My name is Saint, and I’m the Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of A DOWRY OF BLOOD, the Summoner’s Circle queer urban fantasy series, and other gothic novels. I am also, by all accounts, too much of a straight-talking business bitch for this smol bean-oriented industry. But I like to think I use my business bitchery for good to demystify publishing and encourage all authors to practice solidarity, ask for more, and cultivate cunning in the managing of our careers.

Last week focused largely on the state of the author career holistically. This week focuses on marketing and publicity, and hopefully offers alternatives to throwing our hands up in the air and saying we just don’t know how to capture audience attention and move units.

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This essay series is about overused catchphrases tossed around by publishing industry people, what they really mean, what they imply and demand, and why they drive me insane.

But first! Housekeeping.

West Coast Tour

We are three weeks away from the west coast Summoner’s Circle tour, and I’m bringing you stunning goodies to say thanks for waiting five long years to see me! Swag bags include an early look at the DIVINATION (Summoner’s Circle #3) cover art and a collectible bound booklet of the first 25 pages of Moira’s book!

Dress in your witch/magician best and bring me whatever you’d like signed.

GRAB YOUR TICKET / RSVP

San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle, pencil me into your calendar and bring a friend/lover/enemy to the event! I’m rallying my West Coast fans in person so I can enjoy your shining faces - and show my publisher that it’s worth sending me all the way out there to see you!

With that, let’s look under the hood of the ever-grinding, smoke-blowing, marketing and publicity machine.

1. “We don’t know why books break out”.

A “break out” is publishing industry slang for a blockbuster, a book that outperforms the baseline of its genre/age category/ect. It implies that the book has done better than anyone hoped, reaching new readers based on the momentum of its own hype and the viral spread of word-of-mouth recommendations. It’s a term publishers have enough confidence in to use in acquisitions meetings (“we’re looking for romances that have strong potential to break out in a crowded market” or “we loved this book, but we don’t think we can make it break out, so we’re going to pass on buying it”) but have difficulty defining.

Publishing is much more of an art than a science; we all know that. Making room in business meetings for wibbly wobbly unknown factors like audience response, bookstore buying trends, placement in traditional publicity outlets, and social media visibility can be difficult. It’s healthy to admit that much of a book’s trajectory is out of our hands, or the result of many hands over many years, most of which we cannot predict and do not control.

However, this can lead to a catchphrase that obliterates all nuance: “we don’t know why books break out”.

As in, we have no idea what factors go into making a book a commercial success. Often said with a friendly, hapless smile in an acquisitions meeting or a I-wish-I-could-help-you-shrug from a stressed marketing manager.

Really? You’re sure about that? Because the last time I checked, the foundation for giving a book what it needs to “break out” was advertising and publicity spend, including printing lots of arcs and sending them to the right readers with strong platforms.

It’s can’t guarantee success — nothing can — but it sure will help!

My beloved Print Run podcast hosted an amazing interview with Laura B McGrath, an author and publishing industry researcher, who called out this stock line as a way of washing one’s hands of responsibility over how a book performs. By pretending to be slightly more naïve than we all really are, we overplay the amount of luck and and dice-rolling that goes into a book’s success and treat the process as entirely unreplicable and the market as supernaturally mysterious.

A publisher cannot provide all-hands-on-deck, high-budget support for every title, but as you learned in my last essay, publishers have a bad habit of giving non-answers to questions about marketing instead of a clear no. This is a great example.

It’s easier to say the stock line of “we don’t know why books break out” instead of the truth, which is:

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But even in her love of storytelling, her personal touch, and her friendly tone, publishing demands you play the game on her terms. And she can get downright icy if you transgress her nice girl code.

Who can blame her? She’s experiencing a bit of an identity crisis, after all.

Publishing is simultaneously driven by the whims of a social media-fueled buyer’s market while trundling down rickety how-we’ve-always-done-it tracks laid in the 1980s. No matter how many influencer boxers or cutting-edge debuts she produces, she’s still bound by old-school communication patterns of evasion, demurring modesty, and vague platitudes that refuse scrutiny, the twenty first century, and in some cases, accountability.

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To mix my metaphors, publishing is a labyrinthine house party behind opaque windows which requires authors do a huge amount of research and knocking on doors to get invited inside, then requires them to learn an unspoken code of social etiquette once they’ve got a seat at the table.

This essay is about overused catchphrases tossed around by publishing industry people (authors you’re not off the hook), what they really mean, what they imply and demand, and why they drive me insane.

I will be redacting names to protect the innocent - and not so innocent - but I want to keep this as high level as possible to focus on the social milleau and business grease of publishing.

I don’t have beef with anyone in particular, I am simply an Observer of Trends.

The sun, Mercury, and Uranus just moved into the toxic bestie trickster sign of Gemini, and I’m a Gemini rising. Let’s bring some back-of-house conversations out into the public square, shall we?

First Up, Business

Event pages for my west coast tour are up now, and I’m bringing you stunning tour swag to say thanks for waiting five long years to see me! Swag bags include an early look at the DIVINATION (Summoner’s Circle #3) cover art and a collectible bound booklet of the first 25 pages of Moira’s book!

Dress in your witch/magician best and bring me whatever you’d like signed.

COME SEE ME!

Some events are ticketed, some are free, and some are RSVP only, but PLEASE pencil me into your dance card and bring a friend, enemy, and/or lover to the event. Let’s show my publisher that west coast readers will turn out for me so I’ll be able to return to you in the future!

GET YOUR TICKETS

Alright, enough saleswomanship, let’s get into those catchphrases that drive me crazy.

1. “Nobody’s in this business to make money”

Most often muttered over barcon drinks by a criminally underpaid and overworked editor, or offered with a placating sigh by an agent who is trying to get you to take a good deal instead of gambling for a great one, because no one knows if there will be any other deals offered. See also: “nobody writes books to become famous”, most often said self-depreciatingly by a beloved and prolific mid-career speculative fiction writer on a convention panel to the knowing laughs of the crowd.

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Yes, I’ve still found time to record this podcast between co-authoring vampire audio erotica with my favorite creators on Quinn, and turning in the next book in my insane gothic faery erotica family trauma extravaganza series at a whopping 130k words. I am crazy but I am free.

If you’re interested in Jewish mysticism and the myth of the Golem, the interplay between religion and nationalism, weaving fantasy worlds from historical sources, and mapping the razor thin line between magic and mysticism, this episode is for you!

IN THIS EPISODE

- Hear the myth of the Golem, as recounted in the 19th century folktale The Golem of Prague.

- Explore ways Maddie drew from historical sources to build a fantasy world that is in conversation with our world.

- Dive down rabbit holes about court astrology, British folk magic, and pre-kabbalistic mystic writings.

-Unpack the ways religion has been used to justify state-sanctioned violence and nationalism – both historically and in the modern day.

THE MADIEN AND HER MONSTER

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As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the wood’s curse has plagued her village, but the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to protect heretics with false stories of monsters in the trees. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings the monster out, he will spare her mother from execution.

When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill a promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.

CONNECT WITH MADDIE

You can find the woman of the hour over on her website maddiemartinez.com or over on Instagram at maddiesmartinez.

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

Subscribe at saint.substack.com to get new episodes right in your inbox, and join the paid tier for twice monthly long form essays about art, sexuality, and spirituality, as well as Metaphysical Girl After Dark episodes, where we go darker, deeper, and more intimate with the subject matter.

BOOK A TAROT READING

I’ve spent a dozen years reading tarot for the betterment of others, with a focus on helping artists, spiritual seekers, and those in transition uncover their inner wisdom. To schedule a private reading with me, follow the booking link at https://stgibson.com/metaphysical-girl/.

That’s all I have for you this week! Be safe and well until we two meet again.

The quartet follows David, a psychic Boston lawyer, his lovers-to-exes-to secret society rivals-to lovers arc with his sorcerer ex-boyfriend Rhys, and his yearny supernatural “what are we” with Rhys’ astrologer wife, Moira, as they all work together to break a demonic curse. As the world expands and the relationships get hotter and more complex, the trio finds themselves embroiled in magical dangers and why choose mess aplenty.

If you love Constantine, Supernatural, Ninth House, non traditional relationships, tarot and astrology, soap operas, Catholic guilt (horny) and Catholic guilt (sad), and bitchy little blond men, this series is for you!

support sorcerer rights - and wrongs

The first two books EVOCATION and ASCENSION are out now, alongside the illustrated prequel novella ODD SPIRITS which can be read at any point in the series, with final books DIVINATION and TRANSMUTATION to come!

And there are NO CLIFFHANGERS between these books! I wrote them like season installments of a paranormal TV show; so don’t be afraid to start now even though the series is still running.

The very first signed paperback exclusives await you at the Barnes and Noble in Louisville, Kentucky! The team was sweet enough to let me sneak in the day before release to gaze lovingly at my terrible boy Rhys and take some glamour shots.

grab your special edition paperback!

For my British baddies, don’t forget that Waterstones still has exclusive signed hardcover editions of ODD SPIRITS, EVOCATION, and ASCENSION with sprayed edges, foiled boards, a red ribbon bookmark, and a very emo alternate colourway for ODD SPIRITS.

get ghostly with odd spirits

deal with devils with evocation

summon spirits with ascension

I’m thrilled to announce that we are taking Sad Boy Summer on the road! My beloved west coast readers, who I have never been out to see once in all my five years in publishing: I’m coming to you this time.

San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle, please save the date for your tour stop and start assembling a witchy or sorcerous outfit! I’ll have event ticket links for you soon, but I just couldn’t resist telling you that your supplications and spells have worked - you summoned me!

Even better, the wonderful team at Angry Robot have created some STUNNING tour stop swag for you, including a bound booklet of a 25 page sneak peek at DIVINATION featuring the very first look at Moira’s cover art. She’s so beautiful I could sob; that’s wifey!!

