Marriage Market Misadventures is a light hearted series of queer romances where elves from all over the realm gather at the Everend Midsummer Market to meet, match, and marry—with plenty of shenanigans along the way!
Covers by Cormar Covers, Map by Katey Hawthorne and JS Harker
Romancing the Throne
Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey
One innocent elf. One besotted envoy. One unexpected case of… butterflies?
Birdoswyn Abrecan Cranhawc-Hazelthorn is a traditional elf with a traditional name, from the tiny village of Hillstowe, and he has been raised with one imperative duty to fulfil—to marry Prince Aldian of Emberleigh. He just has to attend the Everend Market and impress Aldian with his mien, manner and magic. The cost of failure? His parents will have to continue living in constrained circumstances, forced to make their own cheese.
Elowin, the envoy sent by the prince, did not sign up to babysit a rustic innocent all the way to Everend Market. Especially one who is shocked there’s no regal carriage to travel in. But it turns out there’s more to Sparrow, as Elowin nicknames him—because nobody deserves to be called Birdoswyn Abrecan Cranhawc-Hazelthorn—than meets the eye.
Elowin finds himself drawn to Sparrow, who is as bright and curious as his namesake bird. Attraction blossoms between them, and butterflies literally burst into life when they kiss, but how can they have a future together when Sparrow is meant to marry the prince?
With magic in the air, anything can happen.
Romancing the Throne is a heartwarming low-angst story containing romantic awakenings, first times, and plenty of casual nudity and body piercings that are a real eye-opener for a sheltered elf from Hillstowe. It’s the first book in the Marriage Market Misadventures.
Berries and Blades
Katherine McIntyre
One bumbling berry farmer. One prickly bounty hunter. One accidental kidnapping--not, in fact, marriage related--that quickly turns scorching.
I was going to the Everend Midsummer Market for a vacation—definitely not the marriage market. Except then I lose my Socks (my pet).
Then, I get kidnapped in the weirdest marriage proposal on the planet. Tied to a chair, even. Threatened at knifepoint, which, honestly, kinda hot.
Until my kidnapper and I piece together that this is not in fact a marriage proposal, and I am not the mark she’s looking for. Kali’s a bounty hunter, not a marriage-mad elf on the hunt for a spouse.
However, we’re both on the hunt—me for Socks, her for her mark—and the more time we spend together on the trail, the more I realize that she might be the one for me after all.
If I can just convince her to give us a shot before we have to part ways…
Marriage Market Misadventures is a light hearted series of queer romances where elves from all over the realm gather at the Everend Midsummer Markets to meet, match, and marry—with plenty of shenanigans along the way!
Berries and Blades is an F/X rom-com-antasy featuring mishaps, horny elves, and a missing pagwai.
Quills and Starlight
Kota Quinn
One stoic scholar afraid to leave home. One royal playboy always chasing his next adventure. One itty-bitty rumor that can ruin everything.
Raylen
I’ve spent ten years competing all over Everend, trying to prove I’m worthy of the name I chose for myself. But no matter how far I travel, every road keeps leading back to Moonscliffe. Back to him. Sylar. The brilliant, grumpy scholar who has captured my heart and doesn’t even know it.
When I convince my sister and her meddling best friend to bring Sylar to the marriage market, things fall into place better than I expected. Now, we’re sharing a cozy little cottage, one large bed, and bantering over ancient lore. Sylar can deny our heated chemistry all he wants. He thinks he’s a lonely elf meant for a silent library, but I’ve spent a decade cataloging the perfect stargazing spots just for him.
He’s spent his life tracking the heavens, but I’m ready to show this handsome elf that everything he’s been searching for is right here in front of him. I’m done wandering. I’m finally ready to show Sylar he’s the only one for me.
The Rake and the Cake
Katey Hawthorne
One clever baker out to prove herself. One royal black sheep ducking her duty to the family. One mutually beneficial fake engagement that gets hotter than any magical oven.
For years, Aisling worked to get a stall inside the Everend midsummer market. Now she finally has one, and her cloud cakes are flying off the shelves. She just needs to win a few wildly contested competitions and she’ll finally have enough investment to perfect her proprietary oven–and prove once and for all that she’s just as brilliant as the rest of her family.
Brook, on the other hand, usually spends the midsummer market magically disappearing or hooking up with her flavor-of-the-year. That, and ducking her noble family’s demands that she take advantage of the busy marriage market to finally settle down with someone appropriate. If only she could convince someone to pretend to be engaged to her, to get them off her back.
Attraction blooms hot and fast the moment Aisling and Brook meet, and they quickly reach a mutually beneficial arrangement. But if their engagement is a lie, what else is, and how can they really know?
