The Bruising of Qilwa

DEBUT This debut fantasy novella featuring a nonbinary protagonist sets its intriguing medical mystery within a Persian-inspired world. The city-state of Qilwa has provided a reluctant welcome for Firuz-e Jafari and their refugee family. As a healer practicing forbidden magic, Firuz fears discovery but still offers a helping hand at one of the city’s few remaining free clinics, where they find a friend and mentor in the healer Kofi. But the plague that is ravaging Qilwa increases tensions about migrants flooding the city and creates reams of new rules and regulations for the clinic. When a strange, new disease starts killing people and results in bodies that are preserved while decomposing, Firuz has a medical mystery on their hands that will lead to the greatest dilemma that a healer can face—how much harm is acceptable in the race for a cure?