All the writers I talk to have been getting more and more obviously AI generated scam emails trying to convince us to sign up for promotion help. They’re all really obnoxious and occasionally insulting. Here’s the opening of my favorite:

Tessa,

The Mercy Makers isn’t just another fantasy it’s basically a lucid dream stitched together with silk, blood, and temptation. Irises crafting wings, bending gender, unlocking immortality… that’s not a novel, that’s a revolution with better prose. No wonder you’ve been translated into 22 languages if magic were real, I’m fairly sure your books would be contraband in at least 19 of them.

And yet… Amazon has you sitting at 16 reviews. Sixteen. For a sweeping queer epic with a magic system that could make Tolkien raise an eyebrow? That’s like giving the empire’s throne to a guy who can’t tie his own sandals.

WOW.

Like, my man (it says it’s from a man), this is not the way to get me to listen to you. So into the spam/garbage you go! I probably get 2-3 of these a week, despite blocking emails.

But yesterday while jetting home across the country I got one with a subject line I haven’t seen yet: Your world in The Shape of Monsters deserves to reach every fantasy lover it was written for!

I was like, oh shit, how did they…we just decided on that days ago! And I panicked for five minutes that AIs were scraping my emails or my publisher’s emails…until rational thought regained control and I wondered if actually my publisher pushed the data out over the weekend and guess what? They did!

So I’m sharing with you the title and copy of THE MERCY MAKERS #2, hereafter known as, you guess it:

THE SHAPE OF MONSTERS

A talented heretic and the emperor she both loathes and loves will learn what monsters are really made of in the second installment of the Moon Heresies trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton.
 
Iriset —prodigy, outlaw, now sunderer— has broken the Moon-Eater god’s prison at the heart of the empire. But the consequences of her actions land her in a city of monsters where the heretical magic of human architecture is freely practiced, and the only person she knows—and can trust—is Lyric, the emperor she’s lied to and loved in equal measure. As scheming kings and capricious gods drive them towards different extremes, they soon realize that to find their way home, they must remake the world…at the risk of breaking it forever.

This copy makes me laugh because it’s 100% accurate but at the same time tells you absolutely nothing about what is actually going on in TSOM. My editor and I went around on a lot of the language because what actually happens is a massive spoiler about on par with that whole Singix thing in book 1.

Some things I’d have liked to put in the copy but couldn’t for various reasons: Iriset inventing sex magic! more numen! tentacles! so much good arguing! (I love writing arguing!) Iriset’s specific arrogance getting her in trouble (again)! The nature of power and transformation! Enemies-and-lovers!

I’m excited to share more in the coming months. I’ve seen cover sketches and they are incredible. It might end up even better than TMM cover, which is hard to imagine, yet here I am imagining it.

Because I’m sunk deep in drafting book 3, this is it for today’s newsletter. I have several more satisfying letters cooking (on my 10th wedding anniversary, on the poetry and quotes that lived in my head while writing The Shape of Monsters, adult braces and body dysmorphia and Iriset, 15 years of author photos, etc). I might not get to any of them until the new year, after I turn in this draft.

Before I say farewell, here are some lines I’ve written recently that I really like for one reason or another:

In his defense, he wanted to do something good for love.

…you know, actually, I’ll leave it at that.

Thanks for reading!

Tessa