You can preorder the UK edition here.

But that’s not all! Today, Waterstones revealed THEIR exclusive edition of TEMPEST, including a stunning alternate color way and gorgeous sprayed edges!

You can preorder the editions here.

While the US signed editions are officially signed out at Barnes & Noble (though the deluxe edition is still available while supplies last), you can now officially ORDER signed & personalized copies of the deluxe edition of TEMPEST from two of my favorite local indies here in West LA!

You can preorder now from the RIPPED BODICE or DIESEL BRENTWOOD.

As some of you might have seen on my socials, my US publisher is running another GOODREADS GIVEAWAY for TEMPEST! 25 advanced reader copies are up for grabs right now - just enter here.

Rest assured, the Substack Subscribers giveaway and international giveaway I promised ARE COMING. They will most likely be in June, so keep your eyes peeled!

And one more round of applause for these covers. Thank you to the Gollancz team, art director Rachel Lancaster, and the incredible illustrator Erica Williams (@hookieduke). You all smashed it.

Cheers,

Victoria

Please keep that in mind while you read. I promise it is in our minds every second of every event.

This is not to say that signing events are easy. Or without their flaws. Most authors do not write books because we are bubbly extroverts fueled by social interaction. And while we show up with genuine enthusiasm and love for our readers, there is also an element of performance too. A mask, if you will. A mask we try very, very hard to hold onto, lest it slip and some of our pain, discomfort, anxiety, exhaustion, etc. slips through. And lands on you, the reader, the person we are so grateful to meet and happy to connect with. Trust me, we do our very best to give every single person in line the same energy, within the best of our ability - and within the bounds of the specific event.

This is important. Every event is different, every event we do has different rules, requirements, or expectations. We might be different from event to event, depending on our travel, our wellness, our mental state.

Because I’m fresh from BookCon - and because there has been some very strange and (in my opinion) uninformed takes about author behavior at BookCon - let’s look at this specific example. Here’s a picture to literally set the stage:

My apologies to the reader I cropped, but thank you for the picture! Now this looks pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Table, props, my little cup of water, hand sanitizer, etc.

What you don’t see is a massive room of tables with authors and readers, all talking, all moving, all with that wonderful combination of excitement and delirium you get at a con. Namely, it’s LOUD, with both readers and our teams in the mix. And I had to really focus to hear readers speaking at certain volumes.

Which brings me to the TABLE. Oh God, what could Victoria possibly have to say about the table? Well, frankly, the table size, particularly the depth, was a HUGE topic of conversation amongst the authors. I understand the intent of creating a better barrier, but it just ended up making our jobs harder. By the end of day 1, my back was on fire from leaning forward to grab books, sign, and hand them back. It was like a rowing class at a certain point, and we had to pivot on Day 2 to make sure I didn’t send myself into muscle spasm (because I get those now! Hello 35!). And I’m an able-bodied individual. I have the privilege of being able to sign for 4 hours with only the “normal” amounts of pain. And that “normal” is going to range for every single author.

I get asked at signings all the time: “How’s your hand?” And I say, “It’s not the hand, it’s the face.” Because it is. We have the immense privilege of knowing how painful it becomes to smile for hours on end, and I walk away from most signings these days with tension headaches that take hours to subside, if not days. I’m still working the tightness out of my brow, if you can believe it. So please, please don’t interpret the lack of a SMILE for rudeness or disdain. Trust me, we’re trying to spare ourselves when we can.

And we’re trying to do our very best for YOU. What does that look like? Well, meaningful interaction, even if it’s only 30 seconds. We want to make sure we sign your books or items properly, personalize them if you like, AND answer any questions you may have for us. And sometimes a reader is nervous, or scared, and we have to make the mental calculation of how to give you the space you need. That’s a lot to juggle (pain and noise aside) - and for most of us, that looks like setting us both up for success. Flapped books, clearly labeled personalization. I can sign my name and talk to you at the same time very easily. I can’t sign your name or write a quote or draw a picture or figure out how many bookplates you would like (let alone see the bookplates, some of the sheets were very difficult to navigate) WHILE speaking to you. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask for these things, but it’s worth giving some grace when we get pushed out of our practiced zone. I’ve been doing this for 10 years and I admit, I was struggling with the unlabeled bookplates. I love the idea of not carrying books, but please please please help us out with the plates.