I hope you’re reading good books and eating good food and soaking up all the sun you can like beautiful lizards this week. If you’re a Summoner’s Circle fan, thank you so much for the way you love these characters. The fandom around this series is such a gift and a joy to me, and exactly the sort of thing I dreamed about when I was scribbling stories in my composition notebooks in high school instead of paying attention to the teacher.

I’ll be back later in the month with a new podcast episode with Maddie Martinez and more essays, so make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it!

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Be safe and well until we two meet again!

-S

While the release was on the quiet side, the deep connection the right readers have with this twisted tale warms my heart. I’ve been able to hear their gobsmacked cliffhanger reactions and fan theories about the next two books — even in the signing line at Bookcon and on tour, how exciting! I’ve also had time to synthesize some of the discussion regarding the queer representation in this book.

Many of my longtime readers expect exploration of sexual fluidity and complex and often competing desires from my books, but other readers found the novel too straight to feel properly queer, and too queer (and poly) for general straight romance readers.

SAVAGE BLOOMS is only the first act in a three act symphony of secrets, dark magic, and insane soap opera twists, but in light of this discussion (largely happening out of my sightline as is good and right) I want to share the ethos driving my depiction of bisexuality in book one.

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To that end, I bring you an expanded version of an essay I wrote for Fat Forward last year, “Abundant Desires and Storybook Mirrors”.

Ostensibly this essay is about Nicola, and how her fatness does not diminish her desirability, but it’s also about the unique fairy tale lens the trilogy views queerness through. It’s about Craigmar as a pocket universe where traditional rules do not apply, where all is fair in love and war, and where excess, to foreshadow a very important quote from TANGLED ROOTS, is always the right answer.

Before we step through the thin and glimmering veil to the faery world, some housekeeping!

Kentucky Derby Afterparty Anybody?

There’s still time to grab your tickets to join Sydney Shields and I at the Roselynn Winery in Louisville, Kentucky to celebrate AN ARCANE STUDY OF STARS. I am FERAL for this book, and we’re going to have a blast so please join us!

GRAB YOUR TICKET

Sad Boy Summer is BACK!

The ASCENSION paperback comes out in under TWO WEEKS! Preorder your Barnes and Noble special foiled sprayed edge edition to make sure you get it before it sells out, and to make sure you can enjoy the horny happy pride bonus chapter I wrote for you all. Bisexual Moira truthers, it’s your time.

(Word to the wise; hardcovers are often retired from bookstore shelves shortly after a paperback comes out. So if you have been meaning to grab a hardcover ASCENSION, this is also your time.)

SNAG YOU B&N SPECIAL

SECURE THE WATERSTONES SIGNED SPECIAL

Through The Looking Glass

Some books function like long and winding roads, or windows through which we can view other lives, but SAVAGE BLOOMS is a door, not unlike the portals of cold water or caves which draw our heroes and antiheroes into the faery underworld. Step into these pages, and you will find yourself in a world I created for my own pleasure and torment, calibrated to my strange tastes for emotional intensity and the cleansing catharsis of tragedy.

Craigmar, the crumbling Scottish manor where four young people unravel ancestral sins while succumbing to their mutual attractions, is a pocket universe. I built that universe strong enough to hold the weight of the intense longing and desire that the characters feel, that I feel. I rooted it deep enough to be a safe container for that appetite to devour the whole world out of covetous love. So of course, the novel digs its greedy, grasping hands into my favorite gothic motif: the way otherworldliness can dissolve sexual and social taboos.

In Craigmar, that otherworldly magic is explored through a kinky, messy polycule of two men and two women. And one of the characters–our resident optimist and foklorist, Nicola–is a fat woman, too.

It was of paramount importance that Nicola’s desirability never be called into question by her best friend Adam, the brooding groundskeeper Finley, or the enigmatic owner of the home, Eileen. But neither is her body an afterthought. When other characters describe what’s so sexy about Nicola, they describe all of her: her laughter, her thick thighs, her intelligence, her soft stomach, her adventurousness, her plump cheeks.

Nicola is not “hot for a fat girl.” She’s a hot fat girl. This quality is not treated by the narrative like wishful thinking or anything fantastical at all. The magic of the world does not make her suddenly lovely, it bows down and begs to kiss her shoes in the presence of her undeniable loveliness.

The erotic enchantment of this story responds to her body and to her brightness like a spark on gasoline.

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Who knew so many people wanted to read about Dracula’s first bride conspiring with her bisexual lover-consorts to kill her abusive vampire sire?

BUY A DOWRY OF BLOOD

READ FOR FREE ON KU

I spend a lot of time marveling at this lightning-in-a-bottle success that hasn’t burned out yet, pressing my hands to the still-warm glass and trying to figure out how the hell I managed to get the lightning into the bottle, and if it’s possible to ever do something like that again. I wonder if it’s even a worthwhile endeavor to try, or if there’s something wrongminded about looking to the past to give us future creative cues.

After turning it over in my mind for half a decade, I’ve come to five conclusions about this book’s success I’m ready to share. But first, let’s run through upcoming events!

Bookcon’s Back, Alright!

You’ll have two chances to catch me at Book Con, once at the Steamy Lit Booth signing from 3:00 - 3:50 pm at booth #545 in North Javits, Level 3 – Hall 3, and then at 4:45-5:45 during the I’m In Love With A Monster horror romance panel in Room 1A23-24 (Hall 1A-B).

There will be another signing after the panel, and you don’t want to miss it because I have Summoner’s Circle tarot art cards to give away!

Once they’re gone, they’re gone, so make sure you come to the panel and signings!

It you see me roaming the halls, stop me and say hello! Meeting readers is one of the best parts of my job, and cons are energizing for me as an extrovert. Please just ask before taking pictures or giving a hug - I almost always say yes but it’s good to check.

Freaks of Brooklyn It’s Your Time

After having such a blast launching I.V Ophelia’s THE POISONER in Astoria, I’ll be back to celebrate the sequel, THE ARACHNID, in Brooklyn on Tuesday April 14th!

Join I.V and I at The Twisted Spine to giggle and kick your feet about gothic romance, morally grey heroines, and MMC predatory clicking hunting noises.

GET YOUR TICKETS

Louisville Lovergirls Make Some Noise

You guys know I love a Southern Gothic moment, and I’ll just so happen to be in Louisville for derby when Sydney Sheilds is there on her very last night of AN ARCANE STUDY OF STARS tour, so had to maximize our joint slay! Join us on May 3rd at the Roselynn Winery for a bookish good time!

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Five Years Out From A Lightning Strike

There are no words to express what A DOWRY OF BLOOD means to me. This book healed me deeply, connected me with people all over the world, and proved that taking creative risks and staying true to my weirdest vision could pay off. I was the start of my adult life, in many ways. It was certainly the start of my beautiful, and hopefully long, professional career.

And the book almost didn’t get written! I believed it was too slow, too queer, too sad, too poly, too short, and too structurally strange to every find commercial success. I have never been so glad to be wrong. It really is worth just writing the book you’re envisioning exactly as you’re envisioning it, no matter what you decide to do with it after the fact. I also owe a huge debt to Carmen Maria Machado’s IN THE DREAM HOUSE, which emboldened my decision to experiment with form.

So why did this book hit so hard? What led to glorified novella published in cooperation with a British micropress getting picked up by a big five publisher only months later?

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1. The capricious eye of The Market looked upon me kindly. DOWRY is a pandemic book. The idea was just taking shape when COVID-19 shut down Boston, and I wrote it in that first long, grey year as a way of entertaining myself and creating a safe container for my sadness. I published the book on January 31st, 2021 with very modest expectations: to grow my readership a little and make a little money. As it turned out, people were very hungry for vampires after they were considered dead on arrival in publishing acquisitions meeting for years post-Twilight. And double my luck, everyone made a Booktok account in lockdown. Those two unstoppable forces propelled this book into almost overnight success, leading to Orbit picking it up for traditional publication. The rest, as they say, is history, but I really must impress upon you that I did not make this book go viral. I didn’t even have a TikTok account at the time.

2. No amount of author-led marketing can come close to the power of passionate readers. This first reason for DOWRY’s success is also the most important: you guys really, really liked the book, and you were loud about how much you liked it. That response is what books live or die on. You guys even loved the indie cover so much that I brought back with Bad Woman Books with gold foil!

   

   GRAB YOUR INDIE COVER

3. It’s a damn fine book. I’m not ashamed to say I really freaked it with this one. This project was tailored to play to my strengths (investigation of complex relationships, gothic stylized prose, dreamlike atmosphere, dark subject matter) and obscure my weaknesses (sustaining narrative urgency over longer word counts, external stakes, Plot). If this book was as a gown it would be a bespoke piece crafted from my most flattering colors, and then sewn onto my body for the perfect fit. The narrative is tight, beautifully written, and effectively claustrophobic. The characters are vivid and the emotions sing out very clearly, pulled from my own life and polished until they sparkled like diamonds. If I’ve ever had a stroke of real genius, telling a immoral divorce story backwards in a why-dun-it a la Moulin Rouge or THE SECRET HISTORY was that genius.

4. It’s a prose poem. This seems to be the part of the equation many people look past. I trained as a poet before I trained as a novelist. I started publishing at 19, sharing my Bible poetry and mythopetic meta on Tumblr and in poetry magazines. My style as a poet was always rooted in a deep POV, in digging into and expanding singular moments in a character’s life that define them. One of the poetry pieces I’m proudest of is “In The Moments Before Mary Speaks”, a narrative prose poem from the perspective of the angel Gabriel. You can read it below in full.

