If Wishes Were Retail

Auston Habershaw

$29.99

Paperback

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English

Miscellaneous
01 November 2025

Fantasy; Fantasy

A pop-up at the local mall meets Aladdin in this cosy, chaotic, and deeply funny debut novel where an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living.

Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream.

Good thing there's a genie in town

and he's hiring at the Wellspring Mall. It'd help if the Jinn-formerly-of-the-Ring-of-Khorad knew even one thing about 21st-century America. It'd help if he weren't at least as stubborn as Alex. It'd really help if her brother didn't sell her out to her conspiracy theory-loving, gnome-hating dad.

When Alex and the genie set up their wishing kiosk, they face seemingly-endless setbacks. The mall is failing and management will not stop interfering on behalf of their big-box tenants.

But when the wishing biz might start working, the biggest problem of all remains: People are really terrible at wishing.

By: Auston Habershaw
Imprint: Miscellaneous
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9781616964344
ISBN 10: 1616964340
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 01 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Auston Habershaw has worked as a lifeguard, barista, waiter, QA tester, dog walker, hotel bellhop, pedicab driver, SAT tutor, office drone, and a bunch of other random things. He now is a science fiction and fantasy author, writing about the could-be and never-was, and also teaches composition and literature at MCPHS University in Boston, MA. You can find him online at aahabershaw.com.

Reviews for If Wishes Were Retail

""Irresistibly fun and funny, with a ton of heart and depth! This is the kind of book that sneaks up on you and sticks with you!"" --Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop ""Delightfully charming, and it continually surprised me...and that's a good thing!"" --Phil Foglio, co-creator of Girl Genius ""My three wishes? Three more books as good as this one from Auston Habershaw."" --Tom Holt, author of The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse ""I wish I'd thought of this."" --Daniel Pinkwater, author of Jules, Penny & the Rooster ""If Wishes Were Retail taps into a long-storied tradition of smart comedic fantasy in the vein of Terry Pratchett...If Wishes Were Retail is a ten out of ten gnomes--if you can see them, that is."" --Mia Tsai, Author of Bitter Medicine ""A love letter to wounded people and community spaces, this suburban fantasy is both delightfully absurd and firmly grounded."" --Dave Klecha, co-author of The Runes of Engagement