Again, it is easy for us to sign our names on pre-prepared materials and still give you our attention. The variables is where we start to mess up, and I know how much we hate messing up in your books.

In regards to meaningful interaction - that 30 seconds or less - we are also thinking about not just one person in line, but the next and the next and the next. We’re thinking about our teams, the booksellers, the volunteers. All the people making things run smoothly so we can keep moving and see everyone who is so kindly waiting to see us. With BookCon, that meant very strict signing slots. Our times were very policed. And we are keeping that time in our head as we go, gauging with our teams when we have to speed up. To stop personalizing, stop posing for photos, stop signing more than one item. I even have a faster signature I switch to when things are really bad. All the things we can drop while still maintaining meaningful time WITH YOU, in the time allowed. It’s a lot to juggle - and stay present, focused, and smiling (lest someone cancel us for gasp not smiling).

Beyond BookCon: I reiterate it is a privilege to do signing events. To have readers who want to see you and meet you and connect to you the way they have to your books. It is also an immense privilege to be able to DO events. There is a physical and mental requirement we don’t talk about, and a barrier for many, many authors. It’s a spectrum of course. From you have Resting Bitch Face (like me) and have to be careful, to you are unable to sit without pain beyond this amount of time. Or you can’t sign anymore, and must use a stamp. There’s countless reasons. Let alone neurodivergencies that make this highly social and performative act very difficult, if not impossible.

And of course, the misogyny and racism of demanded performance to unknown standards cannot go unacknowledged. It is not lost on me who gets to show pain, who gets to show cracks, and who gets destroyed for it.

All this to say - authors are human. Authors are not machines. Authors are not zoo animals. We are so happy to do what we do, but happiness is not an anesthetic to pain or difficulty.

Please don’t turn author events into another space where we must calculate risk. There are already many parts of social media where authors don’t feel welcome, or have removed themselves for their safety and mental health. Please don’t take in-person events from us, and create an atmosphere where dropping a smile for a split second can be fatal. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right, and it isn’t a road any of us want to go down.

I love you guys, I love our community, I love my author colleagues and friends, and I can’t wait to see bunches of your at YALLWest in two days. :)

Cheers,

Victoria

I’m flying to Boston on Tuesday for a bookseller event (closed to the public) before heading to New York for: BOOKCON! By now you’re probably sick of hearing about it but I’m posting my schedule here just in case. All my signing reservations are sold out but there will be standby lines I will do my best to accommodate! My Romantasy Panel is also sold-out but the LIVE PODCAST WITH SOMAN CHAINANI is not ticketed! Feel free to join us Saturday night. And if you see me on the floor, don’t be afraid to say hello!!

After BookCon, I get back to LA just in time for two Los Angeles events! YALLWest is April 25th (including panels & signings) in Santa Monica and I have a signing May 3rd with Boutique Book Fair in Hawthorne!

And before events slow down for the summer, I’m joining the amazing Rachel Gillig to celebrate THE KNIGHT AND THE MOTH at the Ripped Bodice in Culver City, CA on May 22nd. The event is sold out but there is a waitlist, with more info here.

The first GOODREADS GIVEAWAY for TEMPEST is also live right now. You can enter to win 1 of 25 copies of the TEMPEST ARC here.

We have a few GR giveaways planned, and I still have a few copies from my personal collection to give out. The next giveaway will be for my SUBSTACK subscribers only so stay tuned!!

Besides events and giveaways, I am also officially OUT of the editing cave…for now. I turned in the second draft of TEMPEST 2 a few days ago and I feel free!! Until the next draft. For now, I’m focusing on my ignored laundry, event prepping, and signing tip-ins for the signed deluxe editions of TEMPEST!

The Barnes & Noble deluxe SIGNED edition is currently showing as out of stock, but I’m getting more information soon. It’s possible they sold out but double check with your local indies to see if you can preorder signed editions through them! For now, the deluxe edition of TEMPEST is still available (with sprayed edges and full color MAPS) WHILE SUPPLIES LAST. You can preorder through your favorite retailers here!

