I told you it was coming, and it’s finally here! Isn’t she gorgeous??!! Amanda over at Eternal Geekery has done it again!
I got my proof copy with the cover about two weeks ago, and my jaw dropped. I am so excited for this book to be out in the world and to have both of my book babies on the shelf next to each other. Also, peep how thick it is next to Luc & Lila. It is almost double the page count, and I just sent the final content draft over to my editor!
I have decided on February 7, 2027 as my release date (isn’t the double 2-7 so satisfying?). I know, I know, it’s not in 2026. I wanted to get the book done in time to release this year, but with the extra content editing I’ve had to do, it’s pushed back my whole timeline, and I want to make sure I don’t rush to the finish line and make silly mistakes.
But here’s some good news! ARCs will be going out in December, so technically, you will still be able to read the book this year!
To that end, I am opening ARC signups right now, and I will leave them open until some time in November. Usually author only do signups for a matter of weeks leading up to when ARCs go out, but I have been having such a rough time of it on social media that I decided to give people every opportunity I can for them to sign up. I would really like to have more ARC readers than I did for my first book, so we’ll see how that goes.
Anyway, you can sign up early at the link below. All the info you need about the book is in the form.
Desire & Deceit ARC Signup Form
My mini-interview for the month of May is with Myka Silber, a Canadian author of fantasy and sci-fi who wrote a horror fantasy western novel and a sci-fi cyberpunk heist novella I absolutely loved a while back: Rider’s Blood, Moonlit Black and The Pigment Thief, respectively. They have published a short story collection (Soft & Rage) and have been featured in several short story anthologies. They draw their own beautiful book covers too, which I find insanely cool. Their first poetry collection, A Leashed Desire to Flee, will come out on June 23rd with Dragon Bone Publishing (you may recall I interviewed one of the founders last month).
You’ve written a novel, a novella, and many short stories for your own collection as well as other anthologies. Have you found a preference for writing one story length over another, or are there things you’ve liked about writing all three?
Usually when I sit down to write a story, it’s for an idea relating to a novel, and I tend more towards long-form fiction. As I continue writing, you’ll be seeing more novels from me! I do enjoy short stories, however, for allowing more room for experimentation in style, and really leaning into a particular emotion. I think novellas are the hardest thing for me to write, because my concepts usually require either less or more room to fully flesh out. The Pigment Thief was written in a burst of hyper fixation over a singular weekend, and I think that has a lot to do with its length. I read a lot more novellas last year, and I’m beginning to get a sense of how much room there is to play within the constraints of their word counts. Whether or not I write more novellas remains to be seen!
I grew up watching old western movies and loved Rider’s Blood, Moonlit Black and its beautifully written representation of queer characters in a horror fantasy western setting. Why was it important to you to center that representation in this story?
The inspiration for this novel was a dream where I was Henry, and his queerness was one of his core features, as well as his conflicted feelings about his own religious beliefs. It was important to me to honour both of those aspects of Henry, having dream-walked in his shoes, and the other supporting characters revealed themselves to me as I wrote. There’s also an interesting phenomenon of the mythologization of the Old West, where Hollywood has built this image of rugged, individualistic, straight white man as the proto-typical cowboy. The reality is much more complex, as the western American frontier didn’t have a modern conception of homosexuality, and cowboys operated in pairs or small groups and had to rely on each other for survival and built intense interpersonal relationships which could extend to physical intimacy.
An exploration of this in literature is contained in Queer Cowboys and Other Erotic Male Friendships in Nineteenth-Century Literature by Chris Packard. While it is possible to apply modern labels of sexual identity to the characters of Rider’s Blood, Moonlit Black, they wouldn’t conceive of themselves in the same language as we do today. Despite writing in a fictional setting, the other thing I wanted to do with this work was reflect the actual diversity of cowboys: historians estimate that around twenty-five percent of cowboys were Black, and a large number were also Indigenous and Hispanic, as many of the hallmarks of cowboys that we recognize like lassos and chaps actually come from the earlier Mexican vaquero who were the predominant ranchers prior to westward expansion in the early to mid-1800s and are the proto-cowboys, as it were.
You noted on Instagram that 2025 was your first year doing some in-person book events, and I know you’ve already been to several more this year. What has been your favorite thing about that experience?
The best part of in-person book events has been interacting with readers. I’ve had people come up to my booth at events to tell me they were specifically at the event to get my books, or had people let me know they’d read one of my works previously and enjoyed it. It’s been a really fun experience, and this year I even got to do a live reading at an event, which was a first for me! I find that book-centered events are just really positive in general, and I’ve also gotten to know some of my fellow local authors, which is really nice for comparing notes or asking questions about things like where do people get their fun foiled special editions made as indie authors, and just having friendly faces around in general.
I finished four books this month, all of which were advance copies. I got in a lot of reading on a family trip, where I gave myself permission to write nothing for a week and stuff myself full of books instead. It was fun!
All of these were on NetGalley, and it’s possible that you can still request them, so definitely check!
The first book I read was an ARC of The Gods Will Sing Our Song by Autumn Krause, and it was my favorite, by far. I have been so excited for this YA historical fantasy to come out because the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII is an often glossed-over piece of history in the U.S.