Love and Clockwork
Essie Sloane
One hopeless romantic elf (emphasis on the hopeless.)
One ambitious merchant elf (emphasis on the ambitious.)
One week that changes everything.
Oleander has been to the Everend Market exactly once. He was a young boy, brought along to help with his parents' apothecary. It was, like most things in Oleander's life, a disaster, and his parents never allowed him to go back with him. However, now, he's an adult, and he knows what he wants. He wants to find love. He wants to get married. He wants his life to contain more than a small Emberleigh dwelling for one and a series of odd jobs in the city's shops. Where better to find this love than the Everend Market?
Castien is a regular at the Everend Market. He runs a stall selling the same time pieces his father sold before him... and some pleasure devices of his own creation hidden behind a curtain. He is content traveling to market with his sibling, Acantha, and spending the week earning coin from the elves of the realm. While others may find his life small, he prefers it this way: quiet, contained, and full of learning.
But when Oleander stumbles his way into Castien's stall, knocking over a display and causing a stir, they recognize one another. They met, once, as boys, and now, as men, they are reconnecting. Castien is meant to help Oleander find his spouse, but the more time he spends with him, the more time he realizes he doesn't want to watch him leave with someone else.
The Love Schematic
JS Harker
One inventor with eyes on a prestigious prize. One noble longing for adventure. One design that will carry them beyond the horizon.
Blaze Levimist dreams of changing the world with his invention of an airship—but first he'll have to get it off the ground. When he fails to land a prestigious job, he decides to craft a prototype in time for the Everend Market's Innovation Awards. Catching feelings for a young noble was not part of the plan.
Durae Navisora is supposed to make a good match at the marriage market, but he wishes for more from life than going from his family's tower into being locked in matrimony. He stumbles across Blaze and his project and is immediately smitten with the creator and his invention. But can he follow his heart? Or will he obey his family's designs for his life?
July 31, 2026
Tossing the Caber
jem zero
Laurel Lushroot runs a gauntlet of extremes. After his apprenticeship as a blacksmith’s assistant ended abruptly due to an accident that maimed him, he redirected his creative focus toward magical body modifications. He’s made a name for himself—the Anatomancer—and elves travel from far and wide to seek his services. But his father resents supporting him, and the Everend Marriage Market is the perfect opportunity to make Laurel someone else's problem.
Beacon Sure-of-Foot has long known that his preference for solitude is not compatible with his profession. He’s an elite athlete, especially famous for his performance in the caber toss. During competitions, the rush of attention from winning is invigorating. All other times, he wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, he's the heir to the Sure-of-Foot clan, and societal expectations demand Beacon accept a spouse.
The first time Beacon and Laurel meet is just shy of a disaster. Despite that, both men find the other intriguing enough to proceed. The union neither of them wanted seems like it might work…
Except it's not long before Beacon’s avoidant nature takes over. He struggles to tell Laurel that he was born different from other men, that his current appearance is due to magical intervention, and that he will be missing something Laurel is likely to expect in their marital bed.
Knowing their fragile connection will wither unless he can break through Beacon’s walls, Laurel must find a way to prove he’ll accept his intended no matter what. Fortunately, his creativity is unmatched.
“Tossing the Caber” is a spicy trans M/M romance, featuring a purple twink with a tail, a grumpy ginger, and way too much innuendo. Happy ending guaranteed!
A Match Made in Slumber
Kasia Bacon
Commander Keălhem Reñyés is mid-swing—about to storm a fortress—when the battlefield dissolves into the scent of candyfloss and lavender sherbet. Instead of headbutting an enemy, he crash-lands face-first into a heap of silk ribbon talismans—yanked across dimensions to Everend by an alchemist desperate for some shut-eye.
Elian Fountenblym, a genius matchstick maker with a cataclysmic track record of magical mishaps, is plagued by sensual dreams of a mysterious soldier. Every night, they leave him randy, pining and knackered—all in the run-up to the Great Midsummer Market, the busiest event of the year. To kill the longing once and for all, he invents a Match of Tranquillity, only to unwittingly trigger a forbidden summoning enchantment that delivers his dream man straight into his waking world. That’s one more whoopsie he could’ve done without.
With the High Arbiter Cholerius—Elian’s former Academy rival—sniffing around for unauthorised magic, the stakes are razor-thin. Bound by the volatile constraints of the spell and forced to share a single bed to keep Kealem from flickering out of existence, the pair must turn to an ancient legal loophole to save Elian from a one-way trip to the dungeons on inter-dimensional kidnapping charges.
Navigating a fake marriage that begins to feel dangerously real, they have until the Midsummer Moon wanes to decide: part ways or let the flame of their accidental match burn forever?
