Fog & Fireflies by TH Lehnen

With refreshing echoes of golden age fantasy, Fog & Fireflies is a novel that brings together an imaginative world and fantastical cast of characters to explore the difference between growing older and growing up.

"Why do we grow more scared as we get older?"

Hundreds of seasons ago, a wizard's war scarred the earth, leaving a malevolent fog blanketing the land, and carrying the settlements within it like ships adrift at sea. The phantoms the fog creates are deadly to adults, so children must guard the walls now, and care for each other.

Ogma watches the fog from the walls of her windmill town. What felt like a game as a child becomes more of a creeping dread with each season she gets older.

"Because we know better."

Ogma's town is attacked--alien Caravanners who roam the fog in inhuman forms have come to kidnap the children, and Ogma is lost in the fog. She must find hope, find courage in herself, and find her friends.

A novel for readers who enjoy rich world-building in the style of Hayao Miyazaki, a unique cast of creatures and characters that hearkens back to L. Frank Baum and Arthur Rackham, and the bonds of found family akin to the work of Maggie Stiefvater and Makoto Shinkai.