By Covenant and Cannon Fire
by Ugly Duckling Press
Denmark, 1845. Ane Sørensen has received a letter that changes everything. The gospel has been restored. The keys of the priesthood are on the earth again. And somewhere across an ocean, in a city rising from the Illinois prairie, she might finally do what no Lutheran minister could ever offer her — seal her family together, across death itself, and reach the ones she has lost.
Her husband Mikkel is a faithful man, a good father, and a blacksmith who trusts what his hands can prove. He does not yet share his wife's conviction. But he loves her, and he will not let his family cross an ocean without him.
What they find in Nauvoo is a city under siege. The Prophet is dead. The mobs have not gone away. And the temple rises stone by stone in defiance of everything trying to pull it down. Mikkel takes his hammer to the forge of faithful Saints and begins casting cannons from salvaged iron — and finds himself working shoulder to shoulder with people whose courage begins to do what no sermon ever could.
Ane came for the sealing. She came to bind her family to each other and to God across time and death and every border in between. But the covenant she is reaching for requires a husband who stands beside her, not at the edge of the circle.
And Mikkel is still standing at the edge.
More books by Ugly Duckling Press
Cherubs
Everyone loves the Cherubs. Sarah is the only one who can't.
Sixth-grader Sarah notices things other people miss.
The skeleton of a neighborhood cat. Empty streets. Missing classmates. Teachers who never arrive at school. While everyone else is distracted by life's routines, Sarah quietly watches the world around her—and realizes something is terribly wrong.
Then the Cherubs appear.
Small, impossibly soft creatures begin showing up on doorsteps across town. People instantly adore them. They cuddle them, protect them, and insist they're the sweetest little creatures they've ever seen.
But Sarah can't even get near one.
The mysterious animals trigger violent asthma attacks, making her the only person in town who can see past their strange influence. As families become obsessed with their Cherubs, pets disappear, hospitals begin to fill, and neighbors slowly stop acting like themselves. The town is changing... and almost no one realizes it.
With the help of her lifelong friend Justin and her engineer father, Sarah begins unraveling the mystery one clue at a time. What are the Cherubs? Where did they come from? Why is everyone willing to sacrifice everything for them?
The answers are more terrifying than Sarah could ever imagine.
As the infestation spreads and civilization begins to collapse, Sarah discovers that her greatest weakness may be the one thing capable of saving the people she loves. But every answer comes with a cost, and every victory arrives too late for someone else.
Cherubs is a gripping middle-grade science fiction thriller filled with mystery, suspense, courage, and unforgettable characters. Combining the emotional heart of a coming-of-age story with the relentless tension of an alien invasion, it explores what happens when ordinary people stop questioning the impossible—and when one quiet girl refuses to stop asking questions.
Sometimes the person no one listens to is the only one telling the truth.
And sometimes the cutest creatures in the world are the most dangerous.
Lottie is on the Spectrum
This is Lottie
Meet Charlotte Rae "Lottie" Lewis — a tiny detective with a big imagination and an even bigger heart.
The Little Lottie Series follows five-year-old Lottie, a curious, imaginative, and endlessly determined little girl who notices the details other people miss. With her trusty magnifying glass, her satchel always packed for adventure, and a sketchbook full of ideas and clues, Lottie moves through the world like the detective she believes herself to be — solving mysteries, asking questions, and figuring things out on her own terms.
Lottie is autistic, and this series was created to celebrate every part of who she is. She's curious, but she doesn't like new places. She's loving, but she doesn't like being touched. She's musical, but loud noises overwhelm her. She's artistic, but many textures are hard for her hands to bear. She's deeply intelligent, but sometimes words are hard to find. Rather than treating these traits as contradictions, the Little Lottie Series shows children that a person can hold seemingly opposite truths at once — and that all of them belong. Lottie is not a girl in spite of her differences. Lottie is Lottie, and she is perfect exactly as she is.
Each story in the series gently explores a different piece of Lottie's world — her sensory experiences, her identity, her relationships, and her growth — through warm, rhythmic, read-aloud text paired with rich, tender illustrations. Young readers watch Lottie learn to navigate sound-sensitive spaces with headphones at a parade, ease into new textures at a sensory table, and open up in her own time and in her own way — never rushed, never fixed, always supported.
Lottie's world is grounded in a loving, biracial military family who show up for her exactly as she needs. Her mother, Marnie, is a stay-at-home mom who keeps the household running on patience, humor, and a steady supply of coffee. Her father, James, is a U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant — calm, protective, and endlessly playful — who reminds Lottie that telling the truth, even about muddy handprints and missing cupcakes, always makes things better. Rounding out the family are Lottie's baby brother and a mischievous kitten, along with the everyday chaos and comfort of a home built on unconditional love.
The series also plays with the idea of identity and belonging in age-appropriate, empowering ways — including the discovery that Lottie's full name, Charlotte Rae Lewis, is its own kind of clue, and that even young children can hold more than one name, more than one label, and more than one truth about themselves without losing who they are underneath it all.
Written for children ages 3 to 6, the Little Lottie Series is designed to be read again and again — by autistic children who deserve to see themselves as the hero of the story, by neurotypical children learning empathy and acceptance, and by the parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, and therapists who read alongside them. Each book uses simple, honest language and a gentle repeating structure that makes big feelings and big ideas easy for little listeners to follow and easy for grown-ups to discuss.
More than anything, the Little Lottie Series is a celebration — of curiosity, of individuality, of families who show up, and of children who are allowed to be exactly who they are without apology. It's a series about looking closely, asking questions, and discovering that the answers are usually kinder and more wonderful than expected.
This is Lottie. And she is perfect.