Avery Hill Publishing announces new books for Autumn

By John Freeman on June 12, 2025

Avery Hill Publishing has added another two books in their autumn line-up: The Witch’s Egg by Donya Todd, and The Corus Wave by Karenza Sparks.

The Witch’s Egg by Donya Todd, is a dark fairy tale of motherhood, magic, and apocalyptic romance, in which witches and angels aren’t allowed to have children. When Urfi defies this, it’ll take her life’s work to make it right.

A Kickstarter campaign for this book has just pre-launched here.

It was a spiderweb moon
And the imps did wonder
What dark delights wouldst the cat-witch conjure

By the Sardine Queen, by salt and the devil, by blackwormy earth, and by the deep, dark sea, the catwitch Urfi conjures an angel to love her and have children with her. But angels aren’t meant for love, and with the embryonic egg of their unborn children, Urfi flees from her partner’s violence, enduring terrible trials to find a new and safe home in the faery forest.

As her children, Isobel, Batzel, and Mazel, grow up with her, they find the horrors their mother endured during her flight to the forest returning to their lives — this time for the three of them to defeat for good. With secret magic, solemn bonds of friendship, and sisterhood, they can at last stand against the threat of the angels’ terror and insanity in this dark fairytale of motherhood, magic, and apocalyptic romance.

A gorgeous intergenerational family story of promises made, promises kept, and a mother who would do anything to protect her daughters.

Adventures… and finishing her thesis… await for Lorelei in The Corus Wave by Karenza Sparks, as she’s plunged into an exploration of the mysteries in England’s fossil history in this graphic novel caper.

Lorelei is just trying to finish her BA thesis. Then her research into an obscure star-shaped Devonian-era cephalopod fossil drags her into a scavenger hunt that indicates her subject may be hiding some of the central secrets of the universe. Or at least, that’s what 19th century polymath Havius Corus thought.

Careening through libraries, churches, botanical gardens, and stone circles with her roommate Eddie (and their trusty cat Raisin, who travels with them via backpack), Lorelei explores the puzzles and the mysteries the polymath has hidden from the world. . . unseen in the architecture and the nature all around her. Can Lorelei find the solutions to the secrets of fossil history? And will her thesis advisor think her hard work is a legitimate dissertation topic?

Lorelei, Eddie, and Raisin are on the case!

• The Corus Wave by Karenza Sparks | Out 21st October 2025 | 144 pages, paperback, black & white | ISBN: 979-8987205280 | AmazonUK Affiliate Link

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.