Doomsday Dot will wake the day the world ends.
That’s what everyone says, yours truly included.
Bryony’s been searching for her big sister for ten years and change, and the trail finally leads her to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time’s traveling show. There’s a wolf who’ll serve you tea, a lady who’s sometimes a swan, and Bryony’s sister sound asleep in a glass casket. All of them, rolling through the wasteland in a giant wooden Whale.
The Whale’s important, you’ll see.
But Bryony’s not the only one on the hunt. Everyone on the Whale is running from something. And whether Bryony can wake her sister before they’re caught, well, only the Devil herself knows.
The Devil’s important as well. You’ll see that, too.
Praise for Lovely Creatures
If a traveling circus had a fairytale soul, it would be this troupe of misfits. If a gothic house had a car, it would be this wooden whale. KT Byriski’s Lovely Creatures is an astounding journey of finding family, escaping poisonous relationships, and telling tales the entire way. Pay your penny and step through the curtain. You won’t regret it.
Nebula-winning, Hugo and World Fantasy finalist author Fran Wilde (Updraft, The Book of Gems)
Lovely Creatures is gritty, surreal, and a spectacularly whimsical novella that interweaves fairytales, deliciously twisted, yet recognizable, in a warped wonderland, unravelling how all the stories and characters are all interconnected by the thread of death.
Ai Jiang, Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker Award nominated author of LINGHUN and I AM AI
With the sure hand of a master of archetype and image, KT Bryski deftly pulls back the curtain to show us a world we’ve always suspected was there. This is where our bedtime stories go when the lights go off. It’ll take your breath, but don’t worry; you’ll get it back by the end.
Kate Heartfield, Aurora winning author of The Embroidered Book and The Valkyrie
A gorgeously wrought, dark, and unsettling twist on fairy tales where the Devil stalks a storm-whittled landscape, and where Bryony searches for her long-lost sister. It’s written as a weave of tales, and Bryski’s prose has a magic all its own. A woman finds her sister sleeping in a glass coffin. There’s a wolf and swan-maiden, and a man who holds everyone in thrall with his stories. Bryski delves deep in heartache and guilt, love and friendship, and the landscape of the story is tightly intertwined with the people traveling through it. Beautiful, strange, and profoundly moving.
Maria Haskins, Author of Wolves and Girls
Lovely Creatures is a gorgeous tale of family lost and found told in a voice filled with ache and courage. It is a story about the stories we are told, the fairy tales we believe and the legends we don’t. Through dust storms to the darkness of grief at the edge of the world, by way of a wooden whale, Bryony Rush charmed the Devil. KT’s writing will win over your goth hearts just as it has conquered mine.
Suzan Palumbo, Author of Skin Thief: Stories and Countess
Lovely Creatures is a dark and twisted fairy tale that lets us step through the looking glass of grief into the sunless parts of ourselves where everything is a story. Bryski has written a path into the woods, and the smart reader will hold the author’s hand.
Meg Elison, Hugo, Locus, and Philip K. Dick award winning author
