An orphan bent on revenge. A monster searching for freedom. A forbidden pact that binds their fates together.
The Rarkyn’s Familiar, book one of the Rarkyn Trilogy
“Magic might be this city’s first currency, but blood is its second.”
The Rarkyn’s Fall, book two
The Rarkyn’s Familiar
The most terrifying monster isn’t the one Lyss travels with. It’s the one that’s awoken inside her.
Lyss has heard her father’s screams; smelled the iron-tang of his blood. She’s witnessed his execution. And plotted her revenge.
Then a violent encounter traps Lyss in a blood-pact with a rarkyn from the otherworld and imbues her with the monster’s forbidden magic. A magic that will erode her sanity.
To break the pact, she and the rarkyn must journey to the heart of the Empire. All that stands in their way are the mountains and the Empire’s soldiers, and each other.
But horrors await them on the road, horrors even rarkyns fear.
- Sir Julius Vogel Award, Best Youth Novel, 2023
- Foreword INDIES Book of the Year, Bronze, Young Adult Fiction, 2022
- Aurealis Award finalist, Young Adult Novel, 2022
A rip-snorting YA read.Rachael Craw, author of the Spark series
The Rarkyn’s Fall
They survived mancers. They survived monsters. They survived the Storm.
With the mountains behind them and Illredus on the horizon, they thought the hardest part of the journey over. They were wrong.
Outlawed and on the run, Lyss struggles to control her new and volatile magic. A magic that will destroy her.
Her only hope: Find the last remaining witch to tame it. Her only clue: Buried in Illredus. City of mancers. Capital of the Empire.
Together, she and Skaar descend into Illredus’ underbelly and discover a warren of illegal magics and the monstrous legacy Lyss’ father left behind.
- Sir Julius Vogel Award finalist, Best Youth Novel, 2025
- BSFA longlist, Best Novel, 2024
Hauntingly beautiful prose.NZ Book Lovers
Two years. 294,000 words.Nikky, on Instagram, the day the last Rarkyn book was drafted.
News of a title and a date will land on @nikkymlee and in her newsletter first.
A Night So Dark And Full Of Stars
Twelve tales inspired by the zodiac
- A half-siren girl befriends a deaf boy.
- A vendetta between a teenager and her dad’s stubborn ram continues into the afterlife.
- A hunter must atone for killing a god’s sacred bull.
- A sacrificial maiden uncovers the secret of the wizards who rule her people.
Inside is “We Who Remain”, winner of the 2025 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novella.
Find a copy
Once We Flew
A science-fantasy novella. Aurealis Award, Best Science Fiction Novella, 2023.
Was that our destiny? I wondered. To erode bit by bit until every last trace of us was gone?
Find a copy
Dingo & Sister
A cli-fi novelette, free as an ebook. Two Aurealis Awards, 2020.
One girl, one dingo and a desert between them and safe haven.
Read it freeCome and say hello
- October 2026Auckland Armageddon, at the North Shore Writers table
- Te ManawaIndie Writers Fest, Palmerston North
Nikky is a member of North Shore Writers, and her work is in their anthology Don’t Forget To Shut The Gate.
Perth,Whadjuk Noongar Country.Aotearoa.
Nikky Lee
Nikky grew up as a barefoot 90s kid in Perth, Western Australia on Whadjuk Noongar Country. She now lives in Aotearoa New Zealand with a husband, a dog, and a couch potato cat.
In her free time she writes speculative fiction, often burning the candle at both ends to explore fantastic worlds, mine asteroids, and meet wizards. She’s had over thirty stories published in magazines, anthologies and on the radio.
Her fantasy, sci-fi and horror has won three Aurealis Awards, three Sir Julius Vogel Awards, three Indie Ink Awards, Bronze at the Foreword INDIES and a Ditmar Award for Best New Talent.