One fractured universe is being approached from opposite ends of its history. Steven J. Morris’s Fractured Arcana brings together the ancient consequences of a world built around magic and a modern Earth forced to confront that magic when the boundary between worlds breaks open. Mother of Trees begins with Elliah, an elf whose complete lack of magic makes her an impossibility in her own society, while The Guardian of the Palace follows former Special Forces veteran Red Hernandez as the impossible arrives in Manhattan. Together, the two series offer different entry points into the same larger conflict—and both begin with protagonists whose worlds have already decided what they should be before events force them to decide for themselves.

Mother of Trees
Thaumatropic Roots Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris

Genre: Epic Fantasy

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A dying goddess. A fractured prophecy. A magicless elf who shouldn't exist.

Elliah has spent her entire life being told what she is—bereft, wrong, a mistake the world would prefer to correct. Drifting from town to town with a mother who won't explain why they keep running, she has no magic, no place, and no future. Then a single misstep draws the attention of those who've been looking for her, and everything her mother was hiding comes apart.

She isn't ready for what she learns. But ready was never an option. 

Mother of Trees is the thrilling first book in the Thaumatropic Roots epic fantasy series. Enter a world of dangerous magic, ancient powers, and one impossible girl who refuses to stay down. 

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The most interesting tension in Mother of Trees begins before Elliah learns why anyone is searching for her. Magic is ordinary in her world, yet she possesses none, making her difference visible every day and giving the word “Bereft” social weight long before the larger prophecy enters the story. That makes the fantasy conflict personal: the same world whose rules exclude her may also depend on what makes her impossible. 

The wider Fractured Arcana concept adds another layer. Elliah’s story belongs to the ancient side of a shared universe whose consequences eventually reach modern Earth, so details about magic, history, and conflict here are not isolated world-building. They form part of the foundation for the separate Guardian League series and its very different confrontation with the same fractured reality.

Elliah ~ 1

My mother told me many times that all adolescents feel like they don't belong, but… I really didn't. So I spent my free time away from other elves, on my own but for the animals… they didn't understand how broken I was. And I was quite pleased with my current find, so I snarled when a noise behind me scared away the drakeling that had settled in my hands. Black with a pattern of red scales along its spine, its body the thickness of my finger, it took flight with a flurry of thin leathery wings and disappeared behind a massive brown trunk. 

"The real ones are much more intimidating," said an unfamiliar voice. 

Time slowed as I tensed to run, shocked that I'd let my guard down so much that anyone had gotten that close. How many lurked behind me? On the outskirts of town, in the thick of the woods near the river, I had expected solitude. 

"Stay, Bereft. I am not afraid," said the voice. His words provoked me. 

"No one's afraid of me," I blurted. Bitterness stained my words as surely as the pollen of the bloodcups had stained my ragged clothes. 

I turned away from the vanished drakeling to focus on the intruder who'd scared it away. A man. No, I corrected myself, someone my age. Someone not quite old enough for adults to consider one of their own, but too old to call a child. 

But not Bereft. No other elf shared that with me. 

The newcomer was slightly taller than me with a thin frame, his light hair hanging long, wild, and tangled. He was new to the village—I would have noticed an elf with skin so light. I'd heard whispers of him at school. Kethryllia had called him Salt-kissed, and I'd wondered what that meant, but his light skin answered that question. He'd undoubtedly caught whispers about me, heard of my… condition. Bereft. Yet at that moment, I thought only of the hours of coaxing I'd spent to draw the little drakeling into my grasp, and that the stupid elf had scared it away. I wanted to punch him. 

"Maybe they should be," he said, taking a step back, though it would have taken me two leaps to get to him, and he'd have me pinned in one, if he had any skill with magic at all. But I'd prepared a leap already, only not in his direction. As I sprung away, he continued, raising his voice, "And you're right, they're not afraid of you." 

I landed with a tree between us. His magic wouldn't be able to snag me there. Unless he was very good at it. 

"They're afraid of what you represent."

