Reading · Nikki St. Crowe's Substack

Since I missed March and April (?!) this one is a combined Spring Love Letter!

🚨 There is a TL;DR at the end
🚨 Content highlight: health, body, exercise

Allow me a moment to brag about my daughter…

My daughter is extremely talented. I know I’m her mother and I’m biased, but truly, she can make art out of just about anything she touches.

She ended up in a welding class this year sorta by accident. In a turn of events that surprised no one, she quickly became the top welder in class, outshining all the boys. She’s in a project-based school and she decided to do a sculpture of a wolf out of scrap metal and bits for her term project. She finished this week and y’all.

It is INCREDIBLE.

*proud mom*

➡️ health + body + exercise

If you’ve been following along and wondered if I have locked in on my health, I am (un)pleased to inform you that no, I have not locked in lol. Book tour was rough. The friction I’ve felt with my health and my body this last year really caught up to me on tour. The tour itself was a joy and so much damn fun. But it was exhausting, and I was not surprised to find that once I returned home, I was extremely sick. It took about three weeks to recover. But I’m slowly getting back on track! JV and I got our bikes out now that the weather is finally beautiful. I’ve always loved biking, but have never done it as a sport. Last year JV and I invested in gravel bikes and started riding consistently. Our longest ride was 16 miles. On average, we would ride 10-12 miles on any given day. It’s the sport I find the most joy in! I’m looking forward to working our way back up to our daily. Our goal this summer is to do a 30-mile ride. Any of you here into cycling? Any tips?

I’m teaming up with Novel Grounds and you dear reader (!!) for a Never Queen preorder. I’m excited about this one. It’ll include:

💀 Signed bookplate
💀 A new art print
💀 A scene annotated by me!

Of course you know I love all my art pieces, but I just wrapped an annotated scene for another project and it was so fucking fun. I love annotating in my own reading. But it’s so fun to get to share thoughts and little BTS nuggets of my own work in my own writing.

➡️ You can preorder Never Queen here at Novel Grounds

*note we’re still updating the preorder page so all the details aren’t here yet, but they are confirmed with Novel Grounds!

🚨 If you’ve preordered elsewhere, please don’t panic cancel! I do plan to do an additional preorder form for those of you who’d prefer a different retailer or if you’ve already preordered. ❤️

And if you’d like to sign-up for the ARC, the form is now live!

Never Queen ARC

West of Wicked release and the book tour surrounding it was SO MUCH FUN. I know I mentioned it was exhausting above, but getting to meet readers (and some of you!), getting to chat about WoW finally and all the bits I was most excited about *cough* Rook and Tin *cough* was truly a wonderful experience. I also really loved both BookCon and LA Times Festival of Books. If I ever get the chance to return to either, I will absolutely do it.

I also got to meet several other authors! I had a wonderful event at Novel Grounds with Gretchen Powell Fox. I finally got to hang IRL with my bestie Eden O’Neill in Cleveland! Then I had one of thee best panels with Naima Simone and Danielle Allen at BookCon. Followed by an equally fun panel at LA with Juliette Cross, Sara Hashem, and Rachel Howzell Hall. I also got to share a shuttle with Stephanie Garber and Kennedy Ryan!! 🤯They were so, so sweet. Truly two of the kindest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in this industry.

I don’t have updates yet on East of Envy tour, but I’m hoping I get to get out there again and see some of you!

I’m not currently writing. I’m editing! But I can’t talk about it yet. Hopefully soon. I don’t mean to edge you (yes I do 😈). This project has the pacing, the tension, the morally grey MMC, and the fantasy flavors you’ll know of my work, but this project is something a bit different and I can’t wait to tell you about it. I’m hoping I’ll have more to share at the end of summer!

I also need to start writing Great & Terrible #3 soon. So many scenes for this book have been rolling around in my head and I can’t wait to finally put them on paper.

Mostly this summer I’m focusing on spreading the word about The Never Queen! There were so many people on tour who had no idea there was a 5th Lost Boy book coming!

St. Denis Medical

This show is our new favorite. It’s so funny. The characters are great. It has all of the things we loved about Parks & Rec and The Office. We blew through both seasons far too quickly.

Superstore

I know this show has been over for a while but JV and I just started watching when we were looking to fill the St. Denis show hole. This is a great filler! Not quite as funny as St. Denis, but still very enjoyable to watch. We love the big ensemble casts!

Wuthering Heights

Finally watched this one. To preface, I have no relationship with any of the other versions, nor the book. So I basically knew nothing about this other than everyone was supposed to be awful lol. I loved the cinematography for this and I’m definitely in a gothic era. I want to watch them all. I want to read them all. If you have Gothic recs, give them to me!!

A Dark and Wild Wood

I’ve mentioned A Dark and Wild Wood before. I read an early draft of it and then read it again to blurb for Lemon. It released this week! Lemon was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer late last year and is in the hospital now, undergoing a stem cell transplant. So I’m shouting from the rooftops for her while she focuses on her health and her rest and recovery.

I highly recommend this one. Not just because Lemon is a friend and I had the privilege of blurbing. But because Lemon is one of the most talented writers I know. And she deserves all the praise, the accolades, and the success.