Welcome to another issue of CHOPINIC ATTACK! Read on for some book updates, some life updates, and—the reason you're all here—some pictures of Mo.

Book updates

The good news first: Beyond Seven Forests is out in the world! We had a wonderful launch event for it in early February at Barnes & Noble Cool Springs, outside Nashville. My critique partners, authors Marina Scott and Erin Litteken, were both able to attend, and I had an amazing conversation partner in Sharon Cameron, New York Times-bestselling author of The Light in Hidden Places, among many other books. Sharon joked that we might be the only two authors in the Nashville metro area who know how to pronounce "Przemyśl."

Beyond Seven Forests also received an editor's choice distinction from the Historical Novel Society.

Here's a release-day interview I did for the Lerner blog, and here's a guest post I wrote for Teen Librarian Toolbox, talking about character choices and agency.

And now for the not-so-good news.

For the first time in a while, I don't have a new book release on the horizon to share with you. Last September, we started submitting what I hoped would be my debut adult novel to publishers: Victory Day, a postwar spy thriller set in 1946 London, about a photojournalist for Life magazine who finds out that her old wartime flame may actually have been a Soviet assassin. We got some editor interest—in fact, it looked for a minute as though we were about to get an offer from a HarperCollins imprint—but ultimately no one picked it up. So I've decided to set it aside.

So what's next? We didn't get much consistent feedback from the editors who rejected Victory Day, but I did get the sense that a lot of them were over WWII- or WWII-adjacent historicals. With that in mind, I've turned back to an old interest of mine—Roman history—and am now working on a lightly fantastical novel set in ancient Britain, about a Celtic tribeswoman navigating life under Roman occupation who sets out to solve the murder of a soldier and finds herself getting more and more deeply involved in a rebellion against the empire. It doesn't have a title yet, but I'm hoping to have a first draft finished over the summer...

Life updates

...Depending on how quickly I get settled into a new city. I'm moving in May after about seven years in the Nashville area and heading to Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm excited about the change, less excited about having to move four bookcases' worth of books—a modest amount until you start trying to fit it into boxes—and an easily stressed cat across state lines.

Reading/watching/listening

I tend to pick my reads based on the mood I'm trying to set in whatever manuscript I'm working on. Since I'm working on a book set in the ancient world, I've been trying to read stuff that fits that vibe. I finally got around to reading Madeline Miller's Circe, and also a newer release, Anna North's Bog Queen, both of which I enjoyed but didn't wholeheartedly love. (In the case of Bog Queen, I wish we’d spent more time actually in ancient Britain; the modern-day story line was an unwanted intrusion for me.)

I also tried James Islington's The Will of the Many, pitched to me as a very Roman-inspired sci-fi, and had the existential crisis of realizing I'm too old and the print on the page was just too small for me to be able to get through a 600+-page book.

I also read R.F. Kuang's Yellowface, an incredibly incisive critique of the publishing industry and also one of the few books that I HAD to finish even though the main character was a truly terrible person. You don't feel sympathy for her, but you can't look away from her. You just have to know how it's all going to play out.

I, like everyone else, saw Project Hail Mary and loved it.

Cat updates

Here it is—the moment you've been waiting for!

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

Amanda