Continue the Thaumatropic Roots Series

Magic is as natural as breathing in Elliah's world — except to her. Born without a single spark in a war that runs on it, she has nothing but her will and her refusal to accept the limits everyone else has already decided for her. This is what happens when the world writes you out of the story, and you refuse to leave.

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Mother of Trees
Bones of Cenaedth
Secrets of Deara
Shepherds of Truth

The Guardian of the Palace
The Guardian League Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris

Genre: Urban Fantasy

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Magic isn’t real.
Red Hernandez is very sure of that.

She wants a quiet life after Special Forces—just a steady security job at a half-finished Manhattan skyscraper. 

But then a sister tower implodes in a way physics can’t explain.
Witnesses report creatures in the smoke.
And something hunts her in the tunnels beneath. 

Red wants answers. What she gets instead is an elf with a sword, a troll with a wry sense of humor, and a dwarf who believes every battle requires an audience. They insist an ancient enemy has crossed into our world—and Red becomes an accidental gatekeeper simply because she’s standing on the fault line when it cracks open. 

As a hidden war erupts in the shadows of New York City, Red must decide: run from the past that nearly destroyed her… or fight for a world she’s only just beginning to believe in. 

A veteran with nothing left to lose.
A threat born of magic and shadow.
A team she never saw coming.

The Guardian of the Palace launches the action-packed Guardian League series—perfect for fans of urban fantasy, modern-world magic, found family, and heroines who refuse to back down. 

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Chapter 1

Red - Day 20, Sunday, the day after the attack

"Ms. Hernandez?" a muffled voice called from a distance, accompanied by a gentle rapping on a door. My consciousness registered the interruption as a nuisance and pulled me back under. 

What seemed like seconds later, the rapping came again, more insistent. "Ms. Hernandez." 

Ms. Hernandez was my mom… why were they bothering me? 

Then a scraping sound, and an alarmed voice. "Ms. Hernandez! Are you okay?" 

Some scrambling, some grunts, more scraping… I was going to have to wake up. Why couldn't they just let me sleep? 

I tried to answer, but my throat was dry and nothing came out. Coughing, I attempted to sit up, not wholly returned from my trip to dreamland. "I'm here. I'm okay." Was I though? I wasn't sure. 

I was in my flat. Not the desert. My door was partway open, and a slightly overweight man had paused in the act of pushing his way in. I recognized him, but his name escaped me. Swinging my legs off my cot, I did a quick modesty check. I was fully dressed, though rather tragically, in some semblance of civilian fatigues—muddied, disheveled, and a little bloody. 

The reason came screaming back to me. There had been creatures, unearthly monsters, in The Palace. They'd done things I could not explain by any of the rules I knew. And they'd beaten the hell out of me and then patched me back up in a matter of seconds. I'd blown the head clean off of one of them and fled the scene. 

Not my smartest move.

Continue The Guardian League Series!

Earth, through its technological advances, supports nearly eight billion souls; from a cosmic perspective, that makes it ripe for the picking. 'Red' Hernandez, trying to put a questionable military life behind her, finds herself caught in the middle of stopping an apocalyptic invasion of Earth. But to do that, she has to figure out who the good guys are, and how she can combat forces in which she does not believe. 

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The Guardian of the Palace
Stars in the Sand
We’re Going On An Elf Hunt
The Song Unsung
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The Fractured Arcana setup gives readers two distinctly different doors into its larger mythology. Mother of Trees fits those who enjoy epic fantasy built around social exclusion, dangerous inherited powers, prophecy, and a heroine whose lack of magic is more consequential than anyone initially understands. The Guardian of the Palace shifts that mythology into contemporary New York, where military experience and practical skepticism collide with elves, trolls, dwarves, portals, and a threat that refuses to obey familiar rules. 

The strongest crossover appeal is for readers who enjoy seeing one fantasy universe examined across different eras and styles. One series asks what it means to be born outside the magical order that defines your world; the other asks what happens when a modern woman trained to trust evidence discovers that the impossible is already at war around her.

Steven J. Morris writes fantasy where magic runs deep and the consequences run deeper. By day he's an engineer and father of three in Austin, Texas. He's the author of eight novels across two completed series — the epic Thaumatropic Roots and the urban Guardian League — both set in the shared Fractured Arcana universe. 