   

   This piece of poetry looks and reads more like A DOWRY OF BLOOD than any of my other novels, and for many people who haven't experienced much poetry at all, that makes DOWRY singular. Just compare the above poem to this section from A DOWRY OF BLOOD, one of my personal favorites. Tell me you don’t see a resemblance.

   

   I often think of that Twitter post where someone asks, “what did they put in Hazbin hotel to make these songs hit so hard?” and another user responds, “jazz. its just jazz”. Why does DOWRY hit so hard? Poetry. I’d like to do longform prose poetry again, but the form is incredibly limiting: the author is always more in service to voice and imagery than to plot and stakes, which are crucial building blocks for most traditional novels. It’s difficult to sustain prose poetry for the course of a book without it getting repetitive or gimmicky, which is why A DOWRY OF BLOOD is only 50,000 words long. She’s barely a novel, and can be read in a sitting, which generates propulsion. Prose poetry is not appropriate for every story (can you imagine David Aristarkhov navel gazing like this in the Summoner’s Circle Series?) but when it works, it really works.

5. DOWRY did things that “weren’t allowed”. The great thing about indie publishing this project is that I didn’t have to get it past an agent or an acquisitions team. My approach to working within traditional publishing has always been: “what are they gonna do, tell me no?”, a mindset which has gotten me absolutely everywhere in this industry — and occasionally into trouble. Whychoose romances were selling well in certain indie romance subgenres five years ago, but there weren’t as many commercially and critically successful trad books centering polyamorous romance, much less featuring all bisexual casts or treating their subject matter with seriousness. We know this as the Saint Gibson signature now, but it was little more than a combination of market risk factors five years ago. It’s still not always a market-friendly way to tell a story, but it is my way, and I try to use my influence as a bigger name to keep the door propped open for these kinds of stories. Luckily, readers were desperate for messy poly bisexuals. I think presenting those characters as vampires, who get a pop culture pass for being bisexual by nature and morally fluid, helped the poly romance go down smoother for readers who might not have opted into reading about humans choosing to arrange their lives in such a way. I had the freedom to do this because I didn’t ask anyone else to take this risk on — I took it on myself, and I rolled dice that I had weighted to help me win.

6. It’s incredibly hard to imitate. There have been a lot of vampire remixes and vampire brides book since DOWRY (many which are exceptional and totally unique) but none of them are DOWRY. Prose poetry + a frame narrative + tight first POV addressed to an absent third party + all bisexual cast + toxic polycule + religious themes + domestic abuse horror + sapphics winning is an uncommon combination, and one very specific to my psyche! It’s these uncommon and specific combinations that become create cult classics, and I think we should all be getting weirder with our writing. The best books I’ve ever read could only come from the author who wrote them, because they were a radically authentic expression of that author’s voice and perspective. But how glorious that the dark religious queer fantasy subgenre (go read The Age of Blood series by my buddy K.M. Enright! Go read Morgan Dante! Go read S.T. John Starling! Go read Isabel Cañas! Go read Rafael Nicolas! Go read Tyler Battaglia!) continues to grow, with so many authors creating their own inimitable gorgeous gothic goodness.

Now Let’s Party!

Thank you for listening to my reflection on this special little book. I’m sure as the years pass there will be more lessons for my to unearth from my vampires, but for now, I have a gift for you!

To celebrate five years of DOWRY, I’m running an art fair giveaway on Instagram for a signed Orbit Gold Edition of this book! It’s clothbound and the foil is pewter and shines like a knife.

HOW TO ENTER:

- Share a DOWRY OF BLOOD-inspired photo, quote graphic, flatlay, artwork, meme, cosplay, or playlist to your IG grid. All art mediums (except fanfiction) welcome.

- Tag me in the post at stgibsonauthor!

- BONUS ENTRY: share it to your stories and tag me so I can share it to mine.

I’ll choose whichever entry tickles my vampire fancy most a fortnight from now on April 23rd. The winner will receive an Orbit Gold edition, and have their work posted to my grid. Open internationally, multiple entires allowed!

That’s all I have for you this week, dearest reader. To everyone who has been here since the beginning, and everyone who is just giving my books a try now: thank you for changing my life. ❤️🦇

And if you’re new to my newsletter, please consider subscribing for publishing industry insights, essays on sexuality, spirituality, and art, and podcast episodes where I interview your favorite authors about the metaphysical in their work

Be safe and well until we two meet again,

-S

Lets Tangle Some Roots and Summon Some Circles

First up, the Barnes and Noble sprayed edge special edition paperback of ASCENSION is 25% off with code PREORDER 25, with an extra 10% off for members! And yes, this special paperback matches the special EVOCATION paperback, of which there are a few left in B&N stock to help you build out a matching collection!

PREORDER FOR SPREDGES

You don’t want to miss the fun, happy, horny pride bonus chapter at the end of this paperback, either <3 I’ve put these characters through a lot this series, and I figured we were overdue for a party.

Next up, TANGLED ROOTS, the much-anticipated second book in the Unearthly Delights Trilogy is also 25% off with code PREORDER25. The sale includes ebooks and audiobooks for you Scottish accent enthusiasts! Come and get your new favorite 125k word erotic gothic political fantasy, and check out the official blurb!

PREORDER TANGLED ROOTS

EDUCATION IN MALICE DELUXE

While not included in the B&N preorder sale, there are a few hundred signed, special edition EDUCATION IN MALICE LitPins editions left for preorder!

They’re likely to sell out soon, so grab your copy full of art and overlays from some of my favorite artists! LitPins brought back a suite of artists I have personally commissioned and worked with before to bring this edition to life, and it warms my heart.

GET YOUR DELUXE EDITION NOW

Just LOOK at the endpapers! God, I wish I could show you the overlays because they are scary AND hot. LitPins donates 10% of all profits to a charity of the author’s choosing, and this edition will benefit the Transgender Law Center. Get yourself something pretty and do some good in the process.

SERIOUSLY, PREORDER YOUR SPECIAL!

A Word From The Working Artist

Preorders are down across retailers and across genres and I know it’s a hard economic time for all of us, but preorders are still one of the strongest metrics publishers use to gauge the health of an author’s career! They use them to decide how much publicity and marketing to give their current book, and to decide whether they want the next book and how much they are willing to pay for it. In addition, strong preorders demonstrate to bookstores that the books are worth stocking and showcasing.

So! If you are the type of reader who preorders from please consider doing so, and do it during this sale do you get that sweet discount! I appreciate your support more than I can say.

Be safe and well until we two meet again!

-S

In many ways, The Secret History is the quintessential dark academia book, the load-bearing pillar of the genre. In other ways, dark academia is merely the coat The Secret History is wearing. Like a young man sweating through a secondhand sport coat at a party he was never invited to, or young woman painfully aware that her handbag is too shabby, her lipstick too bright, for the luncheon where her embarrassment is served as the main course.

The Secret History is, at its heart, an interloper story about attempted class passing1. It has more in common with Brideshead Revisited, The Talented Mr. Ripley, or The Great Gatsby than it does with the magic school fantasies or dark university romances of the contemporary dark academia genre.

The Great Gatsby, after all, is one of Richard’s favorite books; a book that can no longer give him comfort once the alienation of his own station becomes apparent to him. It is also, according to Once Upon a Time in Bennington podcast creator Lili Anolik, a favorite of Donna Tartt’s, especially prescient to her time at Bennington College, New England’s playground for the wealthy, directionless, and artistically gifted.

Contemporary dark academia discourse focuses on whether the genre romanticizes, permits, or problematizes the inherent racism, classism, and labyrinthine bureaucracy of higher education. It’s an important discussion, but I think it misses the key question these stories of reinvention ask:

What are you willing to do to become a whole new person?

What does it take for an unknown girl from a small town in Mississippi to become the campus second-coming of Oscar Wilde and a literary sensation? What does it take for a miserable boy from Plano, California to leave the phenomenal world and cheat his way into the arms of the sublime?

This essay isn’t exactly about Donna Tartt, and it isn’t exactly about Richard Papen, the striving, nostalgia-haunted narrator of The Secret History. It’s about class, and the smokescreen allure of higher education, and the pains we go through to escape the circumstances of our birth only to realize we have to bring ourselves with us wherever we go.

In that way, this essay is about me.

This is Metaphysical Girl After Dark, and I’m Saint, internationally bestselling gothic fiction author, and lifelong student of religion, folklore, and ritual.

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δύο

The interloper is a trickster archetype. They’re a striver, a hustler, a dreamer. Blessed with audacity and a way with words, haunted by a hole inside themselves that nothing but unfettered access the upper echelons will fill. They are morally neutral by nature, not only wildly malleable and adaptable characters in their own stories, but in the hands of an author.

They can be futilely charming (Jay from The Great Gatsby) neurotic and bursting at the seams with repression (Tom from The Talented Mr. Ripley) or disaffected and desperate in their need to belong (Richard from The Secret History).

They’re gamblers, wagering with social currency and their own personas. They’re entrepreneurial in their deeply individualistic dream to hoist themselves out of obscurity not through salaried work, but the more glamorous grind of riding coattails, dating smart, having the right friends, and simply being in the right place at the right time.

The interloper means something different to American audiences, who valorize con men with star-spangled dreams, than he2 does to British audiences, bound by a more Draconian class system. The most recent cinematic entry into this genre, Saltburn, features a sociopathic, sexually manipulative bisexual interloper for the ages, not from obscure poverty, but a stable middle class family.

I thought Saltburn was brilliant. Not because I think the middle class is inherently untrustworthy and covetous (I cannot speak to the economic psyche of Britain, so I exonerate myself here by waving an American flag), but because some people are just hungry. Some people have a hole inside them that can only be filled by wealth and beauty, by the love they think lies behind just one more gilded door.

