Think about supporting Bards Alley and some of your favorite local and non-local authors through our pre-order campaigns! We either work directly with authors or publishers to offer signed editions, freebies, or other swag for pre-orders taken directly through Bards Alley.

Check out our ongoing campaigns below -- books can be ordered online through bardsalley.square.site and you will be contacted via phone when your order is ready for pick-up on the book's release date. Most of our campaigns are pick-up only unless otherwise stated.

Where only Storms Grow
by Alyssa Colman

middle grade (ages 8-12); historical fiction; available 8/18/25
Support local author Alyssa Colman by pre-ordering her next middle grade novel Where Only Storms Grow, releasing on August 18th! Follow the link to order with Bards Alley online, with local pick-up and shipping options available (US only). Alyssa will be signing and personalizing (if requested) all copies sold through Bards Alley. This historical story set during the American Dust Bowl is great for fans of the I Survived series and The War that Saved My Life​.

For educators: submit your school email address in the Email section or under Comments at checkout when you order and receive: a free recorded author visit, educator resources about the story & Dust Bowl, and an invitation to a live Q&A with Alyssa in early 2026!

Pre-orders open through August 17th! Pick-up orders will be called on 8/19 while shipped orders should arrive during the week.

Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy
by Mary Roach

adult non-fiction; science & nature; available 9/16/25
From the New York Times best-selling author of Stiff and Fuzz comes a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy. Bards Alley be offering Indie exclusive signed editions and a special microfiber eyeglass cleaning cloth for pre-orders, while supplies last.

Pre-orders must be placed by Friday, August 1st to guarantee a signed edition and cleaning cloth. Replaceable You will release on Tuesday, September 16th; you will be contacted via phone when your order is ready for pick-up. This pre-order is available for pick-up only at Bards Alley.

Mary Roach sets sail on the uncharted waters of regenerative medicine, exploring the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Is there a sensitive way to harvest tissue and bones from the deceased? Which animals might be the best organ donors? Through interviews with patients, physicians, pathologists, engineers, and scientists, Roach immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.

Tom's Crossing
​by Mark Z. Danielewski

adult fiction; literary/western; available 10/28/25
From the best-selling author of modern classic House of Leaves comes a page-turning epic about two friends determined to rescue a pair of horses set for slaughter. Bards Alley will have page overlays to give away with pre-orders while supplies last - this is the best way to guarantee freebies for this highly anticipated release!

Tom's Crossing will release on Tuesday, October 28th; you will be contacted via phone when your order is ready for pick-up. This pre-order is available for pick-up only at Bards Alley.

While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines in mountains ready to shrug even the bravest from their backs, as one Orvop local would put, with another characterizing the astonishing journey as crazy as it was foolish as it still is just plain beyond imaginin. But them kids went for it anyway.

Not that such daring was entirely unexpected considering how some of those involved included the likes of young Tom Gatestone, already a bit of an Orvop legend, and his friend Kalin March, new to the area, the two of them takin it upon themselves to rescue a couple of neglected horses from the Porch paddocks on Willow and Oak. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t? 

For sure no one expected the dead to rise but they did. For sure no one expected the mountain to fall but it did. For sure no one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif to say nothing of Pillars Meadow.