Watching: Company Retreat, Real Housewives of Rhode Island, just finished Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (LOVED), and really enjoyed The Drama

Current beverage: a much needed green juice or a Diet Coke, WE CONTAIN MULTITUDES

Fixation: a red light mask and my Sephora sale picks that you can shop here

Looking forward to: besides some excellent book events, I am heading to Italy and Greece at the end of May for a family wedding, and I’m panic-buying outfits in preparation. And I’m going back to Scotland in August, for a much needed research trip/relaxing visit to the Outer Hebrides!

And of course, I’m eagerly awaiting the release of TEMPEST on September 8th. But I can’t quite wrap my brain around it yet, which is probably a good thing.

Cheers,

Victoria

That’s right, my publisher Harper Voyager is giving away FIVE BookCon badges for Saturday, 4/18, including FIVE tickets to my TEMPEST book club and FIVE advanced copies of my pirate fantasy!

Saturday at BookCon is currently SOLD OUT so this is your best chance to grab tickets with guaranteed entry to my book club event. I’ll be chatting all things TEMPEST with you guys and will have book plates signed for all your copies.

To enter, go to HarperVoyager’s post HERE and follow the instructions.

Our BookClub will be on 4/18 at 5pm in the Javits Center! Details and ARCs to be sent to the winners

No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 18 and older only. Runs 3/27 at 9:00 AM (ET) through 4/1 at 11:59 PM (ET). Void where prohibited. Official rules available at https://bit.ly/VoyagerBookClubRules

But that’s not all! I’m signing a LIMITED NUMBER of the deluxe editions of TEMPEST and you can preorder them now from Barnes & Noble. Get your signed copies here, while supplies last. I am unfortunately limited in my time and ability to sign large amounts these days, and I’m sorry there aren’t more available.

If you want to order signed editions through your local indies, check with your favorite stores to see if they will be getting any in stock!

As for me, I’m hard at work on the edits for TEMPEST 2, and hoping to get those turned around before BookCon. I’m so excited for the return of the convention, and hope to see you guys in New York next month! Here’s my schedule and please say hi if you see me on the floor!

Keep an eye on the Substack for all things TEMPEST - I’m planning another ARC giveaway very soon, and this one will be for my subscribers only. :)

Cheers,

Victoria

I have an advanced copy of TEMPEST looking for safe harbor…to enter: head over to INSTAGRAM, like this post, tag a friend you would follow through any storm, and follow @victoriaaveyard on IG. A winner will be notified this FRIDAY, March 20th so keep an eye on your DMs!

This giveaway is US only but the international giveaway is coming! And be sure to add TEMPEST on GoodReads so you don’t miss the GR giveaways we have in store!

As for me, I’m heading to New York for Barnes & Noble BookFest in Union Square this weekend. Tickets are sold out but maybe I can convince my publisher to get the ball rolling on more giveaways while I’m in town….stay tuned. ;)

Cheers,

Victoria

You can read more about it - and a little bit from me HERE with our reveal partner USA Today. And we even have a landing page ready HERE for preorders wherever you get your books.

Are you ready - here we go!

Those edges! That electric blue! I’m in love with the cover design from Will Staehle, Mumtaz Mustafa, and the HC design team team. It’s definitely a departure from the covers I’ve had in the past, but I’m certainly not complaining.

As promised, there will be more news to come regarding giveaways. Make sure to follow me on Instagram, here on Substack, and add TEMPEST on Goodreads to make sure you don’t miss them!

More to come - the UK cover sketches just landed in my inbox and they are PHENOMENAL.

Cheers,

Victoria

But for now, I can share some maddening close-ups as well as the color scheme for the absolutely electric TEMPEST cover for the US editions. More to come from the UK, I assure you!

At present, I’m in Pittsburgh at ABA’s Winter Institute. In a few hours, I’ll be signing the very first ARC drop for TEMPEST and I’m out of my skin with excitement/nerves. Then I head to RomantasyCon this week in Los Angeles, where I’m giving away 10 copies of TEMPEST every day. More soon on how you guys can win advanced copies, I promise!

That’s all for now, see you at 10am EST tomorrow!

Cheers,

Victoria

*which includes answering emails, editing, copyediting, proofreading, googling, posting social media content, making graphics, adjusting calendars, going down Wikipedia holes, and sometimes actually writing brand new words for brand new books

Over the years, I’ve been asked countless times about WHAT IS ON MY DESK, and I’ve finally gotten myself together in a way that is hopefully helpful. And organized. Somewhat. Now, I must preface - none of these items are essential to writing stories. The only essential need is your own amazing brain - and not ChatGPT. So don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong if you don’t have these things, don’t want these things, or don’t need these things. Take what works for you and leave what doesn’t!