Oliver is not outrunning debt collectors, or addiction, or abuse. He’s outrunning his own boredom, his own mundanity and smallness. It would be a stretch to say I like Oliver. But I do delight in watching him turn ego and desire against the people around him. I certainly see flashes of my own appetite in his eyes.

τρία

I was told at a very young age I was smart and charming enough to do things no one else in my family had ever been able to, to achieve a sort of safety and material security only dreamed of. By the time I was five, I knew I should always put my best foot forward in front of people with resources I did not have, and I should study their lives and mannerisms and imitate them until they became second-nature.

We moved frequently, and I struggled to socialize with other children due to my neurodivergence and CPTSD, so every new school was a new opportunity to become a new, more controlled, more socially adept version of myself. Adults often loved me, and I was good at telling stories to delight and entertain them and win their sympathy — even if they weren’t always exactly true.

Shedding skin began to feel crucial to my survival. If I was the same person for too long, I got itchy.

Is it any wonder I dreamed of college as breathlessly as heaven? I fantasized about an enclosed world of prestige, power, and beauty, one I could earn entry into based on my verve and intelligence and truly remake myself. I was a burgeoning queer artist suffocated by a small Southern town and caught in the long shadow of poverty. College was my one ticket into the adult world of upward mobility — paid for by loans for those of us without five figures to burn, of course.

I was deep in 2010s dark academia subculture then, before the Shein hauls and Booktok trends. It was an intimate group of enthusiasts clustered around a few core texts and films, largely congregated on Tumblr or in small in-person salons. We spoke of the The Secret History like a shared Bible, wore our thrifted tweed with the pride of clerical robes, arranged our dried flowers and chipped tea cups and leaking fountain pens like little altars.

We didn’t shrink from the excess and darker side of the genre: we found each other because we were obsessive souls who truly believed in art for arts’ sake and ecstatic limit experiences and surrendering ourselves to the heights and ravages of love.

Many of us were queer or trans, and many of our lives had been quite literally saved by literature. Many of us were artists ourselves.

Perhaps only an artist can understand the way transforming one’s life into performance can be the most honest thing in the world. Perhaps only someone dead-set on living beautifully whatever the cost can understand the deep intimacy something that looks like artifice to the outside can kindle between like-minded people.

Is it any wonder we fell in love with the terrible Greek class, in whose pretentions we could parse authenticity? In whose louche carelessness we could so easily translate into the existential dread and painful longing for intimacy we all felt?

τέσσερα

The great secret of The Secret History is that everyone, not just nervous Richard, is pretending. They have all filed off the edges of their past, made sacrifices to the gods of rebirth in order to become more fully themselves.

Richard is enraptured, at first, by their seeming effortlessness, the way everything about their lives is touched with elegance. In trying to articulate this affinity, Richard says: “they all shared a certain coolness, a cruel, mannered charm which was not modern in the least but had the strange cold breath of the ancient world.”

He’s desperate to be close to them, to become one of them. But the closer he gets the more he realizes they’re all speaking a shared language of theatricality and self-construction. The most attractive thing about the Greek class is they are shockingly, strangely themselves, and that makes them magnetic. But they’ve curated what parts of themselves are visible or even exaggerated. That’s the magic.

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I don’t work that fast and never have. If utterly left to my own devices I’ll conceptualize and write book for two years, take another year editing it with my publisher, and then publish and promote it with events and touring in year four. But I’m not left to my own devices. Writing is how I support myself as a single woman with no generational wealth and no partner to split bills with. It’s something I’ve pursued even while in school, even while holding down multiple jobs, because I desperately want to build a career with longevity, that can financially and creatively sustain itself on its own momentum.

I chase it because I believe in it, and because I believe in me. But I also chase it because I’m afraid.

I fear failure and obscurity. Letting down everyone who believed in me and being forgotten with an air of “she really fumbled all that opportunity”.

I’ve got that childhood scarcity trauma and that will to power and that dog in me. I don’t just want to do well, I want to be great. I don’t just want to make a little money, I want to be able to keep myself safe for life in a very real material way. And I want to do it all without sacrificing my artistic vision for these complicated, queer, messy, dark books.

In the first five years of my career I published a lot of books. Six, to be exact, if we include the revised and republished Odd Spirits. I was what we in the industry refer to as “doing doubles”: writing and publishing and promoting (often touring) two books a year. Even more unorthodox and more challenging, the books are in overlapping series in the same genre and age category, adult fantasy. Which means I’m hopping between publishers and between worlds as I work.

I knew from the jump this wasn’t sustainable. I made a deal with myself and everyone I loved during the DOWRY OF BLOOD GOLD rush that once a strong enough foundation of a career had been built, I would slow down. I had youth on my side, and hunger, and energy: I could burn the candle at both ends for a little while before I started to melt.

But with more success comes more pressure to succeed, and with each new contact signed that would pay my living expenses for a little while more, I locked in another year of high-speed, high-pressure work.

I thought I could handle this speed for one more year, even when my physical and mental health began to fray. But I knew I would hit a wall eventually.

Then, last spring, I called off my wedding four weeks before the ceremony, cancelled a planned international newlywed move, threw my life into a suitcase, and fled to New York City to recover in a friend’s generously lent apartment. I was plunged into a catastrophic grief, the kind that makes you unrecognizable to yourself and shakes your faith in love, and God, and human goodness.

Needless to say, I hit my wall.

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I’ve talked more intimately about my relationship to work in my Saturn return podcast episode, but 2025 taught me how much I was using work to self-soothe and to patch up my broken self-esteem. It showed me, painfully, the lie I believed that I had to earn love through external achievements, that if I stopped achieving, something catastrophic would happen to me and the people I loved.

And I was tired, dude! Full on crying on the subway, disassociating in the Barnes and Noble, laying face down in my empty apartment tired. Thirty years of repressed anger coming to the surface, inner child meltdown, rapid cycling mania and depression tired.

Slowly, over time, and through the deep and freely-given and abiding love of my friends, I began to heal. I came back to myself, to my artistic joy and my spiritual practices and my compassionate care for my mind and body. I shed layers upon layers of snakeskin. I began to understand who I was when I wasn’t enmeshed in the person I had been with for the majority of my twenties.

Turns out, I like her! And it turns out that she had been screaming at me to slow down and get a life outside of work for years and I just wasn’t listening. Turns out, it’s not just just a matter of working hard and then playing hard in an endless cycle of achievement and performing celebration of achievements (David Aristarkhov I feel your spirit), but that to be truly well I’ve got to work hard, play hard, and rest hard in equal amounts, otherwise I collapse.

Which brings us to everybody’s favorite series about overachieving gay magicians pushing themselves to their breaking point: The Summoner’s Circle.

What’s Going On With DIVINATION?

The Summoner’s Circle series is taking a break after the paperback release of ASCENSION on May 5th. The Angry Robot team was so understanding of me needing a short hiatus to get my life in order, heal, and do the continued research and writing needed to make Moira’s book the best it can be.

DIVINATION will pick up a year and a half after the events of ASCENSION, with Moira opening her own metaphysical shop with the help of her men. A ghostly mystery forces her to cooperate with an irritatingly hot transmasc sleight of hand artist who can see the future - and happens to be Lorena Vargas’ nephew. He’s hot in a 90s Romeo + Juliet kind of way, and in true trickster fashion, you’ve already met him, in Leda’s club in ASCENSION.

DIVINATION will manifest spring 2028

(TANGLED ROOTS, the second book in my erotic folklore gothic Unearthly Delights Trilogy, is coming in 2027 but that’s all. I will not be doing doubles next year. We are choosing OURSELVES baby.)

In the meantime, the Angry Robot team and I have some treats for you to thank you for being so patient with me, and being the most magical fanbase in the world.

ASCENSION ARC PORTAL BACK OPEN

A limited number of physical and digital arcs of ASCENSION (Summoner’s Circle #2) will be available for request until April 26th.

Priority will be given to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ readers, booksellers, and librarians. We ask that if you already requested ASCENSION during the original arc open window last you, you do not request again to limit the strain on Angry Robot’s team. Good luck!

REQUEST YOUR ARC

PRIDE PARTY BONUS CHAPTER

I know I put these damaged little gay people through emotional and spiritual horrors every single book, so the bonus chapter in the back of the ASCENSION paperback special is horny, low-angst fun. They deserve it, and so do you. Preorder you paperback to see what David, Rhys, and Moira get up to during the hiatus during Boston’s sweaty, sparkly June pride party.

The special edition is foiled with the sexiest candlelit sprayed edge, and he matches the EVOCATION B&N paperback special!

PREORDER FOR YOUR BONUS CHAP

SPECIAL EDITION REMINDERS

If you are a hardcover enthusiast, there are still a few Waterstones signed special editions with foiled boards and a ribbon bookmark left over. Similarly, there are some standard US hardcovers left at Barnes and Noble, but they are about to be cleared out to make way for the paperbacks, so if you want hardcovers, you need to move on that expeditiously.

Let’s buy up these final hardcovers and show the bookstores that the readership for this series is still strong, and they should stay excited for DIVINATION!

GRAB WATERSTONES SPECIAL HARDCOVER

For the paperback baddies, don’t forget to get your Barnes and Noble special with the pride chapter and the spredge! It’s the same price as the standard paperback which means - gay magician math - you’re basically saving money right?

PREORDER ASCENSION B&N PB SPECIAL

BUY EVOCATION B&N PB SPECIAL

Phew, big email, but it feels so good to get that all off my chest. I know you folks are here for the books, and I’m so glad for that, but I’ve always felt supported as a whole person by my audience, and I’m trying to treat myself as well as you and everyone in my personal life seems to think I deserve to be treated. It’s difficult, choosing peace and rest and play after a lifetime dedicated to chasing achievement whatever the cost, but I’m happy to be at this place on my own journey.

