Welcome to the official website of Deborah J. Natelson, fantasy writer, editor, and CEO of Thinklings Books, LLC.
The Midnight
Files
An action-packed dark fantasy drama available in serial format through Kindle Vella.
Romance coerces strangers into "love"; Mystery pops out armchair detectives; Humor prat falls on banana peels. Adventure manufactures avalanches and booby traps. And it's the Agency's job to restore these scenarios to reality.
Agent Daisy Allen has spent the last 12 years desperate to escape Romance. She finally gets her wish, only to be assigned to the worst possible genre with the worst possible partner: Horror and the infamous Agent Lawrence.
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This is going to be one epic partnership. . . .
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Immeasurable imagination. Unmitigated magic. Spectacular style.
The clockwork man is crafted, to begin with—commissioned by that terrible tyrant Time to serve as her slave for all eternity. His brain boasts balance wheels and torsion springs; he can wind himself up with a key in his side; and, most importantly, his gyroscopic tourbillon heart glimmers with pure diamond.
He is a living being and he is art, and he refuses to remain a slave forever. He therefore slips through Time’s fingers as the Sands of Time slip through the cracks of reality (at least, when the time cats aren’t using them as a litter box).
Among astounding adventures, despite harrowing hardships, and in between escaping interfering enchanters, the clockwork man seeks his imagination, his purpose, and his name.
Available in paperback and e-book . . .
A cryptanalyst’s assistant must turn secret agent when she discovers a magical conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Best-laid plans seldom survive contact with the enemy, a truth violently thrown at Mercedes Cartier when a seemingly ordinary trip turns into a battle for survival. Within hours, Mercedes finds herself being hunted by the nine prefects who rule the nation. They have noticed her, and now they’re giving her a choice: join them in their sinister plot or disappear forever.
Mercedes plays along at first, and then makes plans with her cryptanalyst boss to catch the prefects in their own trap. But before they can even begin, things go horribly, bizarrely wrong.
The clock is ticking, and her enemies are powerful, both politically and magically. All that’s left is cleverness, determination, and a really, really good bluff.
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Want more? Check out the first two chapters of book 2 HERE.
Why I Write
You know that feeling when you've just finished a really spectacularly good book? That sigh of utter contentment? That warm fulfillment? That joy?
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I do, and I love it. I feel so blessed for having been given that feeling so many times through such wonderful books, and that is the first reason I write: to bring joy as I have been brought joy.
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There are many other reasons, of course. I write because I love stories. I write because I've always written, even before I could put down the words myself and had to have my mother transcribe. I write to teach, to share, and to work through my ideas.
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But most of all, I write to bring you joy. And so I say to you as you pick up one of my books: Enjoy.
Author's Note: the book's first few pages of Bargaining Power have been trimmed down and modified since recording this, although nothing essential has changed. Still, this video may be of historical interest until (if ever) I get around to recording an update. You can find the real first chapter on Amazon or HERE.
“I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.”