As for organization, I’m dividing my favorites into two categories: actual necessities and fun treats.

First up, ACTUAL NECESSITIES:

1. Scrivener - I use this word processing software to write all my first drafts. It’s truly an essential for me and while it has a steep learning curve, I find the organization elements so helpful. Being able to keep everything for my draft in one document (including all of the chapters of the draft itself, my outlines, research etc.) is a gamechanger. And I especially recommend it for anyone writing longer drafts with multiple POVs, timelines, or various parts. I do not use Scrivener to its full potential - there’s honestly so many tools that I don’t even know exist - but I do use it every time I start a new novel.

2. Microsoft Word - For everything after the first draft, I am dragged kicking and screaming over to the trad publishing industry standard software, your old friend Microsoft Word. Now sans Mr. Clippy and with a very annoying GenAI feature that I have disabled and I advise all of you to do that same. MS Word, while glitchy for longer drafts, is standard for edits with your publishing team, due in large part to the Track Changes feature. Just make sure you save often, and have AutoSave turned on.

3. Canva Pro - a bit self explanatory, but springing for the Pro version has been so helpful in making graphics and content to advertise my books and upcoming events.

4. Keyboard - I prefer the old school click of a clunky keyboard, plus the more ergonomic structure of this one in front of my desktop. I also have this one to connect to my laptop if I want to be horizontal on the couch with a more ergo position. Or if I need a smaller keyboard for travel.

5. Mouse - Same thing, I like to upgrade to an ergonomic mouse which has really helped with some of my chronic wrist pain. I use this one.

6. Desks - I have a standing desk adaptor for my regular desk, as well as a collapsible standing desk that I can use with my laptop in other locations. This one gets pulled out when I’m really in a crunch and need to keep working but can’t stand being in the same place, so I start scooting around my house like a little rat. I also have a lapdesk for the couch. I really like to have options for those deadline days when I’m writing 12 hours but need to break it up.

7. Timer - When I’m having trouble focusing, I like to use a timer to keep myself on track. I will set it for 30 or 45 minutes, and refuse to let myself do anything but write for that time. OR this is my goof off time, and when the time is up, the time is UP.

8. Health & Comfort - you can find my various “my body hurts but I need to keep going” items here! I use these all together or individually, but the neck stretcher is especially nice on sore work days. And I like the compression gloves a lot, they help with cold days too.

9. Year At A Glance Wall Calendar - I use this to keep track of deadlines, travel days, and everything in between. I love being able to see my whole year at a macro level, even if it’s very intimidating!

Now for FUN TREATS:

1. Self-care - I keep a little beauty drawer stocked in my desk with hand cream, cuticle cream, and lip balm. I find it helps to have these things in arm’s reach so I don’t have an excuse to break flow if my hands are dry or my lips feel chapped. I also keep some mascara and a little lip gloss in case I need to film some content but don’t want to look completely dead at my desk cave.

2. Comfort - Who knows if they work, but I love blue light glasses and I have many strewn about my desk. These have been my favorites so far. I also can’t resist a good slipper and definitely have a blanket on my desk chair. And I’m always surrounded by claw clips for when I inevitably get a ponytail headache.

3. Vibes - I love a good candle - the Diptyque Ambre is my favorite scent overall, but I definitely switch up depending on my mood and season. I’m trying not to buy crap candles anymore, since they never last and end up costing more in the long run. I also have various little trinkets on my desk, including a flying pig (to remind myself I can do impossible things), a little porcelain house from Scotland, and a collected display of all the friendship bracelets you guys have given me over the last two years!

Let me know if you have other questions about my office - I also have my podcasting set-up, my agenda notebook, not to mention various odds and ends lying around. I intend to keep updating my ShopMy as things pop up, but feel free to ask in the comments!

Next time, I hope to have some good news about TEMPEST ARC GIVEAWAYS (I will have these in my hands VERY SOON), so keep your eyes peeled. For now, I’m digging back into the edits of TEMPEST PART 2!

Cheers,

Victoria

I’m so pleased to reveal not ONE, not TWO, but THREE big things about my adult debut TEMPEST, the epic pirate fantasy of my dreams.