And between you and me, Divination is gonna be worth the wait 😉

If you’ve made it this far please make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter to get extra goodies and early announcements like this in your inbox.

That’s all I have for you this week, freaks and lovers. I hope you find a moment of gentle peace for yourselves today, and I hope you learn to choose yourself more with each passing year of your life.

-S

I’m not speaking metaphorically, although positive thinking has its place. I’m speaking ritually, about planetary timing, spirit work, prayers as precise as an arrow.

I’ve known powerful magical practitioners in my day, from devout saint-whispers to ritual technology adepts to those who can conjure almost anything with herbs and dirt and knotted red thread, but some of the most magical people I’ve ever known — the lucky girls, the boys fortune can never deny, the gentle hearts showered in synchronicities — aren’t trained in any one discipline.

Their magic is more innate, less studied, and rarely tied to a religious framework, but it still burns hot beneath their hands.

These people know, intuitively if not consciously, that our cluttered vanity mirrors, decorated truck dashboards, and curated tops of bookshelves are all little altars to personal gods. They know the power of believing in something, even if it’s only the spark of the divine within themselves. And they know the way desire can be alchemized into real material magical fucking results if you show up for that something day after day.

What do these people ultimately have in common?

They understand the universe rewards devotion.

What is devotion?

A loving look or offering of attention or worshipful word given without expecting anything back.

How is devotion different from romantic love, or religious surrender, or erotic exchange?

Call me if you figure it out.

If you’ve gotten this far, I assume you’re willing to entertain the idea that magic – humans influencing material reality through the alignment of will and ritual – is real. I also suspect you’re here because you’re hungry. Because you want to be able to pay your rent or bind your abuser or protect your community from violence, and you’ve exhausted other options. Because you want more than what’s currently on offer in your life, and you can imagine more so clearly you can almost taste it. Because you want to thrust your cupped hands into the currents of power running through creation and take a deep, long drink.

To which I say: welcome. This is Metaphysical Girl, and I’m Saint, internationally bestselling gothic author and lifelong student of folklore, religion, and ritual. I’m also one of God’s Favorite Girls.1

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There’s no inner demon I haven’t been able to leash, no weapon forged against me that has prospered, and no tumble out of life’s tree I haven’t landed on my feet from. I experience suffering, grief, and hardship like the rest of us, and I often make my own trouble or choose my own misery, but it would be spitting in the face of the universe to say that I’m not incredibly lucky and well provided for in an almost scary way.

Some of it, I’m sure, is privilege and circumstance and a sort of protection that’s followed me since I was child that I still cannot make sense of. But some of it is magic, and the fastest way to get what I want has always been to just ask for it. As far as I’m concerned, the most effective way to ask had always been to approach the universe with a flirtatious smile and a credulous heart and a little offering in my hand.

Some magicians lead with domination, or bartering, or asceticism. I operate on a trifecta of sweetness, audacity, and precision of want, and I’m whipping out my whiteboard to teach it to you today.

But first, a pit stop for housekeeping.

Lit For Queer Liberation Auction

I’m so happy to be part of the Lit for Queer Liberation bookish auction, benefiting queer and trans people facing financial hardship! The Queer Liberation Network provides direct support to queer people working to make rent, afford gas, escape abusive relationships, handle emergency medical bills, and much more.

I’m auctioning off a full signed set of Summoner’s Circle books (first editions with ribbon bookmarks AND foiled boards) plus signed tarot art cards of Moira and Rhys! Bid NOW until March 14th! ✨ 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

BID NOW

Back to the show ~

You Are What You Worship

Human hearts are hard-wired for devotion. We hunger to love something faithfully, something bigger than ourselves that makes us feel more fully alive. That impulse does not always have to be expressed through religion, and let’s be honest, that impulse is not always entirely benign. We put lovers on pedestals, make gods of our wounds, become dogmatic about our religions, become forceful in our philosophies. We tear the world (and ourselves) apart with breathtaking cruelty, often out of misshaped and badly managed impulses towards devotion.

St. Ignatius, that great contemplative of the Catholic tradition, theorized desire was the compass of the soul and that it always longed to point towards God — or more broadly, towards something Loving and Good and Worthy of that devotion. He theorized that sin — which I define only as choosing whatever leads us further from connection to others, to the Divine, and to our better natures — was misdirected desire. Eros without an outlet, passion turned towards that which could not love us back.

Devotion, after all, is the native, universal language of the All That Is.

Florence said it best: we all have a hunger.

We find ways to worship even when stripped of liturgy and form. We find our way back to the ache inside us for unity no matter which direction we walk in.

What gods are you feeding? Are you bleeding all that loving energy into people or things that are hurting you, or are you choosing to direct it towards a conscious embodiment of your own values? Are you hemorrhaging your own power, or are you mindfully engaging with whatever you can call Good and True and Beautiful?

The Problem of Evil Remains a Problem

Let’s be clear: bad things happen to good people. Neither prayer nor positive thinking nor occult practice is likely to change that anytime soon. Spells cannot protect you the same way a bulletproof vest, or medicine, or food security can. But I believe there’s plenty of provision and providence and spiritual protection to go around for those bold enough to open their hands and ask for more.

Beyond all outcomes, devotion makes humans better. It nourishes us, guides us to be slower, more thoughtful, more compassionate creatures. That alone makes it worth it to me. I’m not promoting spiritual bypassing, I’m trying to wake you up to one more tool for resistance and flourishing that is already inside you.

I’m talking about surrendering yourself to something which will reshape you as much as it provides for you.

Saint stop waxing philosophical and tell me how to do some damn magic.

Fine, fine. Come here.

Below the cut: my backalley mystic formula for buttering up the universe, how to choose your devotional objects wisely, wisdom from the East River, plantary magic tips, and the standing arrangement I have with God about Calling Home.

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If you love medieval erotic mystics and Sufjan Stevens, find the Divine in punk rock, or want to learn more about building an individual, authentic spiritual life on your own terms, this episode is for you.

If you enjoy what you hear, subscribe for episodes in your inbox, like or follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Youtube, and/or leave us a comment!

If you would like to stay subscribed to my general author newsletter but opt out of getting these podcast episodes, just untoggle the podcast button right here. <3

To book a spiritual direction session with Rachel or learn more about somatic spirituality and all other related goodness, use the link below to head to fratresdei.com.

BOOK A SESSION

And if you would like to keep up with all of her sexy, scandalous, punk rock poetry updates, be sure to follow her on IG at theodorathomaspoetry.

PEEP THE POEMS

For longform essays and Metaphysical Girl After Dark episodes, where we get darker, deeper, and more intimate with the subject matter, consider subscribing at the paid tier! This podcast is a labor of love, the product of many months of planning and writing and recording, and your support helps cover the cost of keeping it running

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I am mere days away from turning in a huge revision on my second book in the Unearthly Delights trilogy, and my brain has been doing nothing but choreographing orgies, chartings elaborate family trees, and making myself cry while writing flashbacks, and scrambling to do birth and death date math for weeks. Chatting with Rachel was such a balm and change of pace.

I promise I’ve got more standard written essays coming this month, and more fun stuff to share in the book news and event space soon (Book Con! Publication dates! Special editions and beyond!) but for now enjoy these two besties yapping about our favorite things <3

I leave you with this divinatory message from a recent thrift trip. Be good to each other out there, and be safe and well until we meet again.

-S

Secondly, I’ve written you a little something below about opening your heart to love, being present to pleasure, and submitting yourself to eros as his willing disciple. It’s one of the most honest things I’ve written about sexuality, as well as my delirious, ferocious, belief that sex can transform us, and that love can change the world.

This is Metaphysical Girl, a podcast and Substack all about the intersection of art, esoterica, and sexuality.

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I’m spending Valentines Day weekend single for the first time in eight years after a cancelled wedding, squeezed into the final few days of a big novel revision deadline, and sowing my erotic energy into regulating my nervous system and doing trauma healing work, which might not sound very sexy. But there are moments of eroticism to be found even now: in the flickering green candles on my desk, in the ever-returning sun warming my face as I walk along the East River, in the way crying out the heartbroken hurt makes more room inside me for desire, for joy, for light.

As someone who believes eros is the engine of existence, the hearth fire within all of us which propels us towards creativity, connection, and shared experience, I’ve gotten very good at glimpsing the face of the divine Lover everywhere and in all things.

As I breathe in beauty and breathe out fear, as I tune my body to the vibration of Venus and all her mysteries, I widen my window of tolerance for intimacy, sweetness, and care. This practice of embracing the loveliest and most romantic parts of being alive, and of making the world more lovely and romantic as you go, is not vapid or shallow.

Burning the good candles, wearing the silk slip for no reason at all, telling the girl in the checkout line how beautiful she looks, smiling at that handsome stranger, pouring tea for your friends into cute china and serving it with a cookie: it’s all magic, it’s all sacred.

Play isn’t a distraction from the work of loving well: it is one of the ways in which we learn to love and be loved well. When we practice attuning ourselves to romance, to being as able to receive it as we are eager to give it, we rewire the world for pleasure and peace.

I’m more preoccupied by desire than most people: perhaps it’s in my stars, or in my cells, or in my trauma pathways, or all three. From a young age I have been keenly interested in sexuality personally, academically, and artistically, just as I have been terrified by its misuse, and the ways in which so many of us miss the mark as we sling our arrows towards the bullseye of a lover’s heart. But still I love love, still I return to her a supplicant, a pursuer, a willing victim.

I have always wanted to go to the limits of my longing, as Rilke said, and meld with the Divine there, to walk the tightrope of pleasure and pain hand in hand with another person, to pull beloved friends into my bed and kiss whatever is hurting within them until it feels better.