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Fractured Arcana is built around a connection that becomes more interesting because Morris does not tell it from a single perspective. Elliah grows up inside a magical world that labels her deficient because she cannot participate in its most basic power; Red begins in a technological world where accepting magic at all requires her to abandon the rules she trusts. Putting those two beginnings beside one another turns the shared universe into more than a crossover device. Each series tests what its protagonist believes reality allows—and what happens when the answer changes.

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Hayil Rufus Rose has reached thirty with a problem that threatens far more than her standing within her family: she is a werewolf who has never shifted, and her pack does not make comfortable allowances for anomalies. That private crisis sends her into the wilderness of Glacier National Park, where Secrets of the Cryptids begins widening its world in unexpected directions. 

Sharon Buchbinder brings together a cybersecurity expert facing possible exile, federal agent Will Penn and his missing brother, violence threatening the Blackfeet Nation, and a Bigfoot family whose role challenges the usual monster mythology. Underneath those elements is a question already troubling Hayil before the real danger begins—what happens when belonging depends upon becoming someone you have not yet been able to become?

Secrets of the Cryptids
Series: Cowboys and Cryptids Book 1
Author: Sharon Buchbinder
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Romantasy
Publication Date: August 3, 2026
Publisher: Sharon Buchbinder
EAN: 9798996088812

She never belonged to the pack—until fate led her to him.

Cybersecurity expert Hayil Rufus Rose has spent her life hiding one impossible truth: she’s a werewolf who has never shifted, a failure by her pack’s rules and a woman on the brink of exile. A solo hike in Glacier National Park is meant to clear her head—but instead, a chance meeting with Will Penn, a guarded federal agent with powerful instincts and secrets of his own, changes everything. 

As Hayil becomes entangled in a missing persons case involving Will’s brother, she uncovers corruption, cartel money laundering, and violence threatening the Blackfeet Nation. She forms an unexpected bond with a Bigfoot family, who are not monsters, but an ancient people who recognize her latent power. Through trauma, loyalty, and near-fatal danger, Hayil finally undergoes her full transformation, claiming her identity at last. 

Secrets of the Cryptids launches a thrilling paranormal romance series about found family, fierce hearts, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.

Hayil’s inability to shift gives the paranormal premise an unusually personal consequence. Her pack measures belonging by an ability she cannot summon, and with banishment looming, transformation is tied to family, identity, and acceptance long before it becomes part of the external adventure. Her scientific instinct adds another dimension: even while frightened about her future, she tries to reduce the mystery of her delayed transformation to facts, hormones, and inherited patterns. 

The story then reaches beyond werewolf mythology. A missing-person investigation connects Hayil and Will to corruption and cartel money laundering, while the Bigfoot family she encounters is presented as an ancient people rather than a convenient monster lurking in the wilderness. That combination of cryptid lore, romantic tension, crime, and Hayil’s struggle to claim a place in her own pack gives this series opener several mysteries to uncover at once.

Hayil had the advantage of excellent night vision—super vision compared to other humans. Plus, she possessed an almost uncanny ability to connect with most wild and domestic animals. Hayil mentally grimaced. She could also thank her grandmother for her long overdue ability to shift. What would it take to trigger her body into the lupine version of herself? Was it like a growth spurt that hadn’t hit her body yet? Or was Hayil destined to remain the one person in her pack who wasn’t able to wolf out? 

Once again, her mother’s constant refrain came back to her: “You’re a late bloomer, like your grandmother. She was older than you when she shifted. All in good time. You’ll see.” 

Sure, Mom.

Hayil knew her mother wanted the best for her, but found her cheerfulness a bit forced. Beneath her mother’s optimism, Hayil sensed an undercurrent of concern about her thirty-year-old daughter’s ability to integrate into the red wolf clan. This missing piece of Hayil’s identity called to her like a siren’s song, demanding she complete herself. Would she ever be a true part of the pack? Or would she forever be the unmated one? What then? She was an anomaly, something the pack didn’t tolerate well. Tradition dictated that if a pack member didn’t shift by the end of their third decade, they were banished. 

