Here you can read Laika Wallace's novels, novellas, and short story collections FOR FREE via Archive.Org (tips appreciated on his friend's PayPal or directly through the tip function on the site; proceeds will go to various wildlife conservation charities like the Xerces Society and World Animal Protection). More stories are being written and uploaded all the time, so check back regularly for more, and follow this webpage at this link to be notified of new content and changes.
Below, stories will be listed with their title, viewing link, cover, summary, and trigger warnings. Short story collections will have a summary for the theme of the entire collection and trigger warnings for individual stories. While the trigger warnings should be appropriately minded, they do tend to make the stories sound darker and more gruesome than they are. Pairing them with the summary is the best way to get the vibe of the story; if something truly terrible happens, it will be emphasized there as well as more prominently in the trigger warnings.
The following books are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Please credit back to Laika Wallace's website if you share his work.
EARTH'S OUTSIDE WORLD, SILENT WOODS, THE CELESTIAL BELT, & OUTER SPACE
Town Ghosts is available now to read at this link, as of July 15th, 2022.
Cover by Fionntan M.M.
Two towns, two halves of one story, two ghosts, two halves of one life...
When Marnie moved with her parents from her home in busy downtown Ottawa to tiny Pryeville, a town barely on the map, she didn’t have high hopes for any part of it. She’d left behind all her friends in elementary school, just to start middle school in a school so small both grades were taught in the same room. But meeting Sophia changed everything, sending her life spiraling along to the beat of the ethereal hooves that seemed to follow her...
For Edgar, too, life seemed like it couldn’t get worse. Stuck with his cruel, uncaring father, all he wanted to do was build himself a computer and maybe figure out what his new friend Donald really made him feel. But with this new girl living in the town over from him, where he lived in Sowridge, spells trouble of a different kind, a kind he comes face to face with himself one night...
It is suddenly up to four middle schoolers to solve the mystery of the two towns and their ghosts, whatever it takes, no matter how much their lives will change in the process...
Trigger warnings for this story include: depicted homophobia, depicted child abuse, eating disorder triggering content, illness, and off screen animal death.
Whisper in the Woods is available now to read at this link, as of December 21th, 2022.
Cover by bijillion.tumblr.com
A boy who thinks he’s the only strange thing in the world, and a girl who knows that she isn’t…
The first instalment in the Shimmering Lake Summer camp series, Whisper in the Woods follows Ronnie and Morgan, two teenagers with turbulent home lives, as they attend the first session of a summer camp focused on helping trouble youth connect to each other, themselves, and the world around them.
Ronnie has just been through a traumatizing event that he can’t understand and is being left in the dark about by his own mother, all while struggling to piece together why he’s been raised to believe he and his mother are the only vampires in the world.
Like most things in Morgan’s life, going to camp was sprung on her without her consent, but it gets her away from her painful home life and offers a glimpse into the world of Silent Woods, where she, a werewolf, might find more belonging than the suburbs of Ottawa.
But there’s more to the camp than what anyone is telling them, and a long standing is conflict bubbling up in the lake…
Trigger warnings for this story include: abusive parents (verbal), parent death, physical assault and flashbacks, mental health struggles, animal death on screen, transphobia.
Lured to the Lake is available now to read at this link, as of May 17th 2023.
Cover by snommie.tumblr.com
Learning how to love your family, love yourself, and love the people right in front of you…
The second instalment in the Shimmering Lake Summer Camp series, Lured to the Lake follows Ava and Sid as they attend the second session of camp, one year after Ronnie and Morgan did, as camp counselors Shebal and Jason are joined by previous camper Abigail in their struggle to balance running the camp effectively while exposing the campers to the truth about Silent Woods.
Ava and her siblings, Gwen and Henry, have lived a long life of hardship. Even now that they’re living happily with their adoptive family, they struggle to handle the way life has treated them. Ava feels she will never be free of the shadow of their father, with Henry mirroring him more and more every day. When even the camp proves to not be a safe escape for her, it takes a lot, from love to magic, for her to feel safe again. But at the end of the summer, she discovers she is more than a scared little girl.
Meanwhile, Sid finds himself caught in a strange world, falling in love with a fellow camper who can turn into a lion, and lured to the lake by the mournful songs of a glittering white kelpie.
But they’re not the only thing lurking in the waters of Shimmering Lake, and a love triangle is the least of Sid’s problems…
Trigger warnings for this book include: physical assault (on screen), child abuse, parent death, grandparent death, animal death (on screen), animal sickness (on screen), bullying (on screen), racism, transphobia, homophobia, animal attack (on screen), near drowning (on screen), mental health struggles.
Love Like This is available now to read at this link, as of September 2nd, 2023.
Cover by Laika Wallace
She had never known a love like this...
Following Morgan, Cherry, and Laurie after the events of Whisper in the Woods, up until the Christmas after Lured to the Lake.
The three girls face and overcome the many challenges of being young adults living together in their first apartment on their own. Together, they come into their own, find support and care in each other and their families, discover a new world, and finally know the depth of love.
Trigger warnings for this story include: abusive families, dysphoria, financial hardships, divorce, homophobia, alcohol, underage drinking.
POWERS
MASONRY
Laika Wallace's works have also appeared in:
Zines:
X/Y: A Junk Drawer of Trans Voices (print copies)
X/Y: A Junk Drawer of Trans Voices by The Dionysian Public Library
Publications:
First Peoples Shared Stories from Flame Tree Publishing
Find his poetry on his Tumblr blog: Laikacore.tumblr.com