I first learned about it, not in school, but through two novels I read as a child—one where a white American teenager has her friend abruptly taken away and another where a family who lives near a camp employs some of the imprisoned citizens on their farm. Both of those books opened my eyes to a piece of history I might otherwise have never known much about, but, notably, they were both narrated from the POV of white Americans and did not deal directly with the Japanese American experience of having their entire lives uprooted, being placed in these camps with primitive living conditions, and being treated as foreigners in their own country.
Krause wrote this book because of her grandparents and great-grandparents, who were interned in the camps, and she did an incredible job taking such a harsh setting and infusing it with magic and wonder. This is a coming-of-age story—a stripping away of innocence—in one of the saddest ways, but it also embodies so beautifully the fierce spirit of hope that comes from a teenager’s first love, and the juxtaposition of those two things was just so incredibly moving. I cried and cried, and I will never forget this one.
The book comes out on September 1, 2026. If you enjoyed the vibes of Divine Rivals, I think you will love this one! Please, please, please give it a chance; I am begging you!
The second book was an ARC of Their Will Done by R. J. Valledeperas. I have been following her journey to publishing this YA Fantasy on Instagram for about two years now, and I’m so glad that I picked up an advance copy of it because it is stunning. I mean, it is so, so gorgeously written. I love her writing style and can’t wait to read more by her.
Their Will Undone is the first book in a romantic fantasy duology, inspired by a true story from the Inca empire, about a young woman who is selected to marry the emperor but is struggling with the dark power growing inside her and is, much to her chagrin, growing increasingly attached to her broody escort. The story world is wonderfully rich and atmospheric; the political intrigue feels both intensely high-stakes and intensely personal; and you will feel immediately connected to both Nina and Kasik (yes, it’s dual POV!), who are both cunning and sympathetic, soft-hearted and strong-willed.
I will warn you that there is a LOT of mounting tension that ends on a brutal cliffhanger, but if you like to be tortured in your reading, both romantically and mythologically, you will love it.
This book comes out on June 2, 2026…so you don’t have to wait long at all!
The third book was an ARC of She Haunts Me Still by De Elizabeth. I adored her debut novel This Raging Sea, so much so that I have a signed copy. However, I need to preface this recommendation by being honest with you—this was a beautifully haunting dark academia horror fantasy, but I don’t think I was the intended audience—namely, because there is a love triangle in it that plays a significant role in the plot. I knew this going in, but overall, the premise intrigued me (a haunted theatre major; the ghost of her mother’s past; a doomed Romeo and Juliet play; and a star-crossed love story—say less), and I really wanted to read her writing again because her style is so gorgeous.
So I ended up with mixed feelings about it because I am not a love triangle person (if my heart is going to break, I want it to break in one direction lol), but I think if you enjoy that trope, and are especially looking for bi rep written by a bi author, you will really enjoy it. The chilling atmosphere is bloody and grotesque and perfect; the suspense is constant, and I love a good family legacy full of skeletons, especially when it’s tied to creepy old institutions; as a ghost story, it is both terrifying and terribly personal. Genre-wise, it was immaculate, and I could relate so much to the main character’s experience of feeling so deeply tied to her mother’s fate while also feeling like she barely knew her.
This book comes out on August 11, 2026.
The fourth book was an ARC of Scorpion Deep by C. G. Drews. They have written three of my favorite books in recent years (Don’t Let The Forest In, Hazelthorn, and You Did Nothing Wrong). I was not really a horror genre person before I started reading their stuff, but I have been converted; they just blend mental health themes and really unhinged romantic obsession so well into the genre. As per usual, I tore through this book in a day’s time and was left reeling over various monstrosities, not least of which were the ignorance of youth, the apathy of community, and the silence of family in the face of child abuse. Everything Drews writes is a punch to the gut followed by a repeated stab to the heart, and I feast upon it like it’s my last meal.
Scorpion Deep is about a depressed high school graduate whose two best friends are soon going away to college, leaving him to a life of abuse and neglect in a lonely little seaside town. He pays a tithe to a sea god in a bid to escape his fate, and, to his equal fascination and dread, actually ends up awakening him. What follows is the unearthing of some pretty horrible, long-buried island secrets and a spiral into a mutual monstrous obsession between him and the sea god.
Drews is amazing at unreliable narration, and it really shines through here. You are definitely left with more questions than answers at the end, and the line between deeply sickening and deeply satisfying has never been so thin.
This book comes out on October 27, 2026.
The Fall of Lucifer. The Creation of Earth. But make it a love story.
Short stories, including one in which you kill your neighbor, one that may or may not be Luc & Lila origin material, and a Christmas-vibes vampire/human romance with dark undertones.
In personal news, in April, my husband and I took a trip to São Paulo, Brazil to visit his family, and we visited some beautiful local spots while we were there. The most stunning one was the Museu do Ipiranga, which is a Brazilian history museum styled after the Palace of Versailles. If you visit São Paulo, it is a must see! There is a large, beautiful collection of historical documents, paintings, photos, and furniture. I learned a lot about the country’s history, and the building and grounds are immaculately kept. Plus, you can go up to the top and see a stunning view of the city.
Please ignore the random traffic cone (lol).
Until next time, take care everyone!
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This month’s two paid articles begin a series on my first few ‘failed’ novel ideas. I’m going through what went wrong with each of them, how that impacted my writing journey, and what I learned from those experiences that has helped me since then.
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