I believe this wild garden of desires is good, holy even, and that is asks for my cultivation and care. There is nothing within me I wish to uproot. Even the strangest blooms have something to teach me, and any strangling weed probably just needs more sunlight, more water, a sturdier and more productive trellis to climb up.

As a lovergirl (hopeful romantic who believes that all we have is each other) and a freak (devotee of the wild god of desire), the world can grind me down sometimes, because I often see people leaving their gardens to wither and rot. Or sometimes, blaming their garden for overrunning their lives when in fact they’re the one who let their life fall into disrepair.

The greatest dishonor we can do to desire is disavowal. To make our desires into jokes, or weapons we use to hurt ourselves. Desire never dies, it simply expands or contracts to fill the shape it is forced into, and it will always find an outlet, whether its one we choose or one we don’t.

We must look at our longing in the face. We must lift her veil and witness her in all her terrifying glory.

My invitation to you this Valentines Day is to pick one small moment of pleasure to be fully present to. The taste of honey melting on your tongue, or a slower, deeper kiss than usual on your way out the door to work, or the warmth of your hands on your own body, or a gaze a little too lingering to be casual across a crowded room. It will feel a little strange, allowing your body to drop deeper into sensations we are shamed for, or left with no time for after the workaday grind of capitalism.

But if you allow it, pleasure will work its magic on you, and make you into the sort of magic that sweetens other people’s lives in the process.

That’s all I have for you this week, beloved. If you enjoyed this essay, please consider helping to support my work and the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber. <3

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Be safe and well until we two meet again.

-S

If you enjoy what you hear, subscribe for episodes in your inbox, like or follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Youtube, and/or leave us a comment!

If you would like to stay subscribed to my general author newsletter but opt out of getting these podcast episodes, just untoggle the podcast button right here. <3

Parnassus Books can hook you up with a signed preorder copy of Hannah’s new oceanic horror novel RELIQUARY, which you don’t want to miss! I’ve been waiting with baited breath for Hannah’s horror debut for ages.

ORDER A SIGNED COPY

FOLLOW HANNAH ON IG

For longform essays and Metaphysical Girl After Dark episodes, where we get darker, deeper, and more intimate with the subject matter, consider subscribing at the paid tier! This podcast is a labor of love, the product of many months of planning and writing and recording, and your support helps cover the cost of keeping it running.

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I’m keeping the newsletter light this week since I’m in the final weeks of developmental edits on TANGLED ROOTS (Unearthly Delights Trilogy #2), and prepping to have a dear friend come stay with me in the city for a few days. I’ll leave you with this vision of the soupmaxxing I’ve been doing in the cold weather.

That’s all I have for you this time, dear reader! Be safe and well until we meet again.

-S

What can I say? I’m a Scorpio stellium: I like to work in private darkness, emboldened by the thrill of not telling anyone what I’m doing until I’m ready for the curtain to rise.

Now, the first podcast episode is live. It’s a field guide to surviving - and romanticizing - your Saturn return, a storytime about how my return kicked my ass in service of my highest good, and a cheat code for using tarot and your own natal chart to navigate this astrological shake-up. 1996-1999 babies, Saturn enters Aires on February 13th: it’s almost your turn!

This may feel like a departure from my work as an author, but I don’t see it that way, and don’t worry — they’re gonna have to drag me out of publishing by my ankles to get me to stop writing. While fiction has been my primary creative outlet for exploring the metaphysical for a while, all things spiritual have been my fascination since childhood.

I have a Master’s degree in theological studies from Princeton Theological Seminary, where I worked as the unofficial campus tarot reader and studied ritual magic out of my dorm room while simultaneously training to be an Episcopal priest. To this day, you can find me under a weighted blanket on a Friday night reading a dense astrological textbook or catalogue of comparative mythology for fun.

Rhys McGown, I feel your spirit.

I hope you’ll come along for the ride, especially since I’ve got interviews with stunning authors lined up. Hannah Whitten came on the pod to talk writing religious trauma narratives, learning to love horror, and rebuilding a sense of self after leaving conservative Christianity. Other bookish community faves will be making guest appearances soon!

To get episodes in your inbox, consider subscribing at the free tier! Longform essays and Metaphysical Girl After Dark episodes, where we get darker, deeper, and more intimate with the subject matter, are included at the paid tier, but today is a general national strike in the United States in protest against ICE.

While your paid subscriptions make this one-women show run by a working artist possible, I urge my American listeners to hold off running your card until the strike is over! Just kick your feet up and enjoy the episode, and if you’d like to hop onto the paid tier another time, I would be very grateful indeed.

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In a time in which many religious leaders have bent the knee to fascism, and in which occult and folklore studies spaces are swatting away neo-trads with brooms, let me be perfectly clear: white nationalism, homophobia and transphobia, and xenophobia are not welcome here. This project and the person behind it are staunchly pro worker’s rights, pro accessible education for all, pro reproductive justice and sexual sovereignty, and pro ecological repair. My theology is firmly rooted in expansiveness, collective liberation, and anti-colonialism. I believe that God is bigger than what’s written in any book, that bodies and sexuality and queerness are good, and that magic is a tool for not only personal growth and agency, but community care and protection.

It’s a bitch of time for a lot of people right now, especially our most vulnerable neighbors, but I refuse to cede the realm of spirituality to arch-conservative forces. I’m too aware of the ways religion for and by the people, and diy magic, and faithful acts of charity have changed the world for the better over and over again.

And if you’re able, join me in donating to funds listed on Stand With Minnesota’s database to provide rent relief, mutual and legal aid, food, supplies, and diapers to families affected by increasingly violent ICE activity in Minnesota. It’s a bitterly cold winter and it isn’t safe for many Americans to go to work or school right now. Any small way you can help goes further than you think. Brutality only wins when we let it.

HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS

That’s all I have for you this week dear reader, and I mean that in the most emptying-the-chalice-of-my-heart-into-your-open-hands way. Thank you for stepping into the metaphysical world with me, and for seeing me more fully in the process.

Be safe and well until we two meet again 💋

Also, the way movies are discussed on the internet kind of bums me out.

Within 48 hours of a film becoming widely available, everyone on Tiktok has collectively decided how good or bad the film is, either by a very flat artistic metric or a very flat moral one. I’m far less afraid of spoilers as I am the mind-numbing gravitational pull of everyone’s joint opinion on a movie I haven’t seen yet. Worse, the discussion often leans cynical — some folks who claim to love movies really just love barbed film criticism, which aren’t mutually exclusive but aren’t the same thing.

Plus, it’s not very fun to dislike a movie everyone in your social group loved (I thought Phantom Thread was dull and unerotic, I am genuinely sorry) or to put on your clown nose to defend a movie the internet has collective amnesia about having once liked (Saltburn is good, actually, it’s just currently chic to hate Emerald Fennel!)

I prefer to turn films over in my head for a hours or days. Replaying scenes, working through frustrating moments, marveling at sets and costumes. Living within the film and my memory of it.

I was made for slower times than these. For rifling through a lover’s VHS collection and putting on something I’ve seen a dozen times for the pleasure of talking about it together. For emerging into the rain-slick city from an almost-empty showing all by myself, walking the long way home to mull it over. For calling my sibling on the landline to chat through last summer’s blockbuster, which we’ve just gotten around to watching.

Anyway, I finally streamed Frankenstein.

Chaotic stream of consciousness review to follow, but quickly! An event and workshop announcement.

Events

Calling all goth baddies, macabre lovergirls, and byronic heroes! Join me and amazing authors like Zoraida Cordova, Chloe Gong, and Ali Rosen for darkly romantic games, prizes, snacks and bevvys, and book signings at Greats of Craft in Astoria, this February 13th! It’s gonna be a Goth Galentines day.

GRAB YOUR TICKET

Tickets include a drink ticket, raffle ticket, and $10 credit towards the bookshop. See you there!

Workshops

It’s my pleasure to be a teaching faculty member at Futurescapes Workshop again; this time as the keynote speaker! I’m hugely enthusiastic about this deep dive workshop for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Applications for the spring workshop are open now! Click the link to apply to workshop the first 3,500 words of your novel (plus your query and synopsis) with me and other award-winning faculty authors!

JOIN ME AT FUTURESCAPES

Please note: seating is limited, and standard pricing will go up after January 31st, so apply before then for the best rate!

This is Metaphysical Girl, a newsletter about art, esoterica, the gothic, and yes, sometimes even monster movies. Without further ado, let’s get into Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.

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1. Kate Hawley’s costume design was breathtaking. I love when a movie leans heavily into symbolism and a thematic color palette, when every aesthetic choice is tied to a heightened emotion. Not a single opportunity was missed for meaningful spectacle, and while much has (rightfully) been made of the gowns, the menswear was out of this world. I never want to see a man in a boring period outfit when every male actor was dripping in color and texture and fur and byronic swagger.

2. If practical effects have zero fans, I’m dead.

3. One thing about my good personal friend Guillermo del Toro, he jumps at the chance to say “fuck war” in his films. You don’t have to ask him about his convictions (although he will happily speak on them) because they are so evident in his art, and I admire that. It makes me want to lean into my own convictions in my art even harder.

4. Similarly, as a director he is deeply invested in the interiority of women and children. He always portrays them lovingly, with dignity and agency and a curiosity about their particularities.

   

5. Christoph Waltz was excellent, very chilling. His performance grounded some scenes that could have felt a bit too fairy tale, and he’s got this great face that can be so sinister but so silly. What an actor.

6. The echo of Victor slicing and dicing human bodies for his own aims and international powers destroying lives to expand their wealth was sharp and subtle and effective.