A chilling thought struck Hayil mid-stride.

If I don’t shift this year, will they force me out of the pack?

They were the only family she’d ever known. Her mother would fight for her to stay and would probably win. But at what cost? 

Hayil would be an outcast. She’d never be invited to pack meetings, deliberations or celebrations. Those were reserved for shifters. If she married a non-shifter, the pack would drive her out, of that she was sure. What if her offspring were able to shift? Would that make things better? Would the pack let her stay then? It wasn’t as if she could go to a genetic counselor and ask for a DNA test for werewolves. 

The thought of losing her extended family through no fault of her own made her gulp back tears. Angry at herself for allowing her thoughts to go down that dark rabbit hole, Hayil reminded herself she was a scientist. Review the facts, not the fears.

Fact one: Grandma had been in labor with Hayil’s mother when she’d shifted for the first time. 

Fact two: The majority of the pack members had shifted when they’d hit puberty. 

Fact three: Hormones! It had to be related to hormones! The rush of hormones at puberty and the flood of pregnancy hormones had to be related somehow. 

Hayil was long past puberty and the associated mood swings and acne, thank you very much. She was not ready to be pregnant. For starters, she would need a romantic partner in her life. She’d had zero luck on that score so far. 

“I still have time. It’s not too late. I won’t give up hope.”

Shaking her head to clear her mind, Hayil double-checked her wild animal deterrents. All in place. Then she tugged her knit cap down over her ears and pulled her hands-free headlamp into place. She zipped her fleece jacket against the breeze and adjusted her twenty-five-pound backpack. With an altitude gain of almost nineteen hundred feet, she planned to take her time, pacing herself for the strenuous four-hour hike. She grasped her lightweight hiking poles and took a last look up at the stars. Time to see that spectacular view at the top. 

As promised by the trail blog, the dirt path was well maintained. The morning air was cold and crisp, layered with the woodsy scent of damp earth and pine needles. An owl hooted, and Hayil spotted movement in the brush between the thick pines beside the trail. Her headlamp reflected in the eyes of small critters, all of whom skittered deeper into the woods. 

For three hours, all she heard was the crunch of her hiking boots on dirt and gravel, the rasp of her own breaths, the glug of water when she drank and the jingle of her bear bells. She looked at yet another incline on the trail and decided she needed a hiking song for inspiration. 

“Country roads, take me home,” she sang, belting out “Mountain Mama”—and something crashed through the bushes ahead on the trail. Something large. 

She froze.

An enormous black bear stood on its hind legs at the top of the hill. 

The animal had its back to her, but if it got her scent, it could turn and charge at her in a flash. 

Heart pounding like a jackhammer, she placed her hand on the bear spray. 

A breeze sprang up, making her eyes water with its intensity. The good news was that it meant she was downwind of the bear. The bad news was that the air smelled like a wet dog had rolled in a dead animal. The worst news was that the bear turned and looked right at her. 

Omigod. It’s not a bear. What the heck is it?

This is a natural fit for paranormal-romance readers who want their supernatural world to extend beyond a single kind of creature. Werewolf pack traditions provide Hayil’s immediate conflict, but Bigfoot mythology, a missing-person case, and Will’s work as a federal agent broaden the story into romantic suspense. Hayil may particularly appeal to readers who like heroines whose power has been present all along but does not arrive according to anyone else’s timetable. Her problem is not learning that she is extraordinary; she already knows exactly what she is supposed to be. The challenge is discovering what her delayed transformation means for the life and family she is afraid of losing.

Sharon Buchbinder is an award-winning author who has been writing stories since she could hold a pen. The paranormal romance genre is her writing home, a place where the impossible is simply the beginning, where women find their power in the most extraordinary circumstances, and where love is always worth the danger of seeking it. 

A Maryland-based author with a background in healthcare and higher education that has informed her vivid, grounded storytelling, Sharon is drawn to heroines who have been underestimated — women who carry something extraordinary inside them and spend the whole book learning to trust it. Sharon believes passionately that readers deserve stories where the heroine doesn’t just survive — she transforms. When she’s not writing, Sharon can usually be found unplugging in her garden, obsessing over cryptid mythology, and convincing her pets they are not, in fact, supernatural.

