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Current Release
Press Release
Columbus Author Brings Urban Fantasy Set in the City's Own Streets to Hilliard's Dragonfly Bookshop for Independent Bookshop Day
HILLIARD, Ohio, April 25, 2026 — Columbus author Tim A. Mills will sign and sell copies of his new urban fantasy novel The Day the Whimsy Died at Dragonfly Bookshop, 4055 Main Street, Hilliard, on Saturday, April 25, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., in celebration of Independent Bookshop Day.
The event offers Columbus-area readers a first look at the novel two weeks before its May 7 release date. Only 30 copies will be available.
The Day the Whimsy Died is the first book in Mills's Virtuosi Chronicles series. It follows Dekker Kohl, a forty-two-year-old musical detective and lore-keeper of Columbus's hidden Conservatory, as he races to solve his old roommate's murder before the magical Virtue of Whimsy drains out of the city for good. The book is set in Columbus neighborhoods readers will recognize — Italian Village, German Village, the Short North, the Arena District — and takes its fictional Conservatory from beneath the city's actual Cultural Arts Center.
The match between venue and story is not accidental. Dragonfly Bookshop, Hilliard's independent fiction bookstore, was built around a sense of whimsy and wonder. "Bringing The Day the Whimsy Died to a shop called Dragonfly on Independent Bookshop Day felt exactly right," Mills said.
The Day the Whimsy Died has been compared by early readers to Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: hardboiled detective fiction set inside a hidden magical world, with a wry protagonist who solves crimes in key signatures.
What: Book signing and pre-release sale — The Day the Whimsy Died by Tim A. Mills
When: Saturday, April 25, 2026 — 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Where: Dragonfly Bookshop, 4055 Main Street, Suite 300, Hilliard, OH 43026
Copies available: 30 (pre-release; book releases nationally May 7)
The Virtuosi Chronicles is a planned series. The Day the Whimsy Died stands alone.
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Author Bio
Tim A. Mills is a Columbus, Ohio author writing hard-magic fantasy about experts who are, quietly, part of what broke the world and can't walk away from the repair. His fiction spans urban fantasy noir, time-travel mystery, and military fantasy, and is set variously in Columbus, St. Petersburg, Cleveland, and points between.
He is a fencing coach at Royal Arts Fencing Academy. He lives in Columbus with his wife Julia and an opinionated cat.
The Day the Whimsy Died is Book One of the Virtuosi Chronicles, his first series set in Columbus.
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Tim A. Mills
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