First and foremost - TEMPEST PREORDERS ARE ROLLING OUT NOW, at all your favorite retailers. We’ve had some difficulties with the hardcovers but the ebooks should be live!

The TEMPEST hardcover in the US will be available as a Deluxe Limited Edition in the first printing, with stenciled edges, deluxe endpages, and special jacket, so make sure to preorder to get the fancy edition!

I’m so excited to reveal the cover and all those sparkly extras VERY SOON, along with word about other special editions in the US and the UK.

Cat Rose knows what it is to live in two worlds, in two times. Before—as Lady Catrine of the Meridian Empire, chained to a loathsome lord with a dwindling fortune. And after—as the Widow Rose, queen of a pirate tavern in the Lyrian Sea, determined to be the master of her own fate.

But tides turn and winds change. The Meridian Empire looms on the horizon, the full weight of her navy falling on the Lyrian, bent on reclaiming the wealthy colonies and crushing the pirate republic once and for all. Ship after ship is captured, save for one captain who continuously evades both noose and blade: the legendary Valerian Kane.

With his fearsome ship and uncanny connection to the song of the sea, Valerian is the only man who might rally the pirates who remain. The only man who threatens the Empire. And the only man Cat has ever loved, blazing in and out of her life like a star.

Desperate for victory, the Empire offers Cat a devastating choice: bring them Valerian, or hang. In truth, no choice at all.

But Cat Rose is nothing if not a survivor.

A storm is rising on the Lyrian—the question is, what will it leave in its wake?

Second - TEMPEST PUBLISHES ON SEPTEMBER 8TH - I’m over the moon to finally share the date with you. This September is a veritable murderer’s row of amazing releases, and I feel like I’m in some incredible company with authors I love and admire. I’ll be sure to share more information as soon as I have it regarding tours and events!

And third (perhaps of most interest to many of you) - TEMPEST IS NOT ONE BOOK, BUT TWO. Those of you following my writing journey with this behemoth know I’ve been wrangling with a 300k+ word behemoth of a book, and we decided after the first draft that the best course of action was to split the single giant into two not-so-small novels.

At first, I was incredibly nervous with the choice, but I know now it was absolutely the best decision for TEMPEST and for me. At present, I’m finishing up copy edits on Book 1 before launching right into edits on Book 2 - which will be releasing (hopefully) in the first half of 2027!! This means I’ll have two books out in less than a year, which I’ve never done before - but I’ve also never accidentally written two books before either, so…

I plan to talk even more in depth about the standalone to duology process in an upcoming Substack, but you can listen to my PODCAST tomorrow to get the first details. Soman and I dedicated this week’s episode of PLOT TWIST to answering all the questions I’ve been dancing around regarding TEMPEST, so definitely tune in if you’re curious!

And make sure to add TEMPEST on GoodReads HERE, especially if you want to know about EARLY GIVEAWAYS!

I can’t tell you how excited and nervous I am to get this book into your hands, and I am already so grateful to the many readers looking forward to TEMPEST along with me. Rest assured, I plan to detail every step of the journey forward, and I hope to see you on the road in September!

Hopefully a cover reveal is close on the horizon, and maybe even ARCs are sailing our way…ok, I’ll stop.

Cheers,

Victoria

And if I may be so bold…

My heart is with the family of Renee Good, and the people of Minneapolis grieving her loss. We all have eyes. We saw what happened and what an ICE agent did to her. What ICE agents did afterwards, denying her medical care as she died in the snow. What lies Kristi Noem and Donald Trump leapt to spew before the body of a beloved partner and mother was even cold, let alone identified. It chills me to think where we would be without the videos of bystanders, and where we are still going with irrefutable evidence of what happened today.

All I can offer is my own anger, which feels endless, and my hope, which feels endless too. All my love.

I know I’ve been teasing this particular post for a while, and I finally have some downtime to get it done. So away we go!

Before I became a published author, I obviously dreamed about going on a book tour one day. I was no stranger to travel, but traveling for work is an entirely different ballgame. Over the last ten years of a travel-heavy career, I finally have my almost fool-proof system nailed down. Book events and tours are incredibly stressful, albeit wonderful, so streamlining all the other factors that go into travel helps me maintain control and minimize anxiety (outside the normal anxieties).