7. Victor’s childhood fixation on his mother and intimate hatred for his father could have been weirder and more gothic. The whole film would have had a stronger bedrock if they made that family of origin a bit more horrifically enmeshed/abusive/doomed. Since this is a the sins of the father shall be visited upon the child movie, we could have turned up the heat on the bad family dynamics more.

8. It’s hard to overestimate how much I sobbed during this film. If you are also a tender-hearted creature with a complicated relationship to Catholicism, monstrosity, and generational trauma inherited from your father, this is your warning! So grateful I missed the theatrical showing because I’m not sure the AMC would let me get into child’s pose and cry it out on the floor of the theatre.

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ASCENSION B&N EXCLUSIVE

I am over the MOON to share this exclusive foiled, sprayed edge paperback of ASCENSION, all dolled up to match the B&N exclusive of EVOCATION! I’m a paperback reader and I always get so excited about special features on a paperback, especially when it’s a available at a general retailer.

The preorder sale runs until midnight on New Year’s Day, so make sure this one ends up in your cart in time!

PREORDER FOR 25% OFF

UNEARTHLY DELIGHTS STEALS

The paperback edition of SAVAGE BLOOMS, book two in my gothic whychoose trilogy of family secrets, hot Highland hookups, and very bad faeries, is included in this sale too! If you’re a paperback first baddie, this is your moment to dive into this series.

PREORDER FOR 25% OFF

You can also get a discount on TANGLED ROOTS, book two in the trilogy, in which Eileen, Finley, and Nicola embark on a quest to rescue kidnapped Adam from the faery underworld, plunging into a centuries-old power struggle between humans and fae.

There is only one rule they must follow in the faery court, where pain and pleasure are elevated to art: entertain the king, or suffer the consequences of his boredom.

Getting close to the enigmatic and alluring faery king isn't just a matter of survival; it is the only hope Eileen and her lovers have of escaping Craigmar's curse.

Adam, Nicola, Finley and Eileen must scheme and seduce their way through court, all in the name of breaking the others free. But it's so hard to want to be a hero when the faery king offers them each the fulfillment of their wildest desires... for a price.

PREORDER FOR 25% OFF

I know Unearthly Delights Trilogy readers are excited to meet (kneel for? be psychosexually terrorized by?) the faery king, so I’ve created a Vengeful Bisexual Snake Daddy teaser playlist to tide you over. A little taste of forbidden fruit, if you will. Enjoy!

LISTEN NOW

Real Industry Talk:

preorders are down across retailers and across genres. The physical book preorder model simply doesn’t align with the way many readers are reading these days, and physical books are expensive. That said, preorders are still one of the strongest metrics publishers use to gauge the health of a author’s career, and to decide how much publicity and marketing to give their current book, and to decide whether they want the next book and how much they are willing to pay for it. In addition, strong preorders demonstrate to bookstores that the books are worth stocking and showcasing.

So! If you are the type of reader who preorders from time to time, please consider doing so, and do it during this sale do you get that sweet sweet discount! I appreciate your support more than I can say.

I hope your year is coming to a beautiful close, and that 2026 is altogether sweeter and more sparkling and full of joy.

Be safe and well until we meet again.

-S

This year, reading fiction required a focus and emotional engagement my nervous system could not often sustain. Nonfiction books, especially folklore, philosophy, psychology, and writing craft books nourished me in 2025. However, even in this best and worst of years, there were a couple of novels who fished me out of the dark waters of my mind and hoisted me aloft like a goldfish in a gentle net of narrative. I’ll be giving them their roses too.

Before we get started, a Yuletide treat!

I cant believe it’s been one year of Metaphysical Girl, and I can’t believe how many of you are reading these twice-monthly paid essays! For the last few days of 2025, paid subscriptions are 22% off, whether you go monthly or annual. I’m three paid subscribers away from my goal for the year, and as someone who supports herself through writing and teaching, having you join the merry ranks of those three would be a huge help to me!

Sale runs through December 30th: use this link for your discount!

GET 22% OFF A MG SUBSCRIPTION

AEIM SPECIAL EDITION

Sapphics stay winning with this jaw-dropping special edition of AN EDUCATION IN MALICE from LitPins and Co. I’m so glad my dark academia lesbians are getting some love, and I could not be more thrilled with the artists on board. You will recognize Isabel Burke from the SAVAGE BLOOMS cast of characters commission, Kieran Mikolajova from the EDUCATION IN MALICE preorder art, and Therese from the old school EVOCATION character art.

Only 1,250 copies of this signed edition are going to be printed, so preorder now!

PREORDER NOW

TANGLED ROOTS US PREORDER

As promised, I’m letting my American beauties know that TANGLED ROOTS, the marriage-tournament-for-the-hand-of-the-faery-king sequel to SAVAGE BLOOMS, its available for preorder in the US!

The first book in this trilogy is still finding its readers, but I would expect no less from my gothic freakfest generational trauma whychoose, weirdest and most cherished of my children.

If you’re excited about the series continuing, please preorder book two from B&N, or your favorite US retailers. UK babes, Waterstones and all the UK indies have got you covered!

PREORDER FROM B&N

PREORDER FROM WATERSTONES

13 Beautiful Books Stand In Front of Me. Only One Can Be The Best Book of the Year

I usually decline to order my favorite books of the year, but I’m going to cowgirl up and rank them down towards the one which made the biggest impact.

Nonfiction

10. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice by J.F. Martel (introduction by Donna Tartt). Every once in a while you read a book that you want to thrust into everyone’s hands. This book crackles and pops and glows like a fire, urging creators to differentiate between art, with its intrinsic human quality and spiritual or intellectual value, and artifice, creative advertising or propaganda which reinforces the status quo. I found the section on pornography interesting in unexpected way as an erotic artist, and this book has never been more important in the age of generative AI. If I taught college, this would be required reading.

9. Book of Hours by Rilke. Nobody alive or dead does erotic devotional religious poetry like Rilke; nobody has such command over light and darkness conveyed in such simple, revelatory language. I have the translation by Anita Barrows, featuring the original German text on one page and the English translation on the other.

8. Devotion by Patti Smith. Everything it was talked up to be! Smith juxtaposes her travels through England and France to visit the home of Albert Camus with the short story birthed from all her observations on the road. Devotion is about taking inspiration wherever you find it, reflecting on what it means to be fully present to life and fully present to your art.

7. On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy by Simon Critchley. A gorgeous exploration of the experience of mysticism in historical, religious, and artistic contexts. Critchley is a philosopher who writes like a poet, a skeptic with a remarkably curious heart. It’s perhaps my favorite book on the phenomenon of ecstatic spiritual experience, and certainly unlike any other I’ve read.

6. Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han. Han synthesizes classical and modern ideas about what eros is and how it functions, under which conditions it thrives and under which conditions it dies, and illuminates the ways eros is ground down by capitalism and his theorized “achievement society”. Han argues that love can only exist when a sovereign, mysterious, unpredictable Other functions as the beloved, and that opening ourselves to love demands ego death and surrender to pain. It’s somewhat dense philosophy, to be sure, but it has moments of unexpected romance as well. Han’s ideas certainly got baked into the upcoming second book in the Unearthly Delights Trilogy, TANGLED ROOTS.

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True love is out. Heteropessimism is in.

Let me be quite clear: sex doesn’t have have to vanilla or risk-adverse to be rooted in mutual surrender, and there’s room aplenty for kink and power games and the pleasurable thrill of the romantic chase in an egalitarian world. There are ten thousand ways to be a woman and ten thousand ways to be a man and ten thousand more ways of blending or or transcending these polarities, and I’m not interested in being prescriptive about any of that. I’m not talking about how we have sex or how we dress and act: I’m talking about how we seem to have abandoned the hope of loving, exciting, equal partnership between men and women1.

Is having a boyfriend embarrassing? Is having a girlfriend cucked?

The most compelling story I’ve heard exploring the way men and women can both attract and repel each other, particularly in the context of social esteem, honor, and the ongoing struggle for dominance within marriage, is not a Cut article or a video essay. It’s the fifteenth century poem “The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle”, resenting a time in Western Europe of Draconian codes of sexual conduct and control.

Yes, it all comes back to Arthuriana2.

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Arthuriana is famously slippery. It’s not one story but many, represented by different regions and time periods, blurring together via oral tradition and cherry-picked written record. No one figure in Camelot is unchanging, even the most archetypal. Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew, waxes and wanes like the moon, his characterization shifting from noble to rash to pious to brutal with each new iteration of his legend.

But in the middle English period, in the world of Dame Ragnelle, we find Gawain at his most honorable. This story, to me, is the proof of that honor.

The Invitation of the Veiled Feminine

King Arthur, strong-armed by his own binding vow and with his life on the line, is desperate to learn the answer to a deceptively simple riddle: what is it that women desire above all else? He and his nephew Gawain ride through the country for a year, posing the question to noble and peasant alike. Everyone has an answer - women desire money, or station, or sex, or a great romance - but no one has the answer. On the day Arthur must solve the riddle, a repugnantly ugly woman named Dame Ragnelle appears and offers him the solution — in exchange for Gawain’s hand in marriage.

Gawain selflessly agrees.

What women desire above all else, Dame Ragnelle says, is sovereynté

Whether she speaks of women’s sovereignty over themselves, their sovereignty over men in a sexual or political way, or some secret third thing is unclear. The word, however, connotes absolute rulership and unimpeachable authority.

The wedding goes forward as planned. Gawain honors this woman by speaking to her kindly and letting her eat from his plate and drink from his cup at their marriage feast, even when his compatriots whisper and mock her. When the newlyweds retire to their bedchamber, Gawain begins to undress, intent on having sex with with her to fulfill his duty as a husband — despite, crucially, the fact that there is no longer any audience for his chivalric behavior. He gains neither pleasure nor esteem from this act; he does it simply because he believes it is right.

