Preorder Live Now • Adult Urban Fantasy • Found Family

Hollowborn Roots

Magic has rules. Monsters remember. Being forgotten is only the beginning.

Elias Cooper spent his whole life being overlooked. Then the monsters started remembering him.

Funny-dark urban fantasy Found family Sarcastic familiar Magic with consequences Monsters who remember
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The Book

Hollowborn Roots

Apparently, being forgettable is more dangerous than I thought.

My coworkers call me "Cart Guy". Even my parents forget my name. It's Elias Cooper by the way. My crowning achievement is shelving books for years, and only getting tased by security once—for trespassing at my own job. I've spent most of my life trying to be seen.

Then a vampire tried to eat me and immediately regretted it. Apparently, the supernatural starts to unravel if it gets too close to me. At least that is what Lila—my terrifyingly competent coworker, and as it turns out a mage—says. According to her, I am a walking dead zone for magic. A magical EMP if you will.

That one event throws me into a hidden world of vampires, fey, and magic. For the first time in my life, I'm being remembered by things that want to collect me, kill me, or both.

I'm not exactly action-hero material. I'm five foot seven. But when the supernatural hits the fan, the most forgettable man in Ohio is left holding a shotgun and a survival plan that would be generously called questionable.

Preorder is live. Hollowborn Roots releases September 16, 2026. Kindle preorders are available now. Paperback releases the same day.
This book exists so forgetting loses.
About the Author

Meet Joshua Arnold

A tuxedo cat sitting in the author's chair

The author’s supervisor, accepting full credit.

The author is currently being supervised.

Joshua Arnold writes funny-dark adult urban fantasy where magic has rules, monsters remember, found family matters, and the quiet guy in the library is probably the problem.

By day, he works in cybersecurity, explaining invisible threats to people who would usually rather not believe in them. By night, he writes about vampires, fey, ancient bargains, talking cats, and supernatural disasters hiding in plain sight.

His debut novel, Hollowborn Roots, follows Elias Cooper, a forgettable librarian whose absence from the world turns out to be the one thing monsters cannot ignore.

When he isn’t writing, Joshua is usually reading, overthinking fictional magic systems, spending time with his family, or being monitored by a cat who has made it clear that all success belongs to him.

The Imprint

Ashthorne Press

Ashthorne Press is the publishing imprint of Joshua Arnold.

Its first release, Hollowborn Roots, begins with a forgotten librarian, a midnight vampire, and a supernatural world that should have known better than to look his way.

The Hollowborn Series

Memory. Monsters. Consequences.

Hollowborn Roots is the first book in an adult urban fantasy series about names, erasure, old laws, found family, and the dangerous things that happen when the world finally notices the person it spent a lifetime forgetting.

Professional Inquiries

Contact

For bookstore, library, media, rights, event, or professional inquiries, contact Joshua at:

Inquiries@JoshuaArnoldwrites.com