Paul Averlin on a rocky headland at dusk, a white lighthouse behind him

Old lights and small kindnesses.

Cozy fantasy for the evening: a wizard's tower kept by a boy with a diary, a lighthouse at the edge of the map, and a very old tree who answers questions slowly.

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Welcome in. The kettle is on.

I write the kind of fantasy where the stakes are a good loaf, a working lamp, and whether the cat will forgive you. Magic exists, but it keeps regular hours. Nobody is chosen; people just show up and do the work, and somewhere in the doing, the world turns out to be a little stranger and a little kinder than it looked.

Three series so far, all set in the same quiet corner of the same world. They don't depend on each other. Start wherever the cover pulls you.

The books

The Eglund Diary

A boy, a tower, and a hundred days at a time.

Eglund is sent to apprentice under a wizard who teaches almost nothing and expects the tea done properly. His master's one instruction is to keep a diary: the hand learns. So he writes – about scrubbing stairs that creak on purpose, letters that take a fortnight, a cat named Duvet, and the slow discovery that the tower has opinions of its own.

Each volume is one hundred days of that diary. Read them in order; the tower's secrets accumulate.

The Eglund Diary: The First Hundred Days – cover
The First Hundred DaysBook One
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The Eglund Diary: The Second Hundred Days – cover
The Second Hundred DaysBook Two
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The Eglund Diary: The Third Hundred Days – cover
The Third Hundred DaysBook Three
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The Eglund Diary: The Fourth Hundred Days – cover
The Fourth Hundred DaysBook Four
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The Eglund Diary: The Fifth Hundred Days – cover
The Fifth Hundred DaysBook Five
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The Stormwarden Cycle

A lighthouse at the edge of the map.

A gruff keeper and his dog, a chartmaker who comes up with the tide, a girl who counts the stairs on her way in – and a quiet visitor who drinks from the chipped cup and watches the north. The days are warm: tea, tallow, firewood, talk. But the storms that come off the deep water do not sound like weather, and the fog does not always behave like fog.

Shorter books, one season each. The Cycle follows the lights up the coast, tower by tower.

The Keeper and the Cold – cover
The Keeper and the ColdBook One
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The Keeper and the Far Light – cover
The Keeper and the Far LightBook Two
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The Keeper and the High Country – cover
The Keeper and the High CountryBook Three
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The Keeper and the Ledger – cover
The Keeper and the LedgerBook Four
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The Ballad of Elderbark

Ask the tree. Bring a blanket. It takes a while.

Deep in the Wildwood stands Elderbark, older than the roads, and for generations the Thistledown family has walked in to ask him one question each. He never answers directly. He tells stories – about a wren and a hawk, about the year the sky turned orange – and somewhere around the seventh evening the answer is simply there.

Every book is one pilgrim, one question, and one long conversation. Read them in order: the pilgrims are the same family, and the years pass between visits.

Courage – The Ballad of Elderbark, Book One – cover
CourageBook One
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Roots – The Ballad of Elderbark, Book Two – cover
RootsBook Two
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Kindness – The Ballad of Elderbark, Book Three – cover
KindnessBook Three
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Forgiveness – The Ballad of Elderbark, Book Four – cover
ForgivenessBook Four
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Free stories by email

Subscribe free on Substack with just your email address, and two stories are waiting for you there.

The Last Mark – a Stormwarden short story: the old keeper's last night at Saltridge, a night that belongs to no book.

A Year and a Day – an ongoing serial. Rook, a privateer who has had enough of the sea, washes up in the quiet town of Dalvenna and signs on for a year and a day as its ferry keeper. New episodes arrive in your inbox as they go out.

Plus a note when a new book comes out. Your address goes to Substack only and is never shared. You can leave with one click.

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Coming next

I write in seasons and publish in runs, so books tend to arrive close together and then go quiet for a while. Here is what's on the desk now. Dates are intentions, not promises; the newsletter gets the real ones first.

  1. Later this yearMore from the three seriesNew volumes of The Eglund Diary, The Stormwarden Cycle and The Ballad of Elderbark.
  2. Later this yearA cozy story about a few adventurous catsA new series, set in the same quiet corner of the world.
  3. Later this yearA witch and her grandmother's ledgerA mysterious tale of a witch and the ledger her grandmother left her.

About Paul

I came to writing late and to cozy fantasy on purpose.

I grew up on the big fantasy of the eighties and nineties – the quests, the wars, the maps with dragons in the corners – and I still love it. But the stories I found myself returning to were the small ones on the edges of those maps: the innkeeper's chapter, the winter in the tower before the journey started. At some point I realised that was the book I wanted to write. Then several of them.

I think of a series less as a plot and more as a place you can go back to. That's why the books come in runs and why they share a world: the tower inland, the lights along the coast, the Wildwood beyond the last farm. You never need a map. You just need to know which door you came in by.

When I'm not writing I walk coastlines, read history, and keep a lamp on in the study longer than is sensible. I answer every reader email, eventually. paulaverlin.author@gmail.com

You can also follow me on my Amazon author page to be told when a new book goes live.

Paul Averlin at his desk in a lamplit study lined with books
Paul Averlin kneeling on a rocky shore under storm clouds, map in hand Paul Averlin on a moorland ridge above a long loch Paul Averlin reading an old book in the study