1. CARRY ON ONLY. This might sound obvious, but I still encounter author friends who travel with checked luggage and it feels like seeing a unicorn. Again, my worries won’t allow for potentially losing luggage to an airline snafu, so I always travel carry-on whenever possible. Tour travel usually means you’re on a plane every single day, so the potential for lost luggage rises exponentially. And European tours usually feature trains, which are rarely conducive to big check suitcases that you need to lug on, off, and over cobblestones. I will do check if I’m gone for longer than two weeks, but trips like that are very rare.

   1. I used this suitcase for almost 10 years of travel, and had very little complaints.

   2. But did finally upgrade to this suitcase - she rolls so smoothly, especially over uneven streets or cobblestones. I can’t believe I notice the difference but I do. And the lifetime warranty is very appealing.

2. HACK YOUR PERSONAL ITEM. I use a soft sided duffel WITH A ZIPPER to make sure I can stuff as much as I can under the plane seat, and essentially double my carry-on potential.

   1. My Longchamp expandable was a game changer.

   2. Keep your black hole of a personal item organized with POUCHES. I use ziplocks for masks and sanitizing wipes, and a mix of fun pouches for everything else divided into categories. Snacks, inflight skincare, electronics, etc. I did treat myself in London to this pouch I’ve been coveting.

   

3. RELY ON YOURSELF FOR AMENITIES. What do I mean by that? I mean don’t rely on your hotel having good shampoo, a mini bar for snacks, or even soft pillowcases. I’ve been burned many times by thinking the hotel will have what I need, whether it be Q-tips or body lotion or adequate lighting. So I try to be my own safety net.

   1. I bring a silk pillowcase IN A BRIGHT COLOR, to guarantee my face isn’t on scratchy sheets - and it’s good for your skin and hair too! The bright color means you’re less likely to leave it behind.

   2. I collect sample and travel sizes of my favorite products. I particularly like the shampoo and conditioner samples that come with makeup orders - the ones in a flat, single use envelope. They pack better and you shed weight as you go! I have a drawer in my bathroom where I keep sample size EVERYTHING so I can just dig in for travel.

   3. I also keep a pouch of emergency snacks in my personal item - a mix of Peanut M&Ms, Chomps, nuts, Liquid IV, and mint tea, alongside gum and mints too. I’ve had more than a few nights on the road where dinner is Peanut M&Ms in bed.

4. BRING THE PHARMACY. Self-explanatory. There’s nothing worse than getting sick on the road.

   1. I travel with over the counter and rescue prescriptions just in case. Zofran, Paxlovid, Afrin, Nyquil, the good Sudafed, melatonin, you name it, I’ve got it on hand. I also take Vitamin C/Zinc while traveling to try and boost my immune system.

   2. I also carry sanitizing wipes for the plane and hand sanitizer - I find sprays like this one best for work events because I can douse my hands quickly and go, versus using a goopy gel which can slow down a book signing or get someone’s book wet.

5. STAY PACKED. Obviously not your clothes, please unpack and launder your clothes when you get home. But I do mean keep your toiletries pouch stocked and ready, so you can grab and go when the next travel period comes.

   1. I like this pouch, it fits a ton and the bright color means I’m never leaving it behind in a hotel bathroom!

6. DRESS UP FOR THE AIRPORT. Okay, not entirely, but I’m definitely someone who does not enjoy looking like a slug in public. So I try to find the happy medium between style and comfort.

   1. No exposed skin. I don’t want to touch more of the seat than I need to. So no shorts, dresses, skirts, or short sleeves.

   2. Layers. Planes get cold - or hot! - so I need options. I like a base long-sleeve t-shirt, an oversized sweater (this Quince cashmere is a staple), and if I’m going somewhere I need a coat, the coat is on me to free up suitcase room.

   3. I love these sweatpants jeans because they aren’t printed on, they’re comfy, and I feel like a cool Gen-Z’er in my baggy jeans. And they come in petites for us shorties!!

   4. Cool sneakers if you’re not wearing your heaviest shoe on the plane. These leopard Sambas made me so happy on my Euro tour (even if I did need to break them in).

   5. I also am getting old and therefore becoming enamored of silk scarves. I have a little collection going and love to accessorize my outfits with a pop of color.

