April 2024

This was meant to be an early April newsletter.

Actually, it was meant to be a March newsletter. But then I got sick, and I had a deadline to meet, and then I had to spend a bunch of time painting because we are about to move house, and then I got sick again. And now it’s an end of April newsletter instead. Oh well! Such is life.

Before I throw myself back into packing boxes and cleaning out cupboards for this move, I wanted to (finally) give you an update on some exciting book stuff that has happened lately (or, you know, over the past few months).

• ICYMI my cover is finally out in the world! The beautiful design is by Lisa Marie Pomilio and I’m absolutely in love with it. She included so many fun easter eggs from the book, and the colors are wonderfully vibrant. Can’t wait to hold it in my hands!

• Preorders are live! You can now buy Sorcery and Small Magics pretty much wherever books are sold. Additionally, if you order through River Bend Bookshop you will get a signed copy and some free goodies! I don’t have a complete list of the swag that will come with your copy yet but I CAN say there will be a character art print. I have seen an early sketch and it’s gorgeous. More on this soon.

• Sorcery and Small Magics is now available for request on Edelweiss. Please tell your bookseller and librarian friends!

• As a longtime fan of Cindy’s youtube channel I was absolutely delighted to be included in her list of 24 reads she’s looking forward to in 2024! Check out the video for a great round up of books you maybe haven’t heard of yet that are coming out this year.

• And last but certainly not least, you can read an excerpt from Sorcery and Small Magics here! I hope you enjoy getting to know Leo and Grimm in these first two chapters.

Books: Pretty much everything I’ve read so far this year has been a banger. I loved Cosmoknights #1 and #2 by Hanna Templer and can’t wait for more. Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands was a wonderfully charming continuation of Emily and Wendell’s adventures together. Also notable was Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters, a delightfully saucy and queer historical tale with such a strong narrative voice that I felt like the main character was reading everything aloud to me. I was totally swept away by Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, a beautiful and haunting exploration of WWI, told through a speculative lens. And most recently I read The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. The best way I can describe it is Knives Out meets Attack on Titan with a healthy dose of plant horror thrown in the mix. Absolutely fantastic!

Shows: Getting sick four times in as many months means I have spent a lot of time in front of the TV. I devoured all three seasons of Slow Horses, a thoroughly engrossing British drama about a group of M15 rejects getting mixed up in all sorts of high stakes situations. Usually they make things worse, which is exactly the sort of thing I enjoy. I also recently watched Blue Eye Samurai. Twice. It’s visually gorgeous, deliciously vengeful, and intensely entertaining. Can’t wait for S2. Lastly, I have somehow fallen back into watching early seasons of Supernatural. I know, I know, but there’s something delightfully nostalgic about revisiting an old favorite, and despite the monsters and blood this is a comfort show for me. It’s also made me realize how much I miss long seasons of television. A tightly plotted ten episode arc is great, but sometimes I want something a little more sprawling.