Wooden Nickels

It's 1920's Baltimore. Prohibition. Those who sell and distribute liquor can become rich — or dead if the mob doesn't get their cut. The gangsters have taken over, and in organized crime the one weapon valued more than a Tommy gun is a mage. Welcome to the world of White Lightning.

A moonshine runner.
A mage for the mob.
And more misfortune than a blow-down at the speakeasy.

Hattie Malloy has two goals in life—get the hootch from warehouse to seller, and make sure no one finds out she can conjure illusions. But when her shipment of rum is attacked by pirates on the Chesapeake Bay and she needs to call on the mob for help, those two goals collide. Suddenly the safety of her family and friends rests on her helping a group of gangsters that she wants nothing to do with.

The mob is the only family that time pincher Vincent Calendo has ever known. When his boss Vito says he wants to expand his “stable” of mages, Vincent is tasked with finding unaffiliated, or free, pinchers and bringing them into the fold—willingly or not.

Can Hattie keep her talents a secret from Vincent or will she lose the freedom her parents have sacrificed everything to give her?