Fractured Pieces

Think Elektra meets The Little Mermaid in a book where a dream walking assassin will do anything to save his family and a landlocked selkie is tortured with taking the same photo day in and day out to keep her pelt safe. They meet and realise they're working together for the same goal. 

Book Title: Fractured Pieces, by Mandi Kontos

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Release Date: 11th of July, 2025

Where to Buy It:

Mandi's Website (AU/NZ Residents)

Amazon

From the Blurb:

Reapers are killing the magickally inclined.

A secret society of assassins, highly trained to slay monsters that lurk in the shadows.

It’s been a year since Devin Ryder left The Camp, and the adjustment has been…interesting. Between playing the doting son, hotelier heir and brother by day, he is the dream-walking assassin by night. Ryder terrorises his victims by showing up in their dreams weeks before their death, tormenting them with a taste of what’s to come.

Until he meets her.

Acionna is a selkie princess cursed to take the same photo of her beloved ocean over and over again. If she misses a day, the witch who stole her pelt will destroy it, forcing Acionna to be landlocked forever. How can she remain heir to the sea if she can never go back?

Devin and Acionna recognise that they have the same wounds, searching for the truth about the witch and how she is linked to The Camp. Will they be able to find her before it’s too late? Or will Acionna and Devin lose a part of them they didn’t realise they had?

About the Author:

Mandi Kontos is an urban fantasy writer who lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, tuxedo cat Rajah, a plethora of plants and a collection of journals she never writes in. By day she is a buying assistant and by night a writing mindset mentor and word wrangler.  She has a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Writing and Publishing and a Masters in Creative Writing. She is a perpetual student and loves to learn. She is also the host of The Writing Apothecary Podcast where she explores writing with a holistic view thanks to her academic background. Mandi loves to take the supernatural and blend it with the mundane things of life, taking mythology and spinning it on its head. She can be found on the socials as @mandikont.

More About Mandi Kontos:

How long does it take you to write a book? How long does each stage of the process usually take?

This is something I'm still exploring as my first book took me over 20 years to finish and publish (this was between all of my schooling years) but generally a first draft can take me anywhere between one month to three depending on how much free time I have. 

The hardest part is generally the second draft - just because I love to explore the story more than I enjoy bridging it all together. I'm a big discovery writer and would love for a first draft to just be perfect! I'm trying to get better about only doing a few drafts as I did multiple draft for my first book - Faded Fragments.

Writing the second - Fractured Pieces - has been a completely different beast. The process took me about 15 days to write the initial draft (which I started and finished 10 years ago) and then it took me about 15 months to rewrite it and editing took about two months. It feels like a whirlwind in comparison. 

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What is your favourite type of character to write?

I love to write characters who grow through the story. If they're a little damaged and need help pulling through the trenches to get to the other side - even better. 

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What do you do when you find yourself in a bit of a writing rut? Is there any strategy you find works for you to help the words start flowing again? 

Oh i love this. I teach this a lot with my coaching as well - I move my body, I get out of my regular space and generally spend time finding the joy in things again, whether that is a new show, a good book or cooking, I use the mundane things to help kickstart the creativity. 

I also really love to re-read writing I've done before. 

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What is something you wish you had known earlier on in your writing career?

Ohhh this is a good question - I think I would have told myself to just push publish earlier and not stress so much about it being perfect. 

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Do you mine your own life for ideas, settings and/or characters?

Ha!! Yes, I didn't really understand that until this book - with Fractured Pieces my main character, Devin, is an assassin to hire and I started to delve into the logistics of naming people that wouldn't play a huge role and wouldn't be missed so I may or may not have put in names of people who had previously bullied me or broke my heart...ha! 

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What is your favourite writing resource?

Scrivener!! I wouldn't be anywhere without it, it holds all of my stories, ideas and everything in between. 

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What authors or books inspire you the most?

Rachel Vincent is one of my biggest author crushes. I read her books as a teen and followed her blog and socials to devour everything I could about her process and how she wrote and really resonated with me. I found a lot of my own words reflected back to me and having someone who is so deep rooted in urban fantasy was what inspired me the most.

Also books like Big Magic by Liz Gilbert, Walking in this World by Julia Cameron, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott have had a huge influence on how I see the creative world and how I approach a lot of my writing things. 

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What's next for your writing?

I'm going to start chipping away at book 3 but I might even look at playing with a standalone (I so desperately want to write one but I fear that only series are in my future at this stage haha). But right now I'm going to be focusing on promoting Fractured Pieces and hoping that people will give it a chance.