Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of When Life Gives You Corpses by Lene D. Buttner, a charmingly monstrous YA releasing March 23, 2027 from Wednesday Books! Here’s the story:
In this delightfully cozy and creepy YA romp, a cave monster masquerading as a search-and-recovery guide intends to find and eat a lost wizard—but catches feelings for him instead, perfect for fans of TJ Klune and Andrew Joseph White.
Theory has a monstrous secret. He isn’t an ordinary search-and-recovery guide at Fiendworld, the world’s premier magical-sinkhole-turned-
That is, until he’s given his latest assignment: recover the body of park management’s missing son. Great. Yet another foolish wizard who got lost adventuring, and this time the direct descendant of the very person who cursed Theory in the first place. Worse, when Theory reluctantly sets off on the search, he’s shocked to find the wizard somehow still alive.
Nim—the wizard in question—has no desire to be rescued. He’s on a mission to the bottom of the sinkhole, and refuses to return to the surface before he gets there. He may be a subpar wizard, as his parents constantly remind him, but he’s got a positive attitude, an enchanted backpack, and now a mysterious rescue worker to recruit to his cause! Even though said worker is quite rude and seems to be getting Nim into more danger rather than out of it.
To survive, Theory and Nim must brave man-eating fish, walls of tentacles, and devastating secrets: both their own, and ones the park desperately tries to keep hidden. Along the way, they may just discover that they’re stronger together than apart.
And here’s the glorious cover, designed by Anto Marr and illustrated by the author themself!
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | Macmillan
LENE D. BUTTNER lives in London, surrounded by various fluffy and non-fluffy pets. When they’re not writing, they work in Computer Animation, where they spend their time exploding things and simulating toilet paper. They love everything scifi and fantasy and are yet to run out of book ideas featuring misunderstood, snarky monsters.
RACHEL KITCH is a mixed-race Thai American speculative horror author with a love of writing unsettling, creepy books that still have a spark of light. Rachel has her master’s in design from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s from West Virginia University. As a generation 1.5 immigrant, Rachel loves to blend her heritage and incorporate Thai and Appalachian folklore into her projects. When not writing, she can be found designing author brands and websites, or reading books on her Kindle that would kill a Victorian child. Keep up with her at 
Bei Lin is a Chinese Canadian writer based in Vancouver. She has lived on three continents and visited over thirty countries. Travel and food are her passions, along with giving her characters their well-deserved happily ever after. When she’s not writing, she’s daydreaming about her next trip and eating chocolate cake.
Ally North (she/her) is a queer writer who has been writing fiction her entire life. During the pandemic, she began writing sapphic romance out of pure chaotic boredom and discovered an untried knack for the genre. She lives in America, but occasionally she lives in England. When she isn’t writing, Ally can be found cooking with obscene amounts of garlic, traveling someplace new, rescuing animals, and feeding Jean-Claude, the wild possum who lives under her shed.