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Hayil enters Secrets of the Cryptids believing that one missing transformation may cost her the only family she has known. What waits beyond that fear is considerably larger: Will, his brother’s disappearance, a criminal investigation, and cryptids who complicate her understanding of who the real outsiders and monsters are. Her eventual transformation therefore carries more weight than gaining a supernatural ability. It answers a question about identity that has followed her for years while opening the door to the broader cryptid world promised by the Cowboys and Cryptids series. That mix of pack belonging, wilderness mystery, romance, and unconventional cryptid lore gives this first installment a distinctive foundation for what comes next.

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New Covenant needs more than a pastor who can fill a pulpit. Its bills are mounting, its leadership is divided, and its place in the community has become uncertain. Wesley Aames arrives carrying losses of his own, which makes his assignment less a conventional rescue mission than a difficult test of what care looks like when neither the caregiver nor the institution is whole.

How Do You Live Without Love? places grief, congregational conflict, public judgment, and found family within the everyday work of a struggling Appalachian church. Wesley counsels teenagers, answers crisis calls, tends the grounds, and stands beside people whose pain has become public spectacle. The result is a story interested not only in belief, but in the quieter question of whether mercy can be practiced when certainty has disappeared.

Wesley Aames shows up to New Covenant as a man who has already lost everything—wife, daughter, and the will to keep going. Hired to revive a sleepy Appalachian church, he finds a congregation on life support: dwindling funds, fractious trustees, and a choir director who distrusts the new pastor from day one.

When a teenager dies by suicide and her mother's humiliation explodes online, Rosa Lee becomes a magnet for cameras and contempt. Wesley, barely a pastor and twice a stranger to mercy, steps into the storm—counseling teens, calming old ladies, cutting the grass, answering crisis hotline calls—trying to make faith look like rescue instead of rhetoric.

As the church's finances and patience run out, a vote looms: keep the earnest, flawed pastor or replace him with steadier hands. But when the outside world shows up with microphones and accusations. Wesley's choices become literal life or death. Can a man who still blames himself for his family's deaths save strangers—and in doing so, finally forgive himself? This is a story about grief, messy grace, and the small acts that sometimes hold a town together.

Wesley’s work at New Covenant gives the novel an unusual measure of faith: not polished sermons or easy answers, but whether he will answer the telephone, sit with a frightened teenager, defend a woman being condemned in public, or feed a damaged stray dog before reporting to work. Those ordinary decisions allow the story to examine compassion as conduct rather than rhetoric.

The church itself is more than a backdrop. Its dwindling funds, suspicious trustees, internal rivalries, and approaching leadership vote create a second crisis alongside Wesley’s private grief. His effort to help the congregation survive therefore becomes inseparable from his attempt to understand whether a life fractured by loss can still be useful to other people.

The Asheville setting and the pressure of a media-fueled scandal widen the conflict beyond one pastor’s recovery. Private suffering becomes public material, and Wesley must decide what loyalty and mercy require when cameras, accusations, and communal fear begin shaping the story.

Wesley walked today rather than ran. Too tired to run, he needed time for introspection, processing, and perhaps a re-balancing of his inner psyche. He had always prided himself on his self-control and equilibrium. Rarely did he lose his temper or act without thought. Wesley started the play list that featured Jan

Then Wesley saw him. The ugliest, mangiest looking dog Wesley ever. The few spots where he had hair were brown. One leg was missing. One ear looked chewed off and the way he cocked his head made Wesley think the dog was blind in one eye. “Hey there,” Wesley said. The dog took a step back. Wesley kneeled on the damp ground. “Hey boy.”

The dog held his ground this time. He cocked his head and watched Wesley with his good eye. Using the universal and timeless signal between dogs and the people they owned everywhere, Wesley clucked his tongue. The dog’s one good ear twitched. A little.

