Fabulous news: Our Hideous Progeny has just received its first starred review! 🤩
You can read the full thing at Publishers Weekly; I’m so thrilled to be the recipient of such a lovely review (and also giggling at the quote they pulled – “Frankenstein, but, like, with dinosaurs” indeed!). Thanks so much to the reviewers of PW!
— CEM
Apparently Barnes & Noble is having a pre-order sale right now! 👀 American folks, this is your chance to pre-order my weird, queer, Frankenstein spin-off Our Hideous Progeny 25% off!
Here are some 2023 releases that I’m excited for…
Weyward, by Emilia Hart
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The Crane Husband, by Kelly Barnhill
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A House with Good Bones, by T. Kingfisher
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Hell Bent, by Leigh Bardugo
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Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh
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The Archive Undying, by Emma Meiko Candon
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A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske
Happy New Year, everyone! Extra proud of myself today, because for the second year in a row I managed to hit my New Year’s Resolution to read 100 books!
It was a bit of a struggle there towards, the end, but fortunately I’m firmly of the opinion that comics and graphic novels count as books (and… are considerably quicker to read than the non-graphic sort 😂). I also read about 2/3 of these as audiobooks, which is honestly my favourite way to read, because I can get chores done at the same time!
I’m so thankful that I actually had the time to reach this goal this year — I still vividly remember the grim days of college in which I hardly had the time to read anything at all besides the books I was required to read for classes. After I graduated and dove into writing nearly full-time, I read an interview with an author I admire in which she said that she’d read 100+ books a year since 2016 and had noticed a considerable improvement in her writing skill ever since.
I have a notoriously love-hate relationship with my own writing, so I can’t say objectively whether devouring this many books has made my writing better, but I’ve definitely noticed an improvement in my motivation and creativity. It’s almost as if writing too much in a short period of time drains my brain of words, and the best way to fill it back up again is to take a break to read!
Wishing you all a fabulous 2023, and don’t forget — my debut novel, Our Hideous Progeny, comes out in May! You can read more about my weird, queer, Gothic baby on Goodreads or pre-order it wherever books are found.
— CEM
Christmas brought an absolutely amazing surprise this year – my grandparents got me an OUR HIDEOUS PROGENY cake!! Isn’t it absolutely fabulous??
Hats off to the decorators at Speciality Cakes Glasgow for their amazing work (apparently they said it was one of the most complex designs they’d ever made! 😱) and thank you again to Beci Kelly for the wonderful cover design!
A wonderful book; dark, passionate, multi-layered and rich with enticing detail.
Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and the Strawberry Thief
More exciting news today, especially for my American friends — I’m thrilled to announce that my debut book, OUR HIDEOUS PROGENY, has been acquired in the US by Wendy Wong at Harper Collins! 🥳
I’m so thankful to my US co-agent, Tamara Kawar, for negotiating this deal, and so excited to work with Wendy on editing OHP! We’ve already been working together for a few weeks now, along with my UK editor Kirsty, and I feel so fortunate to have such an enthusiastic and talented team helping me bring OHP into the world.
Speaking of, I’d better get back to the edits grindstone; US friends, mark your calendars for spring 2023!
— CEM
PHEW! Happy New Year, all! This past year, I’m proud to announce, I set myself a goal of reading 100 books — and on Dec 30, I hit that goal!
I was initially inspired to set this goal a few years ago, when I read an interview with V. E. Schwab (the link to which I have sadly long since list) in which she said that she reads at least 100 books a year, and has done since 2016. (In fact, according to Goodreads, she read 159 books in 2021 — good God!!) She said that the improvement she noticed in her writing skills was simply too great to ignore, and she’s made a yearly habit ever since.
When I initially read this interview, I was — like most people, I would bet — utterly flabbergasted. Plus, a little bit insecure; I didn’t even read a dozen books this year, how the hell did she manage ten times that! etc. At the time, I was still at college, and such a goal would have been a pure impossibility. This year, however, was my first settled year as an (almost) full-time writer, and thus I finally had the time to set and achieve this same goal myself. I’m also lucky enough to have access to a fantastic library with a wide selection of audiobooks, which probably comprised about 75% of the books I read (i.e. listened to at 1.25x speed) this year. If not for this, and my ADHD Need to listen to audio content At All Times (literally. Even in the bath), then I would never have hit my goal.
I can’t speak yet as to whether this endeavour has improved my writing skills as it did for Schwab, as I’ve largely been in the editing trenches this past year, but I can say that the number and breadth of books I’ve read this year has definitely filled me with motivation and inspiration! I’ve always found reading a good way to get myself out of a writing slump — it’s as if my brain simply ‘runs out of words,’ until I fill it up again with someone else’s and shake it all about like a snow globe until my own sentences come tumbling out. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience this year, and I plan to set the same goal for myself next year.
