Two years ago, architect Cora Delaney lit a ridiculous candle her sister mailed her — and summoned a nine-hundred-year-old incubus into her living room. He was supposed to be a one-night mistake. He never left. Now Ash hands out samples on Saturdays, has opinions about bulk toilet paper, and has somehow become the person Cora's whole chaotic family adopts. There's just one problem neither of them can solve: Cora will grow old, and Ash never will.
Cora has three rules for surviving a bad breakup, and she's already broken two of them. The third involves the ridiculous candle her sister mailed her — the one that comes with a demon attached. He feeds on desire and has done it for centuries. What he's never once been is wanted back.
I lit a candle and got an incubus. Now I'm taking him to my sister's engagement party, where he'll need a human name, a cover story, and enough restraint to stand in a room full of people in love without feeding. My ex is also invited. That turns out to be his problem, not mine.
He feeds on wanting. She takes him to Costco. Five weeks after Cora accidentally summoned a nine-hundred-year-old incubus with a candle, he wants one thing: a warehouse membership card with his name on it. What he doesn't expect is what a store full of people wanting things does to a creature who's spent nine centuries being wanted for darker reasons—or that a free sample from a woman named Deloris might undo him completely.
Six weeks after she accidentally summoned an incubus, Cora's problem isn't the demon — it's that he's discovered Costco. A warehouse-sized romantic comedy about love, bulk croissants, and the logistics of dating something that used to be a legend.
Six weeks ago, Cora accidentally summoned an incubus with a candle her sister mailed her. Now she has to break some news to that sister: the candle worked — and Margot mass-produced two hundred and thirty-nine more of them, and sold them at a craft fair. Somewhere out there, 239 strangers own a demon-summoning candle and don't know it. A standalone entry in The Wanting Series — dry, warm, and unreasonably funny paranormal romance with real heat under the comedy. 18+.
Cora inherited exactly one thing from her mother: a flat voice that delivers devastating news without a flicker. So when Ellen turns up with one of the scattered candles on her mantel, Cora knows lying to her is hopeless — and that her mother has already clocked that her daughters are hiding something. She races across town braced for catastrophe, only to walk into Ellen's kitchen and find her mother and a nine-hundred-year-old incubus sharing the good teacups.
A man in Hazel Dell buys twelve candles—and starts summoning Cora's incubus to do the one thing he refuses to do: reach into a woman's mind and make her want him. When the man won't stop, Cora's whole chaotic family goes to war, armed with a binder, a casserole, and an actuary. A steamy paranormal rom-com about consent, found family, and the difference between being wanted and being used. Book One of the Wanting Series.
Cora Delaney brings a lasagna to a stranger's door—a widower her incubus visited on a summons weeks ago, and never mentioned. Peter buried his wife forty-one years into a marriage that started as an argument about a hedge, and he has something to teach a woman six weeks into loving a nine-hundred-year-old man who will never age: the arithmetic of forever-with-an-ending never works, and you do it anyway. A quiet story about mortality, the deal everyone takes, and choosing it on purpose.
Ash is a nine-hundred-year-old incubus, summoned twice a week by people who want something. That leaves a hundred and sixty-six hours—and lately he wants just one thing: to be expected instead of wanted. So he applies for a job at Costco. No papers, no legal existence since Henry the Second, just a résumé reading "Available immediately." A warm, funny, aching short about a creature of appetite who'd trade eternity for a torn red vest.
Ten weeks in, Margot brings over a shoebox: the brass stamp she used on all two hundred and forty candles. Fourteen ninety-nine, free shipping. Ash turns it over and the room goes cold — because what's on it isn't a sigil. It's his name. From there the chain unspools: an 1878 clergyman's book, a rubbing of a floor stone in Northumberland worn by centuries of feet, a man in Doncaster with a cat and a laser engraver, 1,406 units sold. A funny, aching story about a name that was never secret — nobo
The scan arrives at 1200 dpi (sorry for the delay, cat was on the scanner), and under Ash's name Margot finds a second line the book called a smudge. He wants to see the stone. He can't fly, can't cross a border — a passport requires having been born. So Cora does the one thing she swore she never would: she lights the candle on purpose. Eleven seconds. Then a field in Northumberland, a ninety-year-old farmer, and four words that rewrite nine hundred years.