Long-form works:
The Hollow Witch
“Beautiful and macabre, Borsellino weaves a darkly spellbinding tale of sapphic love in a world where the dead aren’t always gone. THE HOLLOW WITCH will keep you turning the pages deep into the night.”
– C.S. Pacat, New York Times bestselling author of DARK RISE
“This is a wild, magical, powerful story; a force to be reckoned with. Our queer disabled heroine may live in a world of zombies and witches, but like our own it’s also rife with corruption, oppression & violence. Can love, friendship & hope survive in such a place? THE HOLLOW WITCH dares us to imagine what ending we’d choose for this story, and perhaps even our own world… red fan, or white?”
– Jess Walton, author of Stonewall Book Awards Honour Book STARS IN THEIR EYES
When child soldier Silvie loses her magic and part of her hearing, her life as she knew it is over. Sent to the far-away canal city of Arteria to be an alchemist’s apprentice, she is forced to begin again.
Azura, the alchemist’s daughter, has always lived among Arteria’s wealthiest and most comfortable. She and Silvie couldn’t be more different, and yet the two are drawn to one another, each trapped by the circumstances of their birth.
But Arteria is plagued by the high cost of its magic use: the cadaveri, walking corpses that prey on the living. When the city comes under unprecedented threat, can Silvie and Azura save it? Do they even want to?
Available in English and German
Little Ghosts
Growing up on a crumbling plantation at the beginning of the 20th century can profoundly shape an imagination, and when I grew up and went away to university in New Orleans, I realised my imagination wasn’t the only weird thing about me. My family’s reaction to my wild new life almost killed me. The way back to feeling alive was stranger than even I expected. Now I want to tell you all about it.
“While very much a work of historical fiction, set in a period when women were struggling to find a voice and path to empowerment, Little Ghosts is at the same time a work with powerful resonance for our own age, where many of the same problems persist. And, last of all, it is a truly beguiling work, written with a unique voice that demands to be heard. I loved it.”
— Black Static Magazine
Ice in Sunlight
“I think I’m supposed to be dead.”
Corwen’s emotions are a frozen wasteland after years of enslavement and abuse. When he’s finally rescued, freedom isn’t enough to thaw the wintry landscape of his heart.
Slowly, his new compatriots teach him that physical intimacy is a sacred gift, that pleasure can be shared without pain. With endless patience, they offer him a different way of being.
In order to be whole, Corwen must surrender the self-loathing he wears like armor. Can he learn to see himself the way his new companions do? Or will he hide from love forever in the icy vault that shields his deepest soul?
Written under the pen name Julia Leijon.
Thrive
In a time and place where the gulf between the haves and the have-nots has grown painfully wide, Olivia lives a life cushioned with abundance.
Until the day she is kidnapped and held for ransom by Hannah, a girl from a very different kind of life.
Olivia discovers a taste for things not commonly condoned in her world: black-market books, daring friends, wild creativity.
From the depths of factory oppression to the dizzying heights of vigilante rooftops, Olivia travels the margins of society, where the misfits gather and build homes for themselves out of whatever they can get their hands on – and fight to make a life worth living.
Ruby Coral Carnelian
Where do you hide if the forces out to destroy you can find you anywhere? For three students on the run from cruel sorcerers, discovering an answer to that question is a matter of life and death. Del, an apprentice mage, Kelsie, a natural leader, and Nicholas, a born survivor, are in way over their heads and time is running out.
A rich, engrossing fairy tale from celebrated indie punk writer Mary Borsellino.
“Among the many joys of Ruby Coral Carnelian, I especially like the keen understanding of ways in which young people seek out lasting friendship. The intelligent artistry of Mary Borsellino’s writing is matched by a natural and mature exuberance, a zest for all that is possible and all that ought to be. It’s a rare delight to travel in her world.”
—S.P. Miskowski
Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of Knock Knock, Delphine Dodd and Astoria
The Devil’s Mixtape
“It’s pretty dark, but damn, it’s really f***ing good.” — Erin Kyan, Love and Luck Podcast
In 1999, Ella was one of three students who arrived at her Denver school with a cache of weapons and a plan to use them. Years later, she sifts through accounts of other violent young women, writing letters to a little sister who had to grow up in the aftermath of that day.
In 1952, Sally was a runaway, hitch-hiking around Australia with a strange, secretive girl named Amy. Each outcasts in their own way, the pair navigate a landscape scarred by old memories and tragedies, searching for a place that will feel like safety and home.
And in 2011, Charlotte was a music journalist on tour with a band, listening to their stories of loss and hope. Though they are in very different times and places, the three are linked by a web of legacies and second chances.
Demons, fallen soldiers, hunters, rock & roll stars, and high-school heartbreaks are all thrown together. The result could never be anything but the Devil’s mixtape.
The Wolf House
“Electrifying. Chilling. Enthralling. Amazing.“ — L.J. Smith, author of The Vampire Diaries
The mean streets of Chicago belong to The Wolf House — a pack of vampires like:
Blake, who loves toying with hunters;
Tim, who’s lost several centuries of his memory;
Cora, who has an unquenchable thirst for cruelty.
Facing off against them are a collection of artists, punk rockers, and misfit high schoolers— smart, talented, angry … and doomed:
Bette and Rose, best friends lured into the vampires’ world;
Lily and Will, vampire hunters, musicians, and all-around human disasters;
Sofie and Jay, who barely survived Cora’s brutality and now are Blake’s pawns.
In the world of the undead, love is a curse and friendship a weapon. When the sun goes down, the games begin … and innocence dies.
1. Origins and Overtures: At first, Bette and Jay are more fascinated than frightened by the secret underworld of vampires … but they’re about to find out just how wrong they are.
2. Roads and Crosses: When death creeps in closer than ever, it destroys the equilibrium Lily and Will shared. Can the new people they’re becoming hope to regain what’s been lost?
3. Fair Game: Vampires obsessively stalk those they love and gleefully manipulate those they oppose. As tensions between humans and vampires begin to boil over, Bette and Tim wonder how much of a person’s identity can survive those new instincts.
4. Fire Proof Heart: Having an eating disorder was miserable enough as a human. Now that Ash is a vampire, it’s a living hell. She’s the latest victim of Cora’s evil games against Blake, but now Blake — capricious, charming, endlessly bloodthirsty — is the only one who can save her.
5. Last Girl: In the horror movies Michelle watches with her friends, the last girl is the one who kills the monster and gets to live, even when everyone else is dead. It’s not a role Michelle wants, but that’s not her choice to make. And it seems as if Alexander’s only reward for tenaciously surviving all this time is to lose everything over and over again. When all’s said and done, is being the last one standing a blessing or a curse?
“Rock’n’roll, sex, tattoos, feminism, bisexuality, and a sense of what teens really are about.” —The Age
Ophelia’s Salvation
Written in 2000, when she was eighteen years old, Mary Borsellino’s first novel is the story of Amy and Jordan, a pair of restless young lovers who set out on a road trip and soon find themselves caught in a world of uncertainty, murder, medical malpractice, and other souls as lost as they are.
Short stories:
Audiobook:
