The official record is missing some things.
Archer Wilder writes novels about some of the history that was rescued by the Society for Improbable Discoveries. The first is nearly ready.
The Lantern Beast
October 13, 2026
Get Ready to Meet the Lantern Beast
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Against my better judgement:
Some secrets lie beneath the surface. Some rise to find you.
When increasingly urgent dreams compel photographer Jules Everton to take refuge in her aunt's lakeside home, she expects a quiet winter in the sleepy town of Bracken Ridge. Instead, she discovers mysteries that defy explanation—shadows that move independently, light that bends in unnatural ways, and an entity of pure luminescence lurking in the depths of Fortune Lake.
Corporate lawyer Danny Pencroft is haunted by his childhood encounter with the local legend. Even though he’s spent twenty years publicly pretending not to notice the lights on the lake, he is incapable of escaping the hold they have over him.
As Danny's employer threatens to develop the shoreline, Jules and Danny uncover a century-old workshop hidden within the rocks, where an eccentric inventor's obsession reveals the lake's most dangerous secret. Now they must decode the desperate pleas of the Lantern Beast before an otherworldly catastrophe is unleashed—if they can navigate the growing connection between them that feels just as impossible as the obstacles they face.
In the depths of Fortune Lake, an ancient guardian cries for help. Will they decipher its warnings before it’s too late?
Preorder Information Available Soon
Soon you'll be able to spend money on this in advance. I'm told that's how it works now.
About the Author
Archer Wilder writes novels about the things the official record declined to keep. Her work is set in the world of the Society for Improbable Discoveries — a counter-archive that has spent a century and a half recovering uncomfortable and inconvenient evidence that respected science agreed to lose. Don’t bother to ask how much of it she is making up. She does not answer.
Her debut novel, The Lantern Beast, is forthcoming from Owlpenny Press in October 2026, with further volumes to follow.
She does not appear in photographs, attend events, or discuss her sources. She will, on occasion, answer a letter, provided the letter is interesting. Asked where the ideas for her books come from, she says she knows of a really good library, which is not untrue.
You can contact Archer by email.
