Goblin Market

Toast is a changeling child whose life has always been for trade. Ever since her goblin parents ripped her away from the human family that raised her, Toast has struggled to find security in the transactional world of the fabled goblin market, where anything can be bought and everything has a price. As a guide for humans that stumble into the Market, she’s learned that the fae world is cruel to the unwary.

The only fae friend she trusts is the enigmatic Kulm, the ageless guardian whose existence anchors and protects the Market. But when the wayward human Sam stumbles into the Market and Kulm is found murdered, Toast will have to barter harder than ever before. Sam is accused of the murder though Toast knows she’s innocent. With the begrudging help of a goblin fruit-addicted artist, a reluctant kelpie, and a fae princess with her own agenda, Toast will traverse the strange, fluid and twisting halls of the Market in search of the rarest commodity amongst the fae: the truth.

When the high fae courts take advantage in the power vacuum left by Kulm’s death, it’s Toast’s home and her strange community that is threatened by stakes greater than one murder. What’s more, the abduction of Sam’s sister by the high fae—which caused Sam to seek the Market in the first place—makes their role in Kulm’s death suspect. Exactly what trade are the power-hungry fae scheming? And can any of Toast’s market-bound family afford the dangerous cost?

Ultimately, when bartering for the very heart of the Market itself, Toast will have to decide where her loyalties lie, the value of a home, and what’s not for sale.

A. J. Hackwith is a queer writer of fantasy and science fiction living in Seattle. She is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writer's workshop and her work appears in Uncanny Magazine and assorted anthologies.