Welcome back! It’s officially September, and do you know what that means? THE THIEF AND THE TRAITOR BRIDE is out this month!
News & Updates
I’m going on tour! The link to all upcoming events is here: Events.
UK
September 29 | London - Waterstones Tottenham Court Road with M.H. Ayinde
September 30 | Bath - Mr. B’s Emporium with Soraya Bouazzaoui
October 5 | Liverpool - Waterstones with Annabel Campbell
October 7 | Aberdeen - WayWORD Festival with Tasha Suri
October 8 | Edinburgh - Topping & Co with Hannah Kaner
October 9-11 | Glasgow - FantasyCon
October 31 | Brighton - The Fellowship Festival hosted by Goldsboro Books
US
October 13 | Boston/Cambridge - Lovestruck with Fonda Lee
October 16 | Pittsburgh - Riverstone Books with Rachael Lippincott
October 19 | Cleveland - Flame and Fable with Kalie Cassidy
October 20 | St Louis - The Novel Neighbor
October 21 | Los Angeles - The Ripped Bodice with Olivie Blake
October 22 | San Diego - Meet Cute with Foz Meadows
October 23 | Seattle - Lovestruck with S.A. Maclean
October 27 | Portland - Powells with A.S. Tamaki
I have a few more unrelated events (moderating and whatnot!) in November, so keep your eyes peeled for those 🙂
Books
TTATTB is also getting an Illumicrate edition! It goes on sale on October 15th and will ship in January.
I still have a few ARCs left, so keep your eyes peeled for a couple of (international friendly!) giveaways on Instagram in the coming weeks.
Writing Corner
I’M OFF DEADLINE. WHO AM I.
To celebrate, have a snippet of TRAITOR BRIDE :)
“Locke,” Nore said, resting the consonant on her tongue. She kept hold of the High Lady’s hand, uncertain why. “There are so many friends here, and so many enemies. Will you… You will be careful, won’t you?”
Locke’s expression flickered for the barest second before she nodded. “Goodbye, Lindan,” Locke said. In the pit of Nore’s stomach, she felt something that felt quite a lot like a premonition, a betrayal, a decision yet unmade.
General Chatter
As of this week, I’ve officially been full-time as a writer for a year. I am truly bamboozled—where has the time gone?? Here are a few things I’ve noticed:
Maybe unsurprisingly, I haven’t actually written more. It just means I have more free time, and writing doesn’t need to be crammed into every bit of free time I have. The shift in work-life balance has been genuinely life-changing in that I have time for hobbies! Running! Knitting! Reading books! Madness.
It has been easier to do the admin bits that make this sustainable as a job, like keeping on top of accounting, putting time into social media strategy, and balancing multiple deadlines.
Reading this back: balance just seems to be the name of the game. In the last decade, I’ve been juggling work, writing, and academia, and it’s been such an eye-opening time in terms of what my brain is able to do when I’m not constantly jumping back and forth.
It’s allowed me to treat writing, and everything else that goes with it, more seriously as a job. This is back to point 2, but I can think about things in a more long-term and sustainable context.
So that’s all! We’ll see how long I can keep this up, but it’s been a nice run so far.
Recommendations
I read nine books on holiday, so that was fun. Some of my faves include The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera and A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik!
Yes, I am behind. Both are auto-buy authors for me so I have been eying them up on my shelf for months.
Currently on my needles: the Monday Sweater by PetiteKnit and the Tolsta Tank by Rebecca Clow 🙂 Deeply enjoying both, but focusing on the jumper as SWEATER SEASON IS UPON US ❤ ❤ ❤
Totally unrelated but in the current recs, I cook A Lot and I love cookbooks! I grew up in a big kitchen-heavy environment and nothing calms me down quite like chopping. My husband was vegetarian for a hot second there so I picked up Dinner by Meera Sodha. It has genuinely become one of my most reached-for cookbooks in the year since, and everything I’ve cooked from it has been delicious.
And that’s all! See y’all next month 🙂