About
Stephanie Cotta writes epic fantasy and is the award-winning author of the young adult fantasy novels The Conjurer’s Curse and The Wraiths of Arjun. After discovering the world of Star Wars and the land of Narnia at a young age, her love of Sci-fi/Fantasy has been undying ever since. Following college, she spent several years working as a children’s book illustrator, which is when she first created the illustrations for The Mountain of Gold. As a writer, she loves crafting stories of hope amid impossible odds and creating realistic characters who inspire readers of all ages to discover their inner strength and overcome their struggles.
Stephanie lives in beautiful Southern Oregon with her husband, their two kids, two corgis named Walter and Fred, and a tabby-cat named Percy. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing archery, avidly reading, doing art, playing an immersive RPG, or hiking with her family.
YA Books
The Conjurer’s Curse
Seventeen-year-old Rowan is a walking, breathing curse. He just hasn’t realized it yet.
Since birth, Rowan has been the object of scorn in his village. The reason? He’s a dikyli—an outsider with albino skin and an ominous mark blazoned on his neck. So when his fourth guardian-mother is found dead, all blame falls on him, and he is banished before his life-draining curse can strike again. The only path left to Rowan is clear: He must discover who cursed him and alter his horrible fate, or forever lose everyone he loves.
THE CONJURER’S CURSE is a YA epic fantasy packed with fast-paced action-adventure, twists, turns, and romance. Featuring multiple POVs and a morally gray antihero, this novel will keep young and adult readers breathless and yearning for more.
Available now from Monarch Press.
The Wraiths of Arjun
Oppression no more. Vengeance is ours.
Tribute Day, the dreaded day the citizens of Arjun offer their wealth and iron to the Kingdom of Mestria, arrives. Rowan, now an Iron Baron, hopes to get through the brutal ordeal unscathed. But when he clashes with the Mestrian Enforcer, a ruthless soldier who rules over Arjun with an iron fist, Rowan faces a deadly threat.
Akaran, outraged by the Mestrians’ chokehold grip, takes action and pays a heavy price. The cutthroat Enforcer retaliates against Rowan with merciless violence, and vengeance ignites in their hearts. Rowan and Akaran join forces in a daring plan: to resurrect the Wraiths, their people’s legendary heroes. With Tahira, the Conjurer at their side, they don their iron masks and rebel against their overlords, risking their lives even if the noose awaits failure.
Available now from Monarch Press.
Heartsmith
It’s DICKENS X FRANKENSTEIN CHRONICLES X STEAMPUNK. The story follows 16-year-old Arren Lockett who leaves his hometown and ventures to the metropolis city of Rexanberg to start his life fresh as a Tinker. Yet upon arrival he winds up instead finding trouble—interfering in a Hoch territory feud—and his life is thrown into immediate peril. When the dust settles, Arren is no longer who he was before…nor is he alone.
With his life forever changed, Arren embarks on a new mission—tinkering on hearts. Little does he know, his quest to salvage and repair the broken will lead him to investigate a dark conspiracy. For residing beneath Rexanberg’s glittering skyscrapers, someone is performing their own heart restoration operation: awakening the dead.
HEARTSMITH is an exciting romp through an industrial fantasy landscape filled with steampunk staple innovations that will keep readers enthralled and guessing throughout its twists and turns.
Releasing October 2024 from Monarch Press.
Picture Books
The Mountain of Gold
This fable-style Picture Book takes place in old Japan and follows a young Japanese boy named Kaeri who is restless to leave home. When he steps out his door one day to collect firewood, he meets a Raven who tells him he can make all his dreams come true. Wishing to become rich, Kaeri leaves home without looking back and follows the Raven through forests, fields, thoroughfares, and the Northern Mountains.
Will the Raven stay true to his word for Kaeri to become rich? Or will Kaeri learn a more valuable lesson: of where true riches are found? This enchanting tale, with stylistic illustrations by Stephanie Cotta, will delight readers as they follow Kaeri on this journey across old Japan.
Releasing May 14, 2024 from Caterpillar Books.
Books Seeking Representation
The Clash of Kingdoms
For ten years, Highlady Serene Beaumont has known a harsh reality: She is nothing more than a tool to her father, the Blackheart. To survive his brutality, Serene remains ‘sheathed’. It is the only way to ensure she earns his high regard. But when she encounters Krell, a mysterious hunter whose very identity haunts her memory, the locked chambers of her heart begin to rattle. Duty clashes with desires long forgotten as she seeks out this man who harbors a striking similarity to a creature who saved her life long ago in the Grimwood. Could he be a Shaper? A cursed and hunted creation capable of ‘shaping’ bone and flesh? The very truth of his identity could spell her doom. Casting every rationality aside, the undeniable wrath of her father, and the assassins lurking in the shadows, Serene will risk it all—even her own life—to solve this gnawing mystery.
THE CLASH OF KINGDOMS (Book 1 of The Shaper Series) is a completed adult high-fantasy novel that delivers epic, medieval battles on strange, otherworldly landscapes, complex characters with deep emotional turmoil, whose voices are woven together in a compelling braided narrative.
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