?

What if the mystical globe crystals tell you that you have more than one soul mate? 

Or what if you’re a robot who has downloaded feelings? 

Here is your chance to free fall into a world where love, magic, and wonder can devolve into chaos and confusion. Upgrade your situationship with soul mates, arranged marriages, death personified, terraformers, and deals with the devil you know. These 23 original stories and poems take aim at your favorite romance tropes across galaxies, through portals, even into the afterlife…

Brought to life by New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and award-winning editor Allyson Longueira—and their graduate students at Western Colorado University—Chaotic Cupids: When Love Goes Awry showcases the beautiful chaos of love in all its many and wondrous forms, with unexpected results, hilarious mistakes, and terrifying consequences. (Winged cherub optional.)

Once Upon A Time … Love got in the way. This wasn’t the plan, but the story might be better that way.

Chai and Cat-tales contains three cozy fantasy novellas:

The Prince of Her Dreams, a queer and cozy Witches-vs-Patriarchy tale about Najra, a clever, bookish Archivist-in-training who’s been dreaming of her life with a prince… just not the way she was expected to dream of him. (Set several years before “Rahat al-Hulqum.”)

Priye, a gentle Miyazaki-like look at the world through the eyes of a neurospicy, nonverbal catfolk kitten who lives in Tel-Bastet’s Catsprowl neighborhood. Words are meant for humans; purring and yowling are much more clear to Priye. But she likes the kind humans who feed small kittens, and she wants to be grown up enough to hunt for them. (One of those humans likes soap and water entirely too much, though. That can’t possibly be normal.)

The Potter’s Dream, where kind-hearted priest Shai Madhur isn’t very good at denying a nourishing meal to anybody… not even the mice overrunning the granary. He needs a better mouse-catcher. But first, he needs to find the Temple’s missing cauldrons. Because sermons don’t feed hungry people, and the potter looks hungry. Shai Madhur’s heart and soul yearns to fill his people’s needs, with or without the cauldrons.

(Also, I expect there will be at least half a dozen recipes in here…)

Wyngraf’s Valentines Special 2024 contains three stories:

“Rahat al-Hulqum” by me,
“Mail-Order Husband” by J. Alexander Cohen, and
“Frozen Heart” by Nathaniel Webb.

“Rahat al-Hulqum” is a queer cozy M/M remake of Cinderella, gleefully flipping every trope along the way. Rahat is a sweet, shy, fat, middle-aged bureaucrat of a prince who’s trying to escape the pressures of his palace for a night. He meets a bath-house enchanter who could wave a magic wand for a makeover, except that Master Asharan doesn’t want to make over anyone. Ashar loves his life, he doesn’t want anything to do with a palace, and he adores Rahat exactly as he is, no makeovers wanted. Now if only Rahat’s irritated bodyguard would believe him…

(There’s also a recipe for Asharan’s chai, because of course there is.)