7. PLAN YOUR CLOTHING. In case you don’t already think I’m a freak, I visualize all my outfits using Canva. Yes, I put together everything I’m bringing to make sure every piece of the wardrobe works in multiple iterations. It was immensely helpful on the long Euro tour, and actually cut down on panic buying clothes beforehand.

   1. My go-to tour outfit: an oversized black blazer, t-shirt, good jeans, a nice heel.

   2. I’m also partial to long-sleeve, ankle length, high neck dresses because they’re easy and I don’t have to worry about my cleavage during photos. TMI? I don’t care, you’re still reading. I troll TheRealReal for deals on Ulla Johnson and Zimmermann dresses that fit the bill.

      

      Yes, I really mean I made all my outfits in Canva, as you can see above. Spot the clothes from my Euro tour!!!

8. CHECK THE WEATHER. But really. Make sure it isn’t raining or freezing or boiling hot - and if it is, PACK ACCORDINGLY.

For all my TRAVEL MUST HAVES, I have linked them in this handy dandy shoppable list here. Yes, these are affiliate links so I will get some pennies if you buy through the link - but also feel free to just use the list as needed on your own!

You can also find lists of my hair and makeup go-to’s as well!

Now those are my hard-and-fast rules…but you guys had so many lovely questions on my IG post last month! Yes, last month. I’m sorry for the delay, but better late than never.

Tour/Travel Q&A

How many suitcases do you take on tour and what tips do you have for economic packing? - Under 2 weeks, carry-on with a massive personal item. I will also wear a crossbody purse that I can stuff away before boarding a plane. As for economic packing, I really try to make sure the clothing all works together, so I don’t carry on anything I don’t need or won’t wear.

Which beauty/health essentials do you have on your trip? - Besides the aforementioned pharmacy and other must-haves - I will take my own hair dryer if I’m traveling in the US. My Dyson doesn’t work overseas, so I made do with this hot brush. For better or worse, we’re usually doing our own hair/makeup for events so I try to be as prepared as I can!

Tips on handling jet lag/time change/sleep disruption? - I am a bad sleeper on the road. Events give you so much adrenaline and I find it difficult to come down afterwards to fall asleep, so I rely on melatonin to help shut down, and adjust to different time zones. I also know myself and will stay off red-eye flights unless absolutely necessary. I would much rather wake up early than fly through the night, because I just won’t sleep. If I am required to try to sleep on a plane, I bring a soft, silky eyemask, ear plugs, and compression socks, along with an inflatable pillow (yes even in business class, I need an extra pillow, she’s a high maintenance bitch). But even then, I rarely do get much sleep under even the best of circumstances. My brain just won’t shut down.

What’s the go to plane outfit? - I linked a bunch above but comfy jeans, a sweater, under layer, sports bra, a baseball hat for a bad hair day, fun sneakers or shoes that DO NOT NEED TO COME OFF THROUGH A METAL DETECTOR, AppleWatch that will tell me to stand up when I can’t stand up. I’m also partial to an oversized blazer on flights under six hours because it makes me feel like a corporate power bitch.

Do you make a to-do list for the plane if you’re working? - I’ve started loving writing on planes, since there’s literally nothing else to distract me or break my concentration. I go in with a singular goal to work on one specific thing, so I don’t divide my attention needlessly.

Is it worth upgrading to business to get writing / work done compared to Econ? - It’s a huge privilege to say this but I think so. Even if I don’t sleep much, I arrive much fresher if I’ve had more space and a comfier seat. I won’t even get into my back pain. We just don’t get a lot of recovery or downtime when touring, so picking up the time where you can is good. It’s also just nice as a woman usually traveling alone to not have to think about someone sitting next to me, or fighting to get up to go to the bathroom on long hauls.

Do you try to keep the same schedule even with the jet lag? - I always try to flip to the local timezone as quickly as possible - which usually means staying up when exhausted and dosing yourself with sleeping aids to try and catch the cycle. We just don’t have time on the road to be jet lagged!

How do you balance the demands of writing/editing/revising/promotion with the work you’re ALSO doing on tour?! It seems like so much! - It is so much! And most of it falls to the wayside, unless I’m really on deadline. I definitely fall off on making content while traveling and my vacation responder goes up on my email. If something isn’t essential or dire, I let it sit until I’m off the road!

