Fashionista on Fire
The Seamier Side of Magic 3 (2025)
Fashion designer Frak Blivens is not feeling so great. Everything has gone wrong. Her L.A. studio burned down, Stan is missing, and so are the Cephalopods. Demoralized, Frak hides out in her parents’ empty house in Beaverton, talking to herself and trying unsuccessfully to draw Frak-sized portals into the magic land of Grenvallis. Her first-grade teacher Mrs. Moss, who turns out to be a member of the Protectors of Peace, gives Frak a new assignment: Find and rescue the King and Queen of Grenvallis. With Stan and the King missing, Frak is the only Phoenix left who can fulfill the prophecy: For Grenvallis to live, a Phoenix must die. Frak would like to be the hero who saves Grenvallis magic, but not if it means dying again. Once was enough. When Frak’s sister Cheryl suggests a roadtrip to Bend to meet their mysterious grandmother, Frak jumps at the chance to outrun her destiny. The final book in The Seamier Side of Magic wraps up the loose ends, answers the unanswered questions, and resolves the mystery of Frak, the Phoenix.
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Rebellion of the Feed Dogs
The Seamier Side of Magic 2 (2023)
After losing her job at Van Plotz Design Studio, Frak launches her own custom clothing design shop. Being in business is hard. Her roommate and best friend, Molly, encourages her to enroll in a marketing class. Stan, a fellow student, tells Frak she can get free publicity if she volunteers to teach middle-schoolers how to sew. Meanwhile, Corinne Atwilder, the most famous costume designer in Los Angeles, asks Frak to find her missing stylebook. Without her sense of style, Corinne is washed up in Hollywood. As Frak searches for the stylebook, she discovers many of the L.A. stylists she’s known for years are actually style witches, part of the Swanky Shamans coven. One of them may be the thief! Not only that, the stylists are at war with the local librarians! As Frak learns the origins of the rift, she begins to suspect who might have taken the stylebook and why. However, to get it back, she must confront her own emerging magical nature, and the outcome could be deadly.
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Custom Made Magic
The Seamier Side of Magic 1 (2022)
Los Angeles in 1980 is a magical place for fashion and style. Frances Blivens, known to her friends as Frak, dreams of opening her own shop and launching a line of unisex office wear. In the meantime, she works for Pamela Van Plotz as a design assistant, sweeping up pins, helping her coworkers unionize, and serving the clients who aren’t quite human.
The Wild Seals hired Van Plotz Design Studio to make bolero jackets for their concert. Frak is a huge fan. However, after the show, someone poisoned the Seals and stole the new jackets, as well as the Seals’ selkie coats, which give them the power to shift from human to seal and back again. Frak agrees to help. Before she knows it, she is involved in a dangerous search for clues that takes her into a world of supernatural creatures, some of whom would rather eat humans than help them.
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The Oracle
(2021)
Pythia Apulu is the last of the Greek Oracles.
At the height of her power, she served the god Apollo in the Temple at Delphi, foretelling the future for kings and ambassadors from across the ancient world. Then an illness destroyed her power, her darling but possibly dangerous older sister disappeared, and worst of all, she lost her connection to her beloved god Apollo. Now, almost three thousand years later, she applies her much-diminished oracular insight as a business coach in Los Angeles, attends A.A. meetings for her geothermal gas inhalation addiction, and searches for the meaning of life.
The Oracle is a heartwarming and magical story about family, friendship, and the search for spiritual connection.
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Parched
(2020)
This is not your typical mermaid story.
A baby mermaid washes up on an Oregon beach. A human couple on vacation finds her, names her Sheila, and takes her home to California. Humans react to this extraordinary mythical creature in ways both humorous and tragic. Some worship her, some fear her, and some want to steal her magic. Unfortunately, to survive among humans, Sheila must give up an essential part of her mermaid soul—her voice. As she grows into adulthood, the ocean beckons; however, as difficult as it is to live life on land, she’s afraid of leaving the only life she’s ever known. A wrong turn diverts her to Gresham, Oregon, a town eighty miles from the Pacific Ocean. She rents a trailer in a mobile home park and gets a job as an insurance claims processor. Can she find her missing voice as she struggles to find love and acceptance among humans? What will she have to sacrifice before she can find her way home?
This quirky magical tale of a mythical creature’s encounters with friendship, xenophobia, racism, sexism, and drought will invite you to question what it means to live in a land where few value or even accept your truest self.
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