How Emma Noyes Brought the Magic of Her New Book to Her Tour Wardrobe

I regularly feel like I have nothing to wear to work events and weddings and baby showers, despite an overflowing bedroom closet that says otherwise. Tapping through Instagram a few days ago, I saw author Emma Noyes feeling similarly out of clothes on her Stories. But her circumstances were different than any I’d ever faced—and, I thought, a perfect fit for this newsletter. She’d posted a photo of her Google search bar with an approximation of the following question: What do you wear for a book signing when you’re the author?

Noyes and I met on our college dance team in 2014, and I’ve been tracking her prolific ascent in publishing since graduation. She’s already released two contemporary novels (Guy’s Girl and How to Hide in Plain Sight) and a fantasy series (The Sunken City trilogy). This past week, she was celebrating the debut of Soul of Shadow, the first book in her new contemporary fantasy trilogy remixing Norse mythology for a small-town high-school setting. Oh, and she’s also low-key famous on social media—if you’re at all into romantasy and mid-aughts series like The Vampire Diaries, you’ve definitely seen her TikTok skits.

Like I said, she’s prolific. I would have assumed all that writing would come with equal experience on the promo circuit and a wardrobe to match. But, as Noyes told me when she agreed to a chat about her outfit progress on the morning of her Union Square Barnes & Noble book signing, her past book launch events were to discuss contemporary novels striking a more serious tone. (Both books’ plots involve portrayals of mental health issues.) As such, the dress code veered more buttoned-up.

“For those, I dressed in a way that was comfortable for me, but also how I felt or thought a writer should dress,” Noyes said. “I had a blazer on and I put my hair in a slick-back bun to look a little more serious.”

Releasing a fantasy that, in part, pays homage to her teenage favorites (TVD, Twilight, and so on) was her chance to take her personal style in a more playful direction. Hence, the Google search shared with her 200k-plus Instagram followers. “I was so lost because I'm like, I want to do something fun and like whimsical and fits the mood of the book, but I'm just not used to dressing that way. I spend 99.9% of my life in a big T-shirt and sweatpants just writing in my house,” she said.

Consulting author friends Brynne Weaver (Butcher and Blackbird) and Stacia Stark (the Kingdom of Lies series), plus some sleuthing on Rent the Runway, led Noyes to her eventual winner: a sparkly purple jumpsuit by Trina Turk. The two-in-one is just as comfortable as what she’d worn for her contemporary novels’ release events, but the all-over sequins very much conveyed “author of the next big paranormal teen romance” energy.

Heroines in fantasy novels tend to have a special talisman as an inanimate sidekick. Noyes had one too for pub day, courtesy of her UK publishers. It’s a silver nameplate necklace, with a twist: Her name is spelled in Old Norse symbols, referencing the mythology that inspires Soul of Shadow’s magic system.

I’m not in the business of spoiling new books by going too deep on their characters’ wardrobes a week after release. But I did want to ask Noyes how much costuming plays a role in hers. Turns out, she’s a fan of a beloved fantasy trope in the wardrobe department. “I do usually have at least one moment of, like, there’s a ball or there's some sort of big dance they're going to, and either a special dress arrives for them or they go to the palace seamstress and they get a dress custom-made,” she said. “I love putting those moments in my books—I think those are really fun.”

Soul of Shadow’s main character, Charlie, is “obsessed with close-up magic and slight of hand,” Noyes said. Her fixation with the real-life magician Dorothy Dietrich inspires the homecoming dress she wears in this novel. You’ll have to pick it up, however, to see how it fits into what Noyes calls the “walking-down-the-stairs-reveal moment,” as well as the much bigger, fantastical stakes of the entire story.

The most exciting part of launch day didn’t have much to do with clothes, of course. Noyes was most excited about getting her books in readers’ hands at last. “I've had this world in my head and inside a book for 2.5 years now, and I haven't been able to share it with anyone,” she told me, “so I'm just excited for people to finally read it and to see their reaction.” I’m sure they’re already looking forward to the sequel. And when it comes out, I suspect the author won’t need Google’s help choosing an outfit for release day. ✨

Thanks for reading! Soul of Shadow is available in print and in e-book form now, wherever books are sold. Next time, I’ll be sharing some behind-the-scenes details from reporting my first cover story (!) for Marie Claire. Have a series or an author you’d like me to cover in a future edition? Please hit reply!

Xx, Halie