"Eva and the Devil" available to preorder! UK ebooks sale! Giveaways!!
Dear all,
I have some quick updates to share about upcoming releases!
Update the first:
I am so, so happy to finally be able to announce that my short story “Eva and the Devil,” which appears In the OwlCrate anthology MONSTERS IN MASQUERADE, is at last available for preorder and will be published on December 17th. Here’s a teaser of the story itself:
Tonight is one of those nights where moonlight streams reckless through the cracked peaks of the cordillera, spilling like a kicked bucket of milk into the valley below. It’s so bright on my skin that I think it should feel cool. That it should have weight to it. That I could catch it, when I turn my palms skyward. But it falls through my fingers, weightless, silken. Faithless as a handful of water.
[…] And this is where they gather: el Otro Mundo. Here, where the air smells of snowmelt and pine and the distant sulfur of grumbling volcanoes. Here, the world is both here and not, a place that even the fog skirts for fear of what could nip its heels in the dark. A place that took everything I had ever wanted and sent it spilling out of my grasp.
I’m extremely proud of my work on this story, especially because I’m not generally one to write stories for anthology calls. Something about following a prompt, no matter how vague, smashes a big red “rebellious second child” button in my creative brain where I either 1) think how dare you tell me what to do, and/or 2) want to write anything BUT what the prompt suggests. It really, really doesn’t work for me. But when I saw editor Robin Alvarez describe the anthology as a mix of fantasy, romance, and horror, I just knew that I had to write something for it. I mean, come on. The Venn Diagram of my writing interests could not be more of a perfect circle!
Thus: “Eva and the Devil” was born. I love a faerie contract, I love scary Mexican monsters, and—as anyone who has read Vampires of El Norte well knows—I love a romantic lead wearing vaquero chaps.
The anthology is a gorgeous hardcover and will be out AT LAST on December 17th!
Update the second:
Head’s up, UK readers! Ebooks of VAMPIRES OF EL NORTE and THE HACIENDA are on sale this week for the outrageously low price of 99p!! I personally loooooove the paperbacks because you can see the insanely gorgeous covers, but if you’re an ebook kind of reader, then now is the chance to snap up both titles for less than, like, a Pret Americano.
Update the third:
My agency, kt literary, is doing a spooooooky giveaway of signed copies of Vampires of El Norte! Enter via kt literary’s instagram HERE before it ends tomorrow! (US only, alas!)
Update the fourth (and final):
Before I depart your inbox, I have another wee gift in the form of a fancy link to click: THE POSSESSION OF ALBA DÍAZ has been added to Goodreads! Click HERE to add it to your To-Read lists, if you, like me, use the great sputtering & arcane Victorian machine that is Goodreads.
And if you’re among the select few who have read the manuscript, why not smash the 5-star button while you’re at it? Call me superficial, but the book’s rating is quite low… you know you’ve made it when a handful of no-name trolls one-star your book before it’s even back from copy edits, I guess? This is despite it LITERALLY having not been read by anyone but those who know my true faerie name and can thus command me to hand over manuscripts as my fingers are still numb from having typed The End. Oh, well. The perils and pitfalls of being On The Internet, I suppose. 🙃
TL;DR, trolls suck, you don’t, and for that, you get another cover sneak peek!
Having thus ye updated, I think it’s time for me to bounce. I have another short story to write for yet another themed anthology, believe it or not… but GHOSTS OF WHERE WE ARE FROM was too good of an opportunity to pass up on! The prompt? Basically: Latinx + horror + touching on heritage and a sense of place. So ridiculously in my wheelhouse that I couldn’t not say yes. (Especially when you see who my Table of Contents mates will be: Mariana Enríquez? Agustina Bazterrica??? Mónica Ojeda? Xochitl Gonzalez? I FAINT.) I currently have three story options at different stages of outlining, which tells you just how excited I am.
But today, I have to pick one. (And finish it, ideally by Dec 1.) I think I know which to finally choose: it’s got tortured mediums in 1920s Chicago, seances, possessions… oh, and yearning, of course, so much yearning.
Or, idk, I could write a werewolf story. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess you’ll just have to wait and see!
PS (or rather: a post script that is more of a psst): a secret for you, beloved newsletter subscribers! The cover reveal for ALBA happens in just three short weeks. THREE. That’s, like, fifteen minutes in publishing time. I’ll see you then!
xxxx