Coming soon with a miscellany of news, sales, giveaway, and a cover reveal!
Be warned: there may be more newsletter activity over the next two months because of my imminent book release. Or there may not be. It depends on how much energy I have and what, if any, unexpected news arises.
THE WITCH ROADS drops on June 10. I already have my author copies, shipped from the printer, so the book should be on the shelves soon, and maybe even before the official publication date. Unlike the big names, there’s no midnight release day parties for my books. Keep an eye open! Plus you can still pre-order.
I’ve also learned that THE WITCH ROADS is a June 2025 Library Reads pick.
This honor is voted on by librarians across the USA, so I’m pretty chuffed.
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As I’ve mentioned, THE WITCH ROADS is part one of a fantasy duology. Part two, THE NAMELESS LAND, arrives on November 4, 2025. I’ve just sent back “first pass” page proofs for TNL, so I can confirm it is making its way through production on schedule for that release date (all else being equal).The pre-order linke above works for this one too.
Now that I think about it, I never shared the cover for THE NAMELESS LAND with this newsletter (or if I did, I forgot!). Shame on me! Here it is, art by Raja Nandepu, who also illustrated The WITCH ROADS cover. Cover design by Jess Kiley.
EBOOK SALE!
The Keeper’s Six May 2025 ebook sale across all US/Canada ebook platforms for a mere $2.99. If you haven’t read it yet, grab it now! Good until end of May!
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AUDIOBOOK NEWS:
The audiobook for The Witch Roads duology will come from Tantor Media. It drops on August 19, 2025 (so a bit of a wait). Voice narration by Ella Lynch.
Presumably The Nameless Land will drop in the late Autumn but I see no page for it yet.
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PUBLICITY/APPEARANCES:
Currently no in-person events are scheduled for the release of THE WITCH ROADS. I am doing some online events. None of these are live yet. Check the podcast schedules if you are interested!
Worldbuilding for Masochists (recorded, not yet scheduled)
Casual Magic with Shivam Bhatt
SFF Addicts
Beard of Darkness podcast
Skiffy & Fanty : July 11
If you have a favorite writing, sff, or romantasy podcast/vidcast/etc that you think I’d be a good fit for, please let them know about The Witch Roads. Maybe they’ll be interested in interviewing me. We live in the era of “visibility”—books, art, games, etc, that don’t have a big publicity budget find an audience to a great degree via word of mouth, which these days includes social media, podcasting, YT, TikTok, and on and on.
In April, at long-time book blog Fantasy Cafe, I wrote an essay about writing and quitting that may be of interest.
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A Giveaway!
I would love to send my precious ARC (advance reader copy) of Ken Liu’s fascinating near future cyber thriller ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM to one of you folks. Please only ask for this if you want to read it ASAP rather than after the book comes out in October.
Note: USA only (sorry, the mailing costs outside the USA are very high and while I will generally attempt to offer one international copy of my own work to all my wonderful world-wide readers, I would prefer to keep my costs down for this; thank you for understanding).
To enter: Email me at ke@imakeupworlds.com
with the subject line: ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM
and include your name and address in the body of the email.
I’ll make a random draw on May 23.
There will be another giveaway next month to coincide with the release of THE WITCH ROADS: two one-year e-subscriptions to Uncanny Magazine.
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Reading/Viewing/Recommends:
If you’ve made it this far, let me recommend the new AppleTV+ series MURDERBOT, a wonderful adaptation of Martha Wells’ Murderbot books (novellas and novels). The adaptation uses voiceover to good effect, the casting is effective (I particularly love Noma Dumezweni as Dr. Mensah, but everyone works), and the showrunners have (I think) managed to blend Wells’ wry humor with the underlying serious issues and social landscape on which the story of our favorite SecUnit unfolds. It also utilizes a short episode length (30 minutes) for those who may be time challenged.
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This is clearly an album cover, Finn and the “good-boy-band.” Although some of those good boys may be good girls, so ymmv.
Thank you. I could not do this without you.
Kate Elliott
Congratulations on being a Library Reads Pick!! I’m excited to read this new duo logo and have preordered. The cover is beautiful, except the gendered clothing is a disappointment. I know you have little to no power over it. I’m just sad that for a writer who is feminist, the publisher chose to show a female-appearing character with far tighter, revealing clothing including bare skin, next to a male-appearing character with more layers of clothing and gender affirming shoulder flaps. She’s fuckable, he’s authoritative. I started reading you when your first books came out and was always grateful for your thoughtfulness around ideas of gender. Too bad the artist was apparently kneejerk.