Discovering Magic (Working Title)

Contemporary Fantasy — 110,000 words — Currently revising

I wrote this book because I had one simple question: how do magical societies start?

Pretty much every fantasy novel I have read has them: established magical communities. From fully fledged schools like Hogwarts, Brakebills and the Scholomance, to the solitary mentor taking our protagonist under their wing to teach them magic like Kelsier for Vin, Galen for FitzChivalry and Kulgan for Pug. They all exist as fully formed institutions or mentors with histories and rules and hierarchies. But someone had to be first. Someone had to figure it out from scratch, alone, with no mentor showing up at their door, no secret society sliding a card under their bed, no flying motorcycle whisking them off to a school that already knew everything.

What would the discovery of magic actually look like? Not in a fantasy world with elves and dwarves, but in our world. Today's world, with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, climate change and geopolitics, TikTok and Reddit and a thousand other things assaulting your sanity. You have found something that shouldn't exist. There is no one to call. There is no book that explains it properly. There is just you, some vague historical texts, and a lot of trial and error.

Do you keep it secret? Do you tell someone? How do you even begin to figure out what to try out?

That is where my book starts.

To his followers on Twitch, he is LoreSeeker, a man on a mission. He performs occult rituals, follows leads, and searches for proof that magic is real. His audience follows along not because they truly believe, but because they desperately want to. The world is broken in too many ways to count, and if magic is real, maybe something can actually be done about it. When one ritual actually works, everything changes. There is no one to call. No institution waiting to take him in. No one in the entire world to guide him.

And when magic proves dangerous, leaving one of his followers as little more than charred remains, the question becomes not just how to use it, but who should be allowed to learn this power, and whether to share it at all. The answer troubles him more than he expected.

At its core this is a book about ego, grief, and the seductive danger of being the only person in the world who knows how something works.

Interested in representation? The manuscript is complete and available upon request. You can reach me via the Contact page.