When Gawain turns back to his new wife, he’s shocked to find she’s transformed into a breathtakingly beauty. She tells him she has been put under a curse which can be broken only by marriage to a knight pure of heart: now her beauty will be visible, but only for half the day.

Gawain may choose: shall he have her beautiful in private at night, and suffer the indignity of being seen with an ugly wife in public? Or will he choose the social value a beautiful wife affords him in a patriarchal world, and accept her ugliness in their bedchamber?

Gawain refuses to choose at all. Instead, he gives the choice back to his lady.

Dame Ragnelle tells him he won a great prize indeed, by offering her sovereynté. She will be gorgeous day and night, loyal to him always. Through his bravery and his generosity of spirit, Gawain has not only won the love of a beautiful woman, but the devotion of a powerful enchantress.

The Magnetism at the Heart of the Masculine

Loathly lady3 stories are not just time capsules of historical conventions or gendered expectations; they’re not even purely psychological. They belong instead to that shadowy category of the mythic, stories that are at once timebound and scrutable, but also eternal and mystical. A mythic story is a story that happened once upon a time a very long time ago, and it still happening all around us.

When I let my heart drop into the mysterious center of this story, I see a bold assertion that letting go sexual and gendered mores may lead to happier endings for all. Despite the story’s medieval preoccupation with physical beauty and the social value it confers on women, and sex as a marital duty, it’s otherwise quite subversive.

It’s Gawain’s own beauty, and his own ethical conduct that attracts this magical woman to him. She picks him out instead of him pursuing her, destabilizing traditional love-as-conquest narratives. The medieval world believed women needed to be dominated and controlled to become “good wives”, but it is Gawain’s gentle respect for his wife which makes her more affectionate, more loyal, and even more lovely.

This is not a a narrative about an emasculated man browbeaten by a domineering wife, either. Gawain retains his masculine identity despite the story’s sexually subversive nature, because that identity is rooted in self-sacrifice and kindness just as much as in valor and might, because it does not need the egoic flattery of other men to remain intact.

We’ve all heard the muttered assertion that women like to be mistreated, that they’re attracted to brutes — why else would they be reading those bodice rippers or texting that awful ex4? But in Dame Ragnelle surrendering her fate utterly into Gawain’s hands, and in him giving her fate back to her in an act of mutual surrender, we see the truth: the hottest thing a man can be is not a “nice guy” or swaggering alpha but simply: a man fearless in his goodness.

The erotic charge sparks from him offering himself sexually, resulting in her sexually surrendering to him by peeling back veil after veil of enchantment, exposing his heart and true nature even as she exposes her own. I get chills every time she tells him that she will choose to be beautiful for him day and night. I can practically hear her triumphant, relieved laughter as she realizes she has made the right choice of husband. I can practically see him grin and pull her into bed as he realizes he has made the right choice of conduct.5

This marriage is not neutered by egalitarianism; it is brought alive by it.

Whose Afraid of Hetero Dating, Anyway?

Egalitarianism6 has gotten a lot of bad press lately. In this era of heteropessimist dating advice and regressive gender roles being glossed with countercultural sheen, romantic optimism has been deemed cringe.

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Meet Me At Love and Legends!

From 7:00 to 8:30 PM on December 9th, I’ll be signing books and hanging out at the totally gorgeous new fantasy and romance bookstore in Brooklyn, Love and Legends! They’ve created such a dreamy space, and I’m so glad to be doing this free signing!

You are free to bring something from home you would like me to sign, but the store will be open for shopping and I would love it if you patronized this fine establishment while you’re there. Come and other readers, get a hug or a picture, and meet your newest community indie!

Celebrate THE POISONER at I.V Ophelia’s Gothic Launch Party

I’m so tickled to be the author in conversation with I.V. Ophelia at Greats of Craft in Long Island City on January 13th! This is going to be a bloody fabulous time, with wine and bites and a dark gothic dress code.

I’m such a huge fan of book events that are more than book events. There should always be a sultry little shindig to go along with the usual chat, Q&A, and signing! Tickets include a drink and snacks, signing line priority, and a paperback, so get after it before tickets sell out!

VAMPIRE PARTY TICKETS

Auckland Make Some Noise!

So thrilled I can finally reveal the most exciting event announcement of my year: I am going to be in New Zealand in 2027 for the Brimstone and Bookshelves con! I’ll be there with Chloe Gong, Nalini Singh, and so many other fantasy and romance powerhouses.

I’m not even sure I can share all the stunning programming and experiences this team has got planned but I can promise to meet you at the debauched vampire ball in my creature-of-the-night best. I may even break out the fangs.

Mark May 2027 on your calendar and be sure to sign up for updates from the con, so you know the moment tickets go on sale!

BRIMSTONE AND BOOKSHELVES

ICYMI, the sexy gothic soap opera of my heart, The Unearthly Delights Trilogy, has a book two title!

TANGLED ROOTS will follow the SAVAGE BLOOMS toxic family/polycule (familycule?) to the faery underground, where they will be forced to battle for the king’s hand in marriage via kink tournaments and cooperate (or not!) through games of sedition, seduction, and betrayal. My idea of a good time, personally.

Can’t wait to get your hot little hands on this book? Preorder from Waterstones and pretty please add to Goodreads! It helps immensely for securing publicity and marketing support over the life of the series!

ADD TANGLED ROOTS TO GR

PREORDER FROM WATERSTONES

I leave you with one request: I am five paid subscribers away from hitting my newsletter goal for this year, a goal that will help fund my work and cover my living expenses in 2026. If you love my books, appreciate my essays, or just want to support a working, living artist in this age of AI, consider subscribing!

Subscribe now

Be safe and well until we two meet again! Hopefully in person this time <3

-S

It’s my absolute pleasure to reveal the title of book two in the trilogy!

bisexual forced marriage tournament for the hand of the faery king

TANGLED ROOTS picks up where SAVAGE BLOOMS left off, with a desperate quest to save Adam from the faery underworld.

Here, pain is an art, pleasure is a weapon, and the faery king is willing to keep Adam, Nicola, Finley, and Eileen alive so long as they entertain him during lavish orgiastic parties. He’s even willing to help break Craigmar’s curse...so long as one of the four offers themselves to him in marriage.

The mortals must scheme and seduce their way through court, all in the name of breaking the others free. But it’s so hard to want to be a hero when the king offers them each the their wildest desires. For a price. 🔥 🍎

If you loved the Crimson Peak meets Wuthering Heights vibe of book one, you’re gonna love the Labyrinth meets Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty vibe of book two.

UK readers, you are spoiled! Preorders are already live on Waterstones/Amazon UK!

PREORDER ON AMZ UK

PREORDER FROM WATERSTONES

ADD TO GOODREADS

US readers, as we learned in book one, sometimes denial makes getting what you want even sweeter. Orbit UK and Orbit US work on slightly different timelines, but rest assured that the moment your preorder links are ready, you’ll hear about it here and on my instagram. In the mean time, feast your eyes on the TANGLED ROOTS moodboard.

I cannot wait to take you all underground 💋

If you haven’t read book one in the series, SAVAGE BLOOMS, this is the perfect time to grab this gothic high heat whychoose. Especially since it’s five dollars off on Barnes and Noble and free to read on KU UK.

GET 5$ OFF SAVAGE BLOOMS (US)

READ SAVAGE BLOOMS (UK HARDCOVER)

READ FOR FREE ON UK KU

DOWRY OF BLOOD Dustjackets + Merch

You may remember earlier in the year when Bad Woman Books dropped these gorgeous (gold-foiled!) reproductions of the original Marlowe Lune art for A DOWRY OF BLOOD, and you may remember they sold out right away. Lucky you, Bad Woman has dropped a new limited batch of dustjackets! These are designed to fit perfectly over your A DOWRY OF BLOOD trade hardcover, and you can buy a dustjacket by itself, or with a hardcover included.

ORDER YOUR DUSTJACKET

It wouldn’t be the chilly season without a rock and roll Constanta sweater to keep you snuggly! This Wonder Witch exclusive design is also available in a T-shirt, tote bag, and art print.

PICK YOUR POISON

Everything I’ve Been Loving Lately

I’ve been on a folk horror kick after watching Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, a fabulous and thoughtful documentary. It added some new films to my watchlist, including In The Company of Wolves (1984) — young women adventuring through their own psyche via psychosexual fantasy dreamscapes, gotta be one of my favorite genres — and Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) — eerie, refuses to explain itself, well acted, and still pretty brutal despite being half a century old. Am I a letterboxd girl now? The review I wrote in defense of Saltburn would suggest so.

I’ve been rocking Killian’s Old Fashioned perfume this winter: a warm woody fragrance with just enough vanilla and citrus to make it interesting. I’m dangerously obsessed with Jo Malone’s Ginger Biscuit, the most grown-up high-end Christmas cookie you’ve ever smelled, and Juliette Has A Gun’s Pear INC — what a perfect skin scent with that bright juicy splash of pear!

As far as home decor goes, building my gallery wall of medieval, catholic, and pagan art behind my couch has been the most gratifying little puzzle. She’s a work in progress but she’s coming together!

And of course, I threw my decadence-themed birthday party! Take this as your sign to throw parties, dress up in costumes with your friends, or even just have a buddy over to your house for coffee and a cookie! We’re social creatures who are built for togetherness and whimsy.

I leave you with one request: I am six paid subscribers away from hitting my newsletter goal for this year, a goal that will help fund my work and cover my living expenses in 2026. If you love my books, appreciate my essays, or just want to support a working, living artist in this age of AI, consider subscribing!

Paid subscribers get two bonus essays on art, culture, and spirituality each month, and there just may be bigger and more ambitious projects coming in the new year!

Thank you so much for being here with me. Be safe and well until we meet again.

- S