Upcoming cover reveal! New short stories! Book recs to escape this hellish timeline!
Dear readers,
Since I last popped into your inbox, the world has turned on its head. I also turned 34—election week birthdays hit different, I tell you. Sigh.
Sharp change of subject: I also had two flash short stories hit the internet recently!
NotRob: horror, doppelgängers, possibly cannibalism? The ending leaves it to you to decide. Read it here.
Babywings: a meditation on postpartum anxiety and the rawness of being parent to a newborn, this piece holds a special place in my heart because it made my husband ugly cry. (THE DREAM.) In all seriousness, it is a piece I am extremely proud of. I would be honored if you considered reading it here.
I come bearing some exclusive news for ye subscribers! The cover reveal for THE POSSESSION OF ALBA DÍAZ (add on Goodreads HERE) is scheduled for November 22! I’m vibrating with excitement. It’s going to get put in front of a very large audience online and I am absolutely over the moon about this arrangement. I can’t wait for you all to see the full cover. It’s incredibly dramatic and lush, just like my other covers.
Oh! And speaking of covers! The back cover copy (you know, the thing you read when you flip to the inside flap of a hardcover or the back of the book, to continue to judge it by its cover) just got finalized! The copy edited manuscript is headed my way next week! There will be early copies headed to my house in February! Things are HAPPENING.
And yet I have been absolutely clobbered by the last week. I’m exhausted. I’m grieving. I’m pulling it together the only way I know how: through books (reading & writing thereof). (And therapy. We love therapy.) I would love to recommend some books that have sucked me in and brought me escapism over the last few weeks in the hopes that they may do the same for you:
Asunder, Kerstin Hall: I have howled about this book before and I will howl again—it remains the best fantasy novel I’ve read in 2024. It is complicated to pitch, yes, but just TRUST ME. Gorgeous world building, politics, character work, and top shelf quality yearning. Drown yourself in it.
Servant of Earth, Sarah Hawley: OUT TODAY, this absolute banger of a secondary-world fantasy scratches the Sarah J. Maas itch but adds a maturity of prose and character that elevates it to a five star read for me. It hits that perfect (for me as a reader) middle-ground between a capital-R Romantasy romp and a more intricate capital-F Fantasy with its worldbuilding and plotting (the TWIST at the end is sheer DELIGHT). The female friendships drive this one more than the hot dudes, but also, there are hot dudes. And creepy monsters. And some truly vicious fae.
The Honey Month, Amal El-Mohtar: poems and prose absolutely dripping in El-Mohtar’s signature lyricism and longing. 10/10. Cannot wait to read her novella debut, The River Has Roots.
A Fate Inked in Blood, Danielle L. Jensen: rock solid romantasy with Vikings and capricious gods and an extremely gritty—yet vulnerable—heroine. Loved it.
The Crane Husband, by Kelly Barnhill: an extremely slim novella that FREAKED me out. I read it in a single sitting because I was so stressed. Uncanny, otherworldly, and yet extremely close to home at the same time.
I’m also in the midst of reading a lot of poetry, novellas, and some INCREDIBLE novels that will be headed your way next year. I can’t wait to yell at you about them.
In the meantime, I won’t say goodbye. I’ll be crawling back into your inbox soon enough to share a cover reveal with you all! I cannot WAIT.
best,
Isabel