Two new books!

I’m finishing out 2026 with some exciting news: I have not one, but two new books coming out!

Technically, AFTER THE WARDING is a reprint, but I suspect many of you may have missed it when it was first published in Hybrid Fiction magazine in 2020. It’s a novella set in a far future world with a western tech level (but with magic!) and is about different kinds of strength. It’s out now in ebook!

HYBRID is my newest space opera novel. If you liked the Amsterdam Institute series, you’ll love this! It will be available in both ebook and print on December 1 (although the print preorder will go live a bit later). It has plenty about the culture and society of dragon-like aliens, with a little spicy romance thrown in. Those who like the werewolf culture I made for my urban fantasy series will also find that to enjoy in HYBRID.


A book cover for After the Warding, by R. Z. Held. A far future weird western novella. A gravel road at night among sagebrush leads to a sky with bright stars.

Weakness is strength in this far future weird western novella.

Aurea is a weak mage; she isn’t supposed to be one of the Sixteen, standing at the points of the compass under the stars to renew the spell that protects her people in the Warded Lands. But her weakness gives the Ancestors room to make her a conduit for the power of the North Star. And when the century-warding is complete, she and the others of the Sixteen—fifteen left now—have the rest of their lives ahead of them, empty of magic and blinded by sunlight. Only, everyone wants something from them—to smile for reporters as a celebrity or grant blessings to townsfolk. When she and several of the others are kidnapped for magic they can’t perform, Aurea must redefine her own strength once more and work with the others to save them all.


A book cover for Hybrid, by R. Z. Held. Dragon wings and a spaceship are on a desert background. Log line: Part human. Part alien. Nowhere to belong.

A spicy space opera…with dragons.

Trinity has little in her life beyond her fascination with the Confluent language, writing produced by shape-changing aliens colloquially known as dragons. She earns a translation job on the planet of Confluence, but when she arrives, her pursuit of new texts leads her to stumble onto a dangerous secret. Trespassing on dragon territory, Trinity glimpses human-looking spies the dragons have been training in an attempt to infiltrate human society and eventually force the humans off the planet.

Trinity is caught and a dragon accidentally triggers her partial dragon form. Which she has. Because she’s not human after all, but something all existing science and history says is a complete impossibility: a human-Confluent hybrid. Never mind who she is, now she hardly knows what she is.

Impossible or not, because Trinity is aware of the spy program, she can’t be allowed to leave. She must navigate the dragons’ unique culture while adjusting to the instincts of the hybrid form she finds herself stuck in. But even as she plots her escape, Trinity is torn: does she want to turn her back on her dragon side and return to her lonely human life, leaving behind unexpected friendships and romantic connections? Or can she thwart the dragon leader’s plans and forge a place for both herself and the spies among dragons who hate everything human—even the spies they trained themselves?


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