Turning around, Wesley took a few steps away from the three-legged, one-eyed, one-eared dog and whistled. The dog barked. Wesley kept walking. The dog barked again. Twice. Louder this time. Wesley turned back and looked at the dog. “Come on, if you want to,” said Wesley with a smile. The dog barked at Wesley, and then he trotted to where Wesley stood, looked up at him and barked. Man and dog walked the streets of Asheville.

Back at the parsonage, Wesley knew he would be late for work, but he did not care. The dog needed to eat.

“As funny as it would be to watch you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how about I give you corned beef hash? It’s canned. I haven’t had time to make fresh–but I will, I promise. Just for you. Well, and me. I’ll have some of this as well for my breakfast. You won’t care if I heat it or not. So, let’s rough it and eat it straight out of the can. You know, like the cavemen did.” The dog sat back on his one good haunch and waited–like dogs do.

“Here you go, pal.” Wesley spooned half of the can onto a paper plate. “You know, missing a couple body parts like you do, looks like you have stories to tell. You may be the luckiest dog alive.” Wesley kept up a constant stream of chatter to put the dog at ease. The dog barked and moved closer. Wesley took the opportunity, while the dog devoured his food, to check the dog’s collar and tag.

“George.”

The dog stopped eating, backed up, and growled.

Wesley looked at the dog and said it again. “George.”

The dog growled and barked. It was a different bark from any of the earlier barks.

Wesley pointed at the collar and tag. “The tag says your name is George,” reasoned Wesley.

George growled and barked.

Wesley squatted and clicked his tongue. “Come here, boy.”

He placed a slight emphasis on the last word. George wagged his tail and inched close enough to resume eating, which he did.

“George,” said Wesley. “George” backed up a few feet–out of Wesley’s reach. His one good eye darted between Wesley and the half-eaten corned beef hash.

“Come here.” Wesley clicked his tongue.

The dog stared at Wesley for a moment before coming close enough to eat his few remaining bites.

“Well, it looks like you don’t care much for your old name. I bet I can call you anything if I feed you. How about…Lucky?”

Wesley looked over “Lucky’s” three-legged, one-eared, and one-eyed body and just shook his head at the irony of calling this dog “Lucky.” That sealed it. “I wonder if you only have one nostril working?” Wesley laughed. “You oughta see the other dog, huh? Right, Lucky?”

Wesley kneeled and scratched behind the dog’s good ear and repeated his new name — Lucky. Before Wesley left for work, he pulled up the picture of his family on his cell phone and introduced the newest member of his family to the picture of his wife and daughter.

Lucky finished the can of cold corned beef hash and drank water from the empty can.

This novel belongs on the reading lists of those drawn to character-driven stories about grief, community responsibility, and imperfect people attempting useful work. Its church setting will be especially relevant to readers interested in the practical tensions inside a congregation—money, leadership, trust, reputation, and the distance that can develop between a stated mission and daily behavior.

Readers who value found-family fiction may connect with the relationships Wesley forms while trying to rebuild New Covenant. The book may also appeal to those who prefer faith-centered stories that allow doubt, anger, institutional conflict, and personal failure to remain part of the conversation rather than resolving them through simple assurances.

The storyline involving a teenager’s death by suicide and the public humiliation of her mother introduces emotionally difficult material. Readers comfortable with serious contemporary fiction that addresses bereavement, suicide, crisis intervention, and media scrutiny will be best prepared for its subject matter.

I've had several "careers." I've taught robotics; been a hospital administrator, served in the National Guard, bussed tables and flipped burgers. Above all else, I am a husband, father, and grand-pere'. I am a native of North Carolina and currently reside near Asheville.

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How Do You Live Without Love? asks its central question through people and institutions that have already been wounded. Wesley cannot restore his family, erase the congregation’s divisions, or control the public appetite for scandal. What remains within his reach are immediate acts of attention: listening, feeding, answering, defending, and staying present when withdrawal would be easier.

That emphasis gives the novel its clearest identity. The survival of New Covenant and Wesley’s own movement through grief depend less upon a single dramatic revelation than upon a series of choices about whom he will serve and what he will do next. For readers interested in contemporary fiction where community is built through flawed, practical care, Anthony Bradshaw’s opening volume in The Dying Church Series offers a thoughtful place to begin.

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