A Touch of Enchantment

By Derek Desmond

What if tragedy itself crossed the veil, begging to be rewritten? Eliot wants only to tend his quiet London bookshop, to keep every last shelf, coin, and secret to himself. Yet when a battered old novel opens on its own, a girl steps from its pages: Zayva, a bashful scorpion-centaur with a heart far too large for her own peace.

Soon she is joined by others: a mischievous goblin with laughter like broken bells, a diligent bee-girl who cleans until the world gleams, a steel-eyed were-gator who hides her tenderness behind grit and southern poise, and, because the universe delights in irony, an bratty eldritch maiden in doll-lace and ribbons whose sweetness masks a madness older than memory.

These girls were stolen from the brink of sorrow. No one yet knows the stories they escaped or the endings that still wait for them in the margins. Eliot, sardonic, shy, and far too greedy for his own good, cannot help but hoard what fate has placed in his care: a strange, mismatched family that refuses to let their tales close where they once began.

But books are jealous things, and they do not release their characters without cost. Eliot's greatest desire-to keep them safe, and keep them his-may be the very thing that unravels them all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GQPRQPFQ
• ISBN13: 9798250241496
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 648 Pages
• Weight: 1.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"