— CEM
So, after several years spent watching ‘awards eligibility posts’ pop up every year on social media and wondering ‘What’s that about? Ah well, doesn’t concern me anyway,’ I was finally forced to put on my Big Writer Hat and learn — because I had a short story published this year!
TtBTtBTBLB (as I lovingly call it) is a story of gods and sacrifices, mountains and mental illness — and what happens when the person picked as sacrifice is unfortunately all-too-willing to go. (Content warning below if you need them.) It’s weird, queer, and dear to my heart, and if you have a moment and/or you’re currently considering nominations for awards, I’d be thrilled if you gave it a read.
P. S.: Content warnings for “Things to Bring, Things to Burn, Things Best Left Behind”: a (non-graphic) near-suicide-attempt on the first page, suicidal ideation throughout, and several brief, implied mentions of transphobia and an emotionally abusive parent.
— CEM
Absolutely fantastic news today: my debut novel, the Frankenstein-inspired paleontological gothic OUR HIDEOUS PROGENY, has been acquired by Kirsty Dunseath at Doubleday!
It’s been such an exciting week, and I’m thrilled I get to announce this at last! Innumerable thanks to my agent, Sue, for all her hard work (and for managing to negotiate this deal while BOTH she and Kirsty were on trains, no less!). When Sue first sent OHP out to editors, I settled myself in for what I’d heard could be a long and trying process, only to be absolutely blown away by the speed and enthusiasm of the responses — Kirsty’s first among them! I’m so grateful to Sue for her Agenty Expertise, and can’t wait to bear witness to Kirsty’s Editory Expertise as we work more on OHP over the next year. It’s always wonderful to meet someone who feels like they truly love and understand your work, and Kirsty Dunseath is just such a someone. OHP couldn’t be in better hands 🙂
Oh, and did I mention it’s a double book deal?! Speaking of, I’d better get to work writing; more news on OHP and my as-of-yet-secret Book 2 to come!
You can read the full press release on The Bookseller here!
Hunger, Red—to sate a hunger or to stoke it, to feel hunger as a furnace, to trace its edges like teeth—is this a thing you, singly, know? Have you ever had a hunger that whetted itself on what you fed it, sharpened so keen and bright that it might split you open, break a new thing out? Sometimes I think that’s what I have instead of friends.
Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This is How you lose the time war
Last year I posted a review of This Is How You Lose the Time War to the tune of “This is one of those books that are so good you can’t wait to read them again in a year when all the best bits will seem new again” — and what do you know, I just finished doing exactly that! I listened to the audiobook version this time rather than reading my physical copy, and it was an all new and thoroughly delightful experience. The narrators were brilliant, and El-Mohtar and Gladstone are stunning writers; the prose flows like honey, the characters are sharp and witty and complex, and their central romance — spanning countless millennia, across timelines both real and imagined — feels somehow epic and intimate at the same time. I can’t wait to gush over this one with my book club tonight (and in all likelihood, reread it again next year!)
— CEM
Long time no post! I’m trying to get back into the habit of posting about the books I’m reading, so I thought I’d start off with The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune. This is the first of T. J. Klune’s books I’ve read, dare I say the first of MANY, because this book was just so damn good. I originally picked it up because I saw that V. E. Schwab had described it as “like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket,” and by golly folks, she’s right; if you’re looking for something to soothe your nerves in these trying times then this is it!
The House in the Cerulean Sea follows Linus Baker, a reserved and sensible man who works as a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. Linus leads a dreary life in the city, in which his only joy in life seems to be the beach-themed mousepad on his office desk; this all changes, however, when he’s given a secret assignment by Extremely Upper Management and send to inspect an orphanage on scenic Marsyas Island. As he gets to know the orphanage’s mysterious caretaker Arthur Parnassus, as well as his six charges (children classified by the department as ‘extremely dangerous’), Linus is forced to reconsider everything he knows about the system he works for. (And, of course, fall in luurv!) (That isn’t a spoiler. If you can’t tell from the jacket blurb that romance is on the table here then clearly you don’t understand the meaning of “big gay blanket.”)
I’m always a sucker for found family, so you can probably imagine that this book grabbed me squarely in the feelings and did not let go. As well as being charming and funny throughout (at the beginning especially, the surreal satire of office drudgery gave me Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett vibes), it also addresses the othering of minorities and the cruelty of government bureaucracy towards disadvantaged populations — even those groups they supposedly claim to protect. All in all a lovely reading experience, and I highly recommend!
‘Til next time,
— CEM
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