Can I ask when you’ll be back in Scotland? - I was so sad not to get up to Scotland in 2025, but I already have a trip booked for 2026. And this one is for RESEARCH for the Dragon Book, visiting a part of Scotland I’ve never seen before, so I’m immensely excited already!

What destinations are on your bucket list? ✈️ - So many!!! But we are actively planning for trips to Egypt and Mongolia. Plus, I’m finally going to visit the village in Italy where my grandmother was born.

Tips for consolidating liquids for flights please ❤️ - Depot and decant! I have some tiny glass vials with droppers that I will put my skincare in. I also collect sample sizes of my favorite products, and the shampoo/conditioner single use pouches are very helpful in packing light.

Long haul flight essentials? Do you ever get anxious travelling? Best methods to cope with that if you do? 🩵🩵 - Besides all the physical items you can find on my travel list, I am a PLANNER. I am the girl who checks airplane seat maps, airport layouts, or watches youtube videos of my seat class/route. None of this is necessary but it really helps me feel prepared, and feeling prepared negates my anxiety immensely. I do absolutely get anxious traveling and I’m always running scenarios in my head on what to do if I get delayed or something goes wrong. It’s not exactly relaxing, LOL. It also helps that I am just used to travel, both domestic and international. So I just have more experience, especially at LAX, my home airport, which I could probably navigate blindfolded at this point.

How do you avoid getting sick while traveling, please? - GREAT question. First and foremost, I always have hand sanitizer on me. Our events are high touch and I try to regularly sanitize my hands whenever possible, especially at book signings or while eating. I also mask in crowded areas on public transit, especially when boarding or deboarding a plane when the air circulation is poor and people are jammed together. I will wipe down my seat too, and I’m happy to share my wipes. Internally, I take vitamin C/Zinc while traveling to help bolster my immune system. And if I do get sick, I carry a pharmacy - I’m prone to sinus issues so having Afrin and the good Sudafed are essential. Not to mention Zofran in case of food poisoning.

What’s the last book you have read and your favorite reading location? - I’m currently reading and loving THE SECOND DEATH OF LOCKE by VL Bovalino, and I love to read at the beach or by hotel pools LOL.

And that’s it for me! Can’t wait to chat again next week, with a big old announcement I’ve been DYING to share.

Cheers and happy new year,

Victoria

Not to add ONE MORE THING to your inbox, but we’ve got some gorgeous editions of the RED QUEEN series hitting the market right now so I thought I’d do a round-up

• RED QUEEN 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPRAYED EDGES EDITION (individuals)

  • available NOW, grab them wherever you get your books!

• RED QUEEN 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPRAYED EDGES EDITION (box set)

  • available December 23rd, preorder now from your favorite bookstore!

• RED QUEEN ACRYLIPICS SPECIAL EDITION (box set)

  • orders open December 20th, more info and a sneak peek here!

• UK 10th ANNIVERSARY DELUXE GEMSTONE GOLLANCZ EDITION

  • signed, with slipcover, 1 of 200 only available here

  • unsigned, without slipcover available here

• I have also SIGNED EDITIONS at THE RIPPED BODICE and BLUE BICYCLE BOOKS, while supplies last!

Please check with individual retailers about shipping, some indie stores will ship internationally!

Leave your questions below or on my instagram. I’m so proud of these editions, and already have a few of them gracing my shelf.

It’s truly an unthinkable honor to have written a book that inspires such love after ten years, and is somehow still finding new readers. Thank you all so much for sticking with me, and I hope to have more TEMPEST news to share very soon since she is officially in COPY EDITS!!!

Cheers and happy holidays,

Victoria

I know, I know, I spent all that time griping about being on the road but now I’m itching to get out there again. And I am, albeit on such much shorter trips.

Next week, I head out for sunny Austin, Texas, to experience the TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL! I must admit, I was so excited to be invited, as I’ve never attended this festival before and I’ve heard such great things. Plus Austin is an excellent city and I haven’t had an event there in years!

As the graphic says, I’ll be in conversation with none other than Maggie Stiefvater! We’re going to have a blast. More info on how to attend can be found HERE.

And the following week, I’m returning to one of my favorite book festivals of the year: YALLFEST. I feel truly spoiled this November, and can’t wait to see familiar faces, and hopefully meet some new ones too!

If you’re podcast listeners, keep your eyes peeled for a little treat from Soman and I.

Please feel free to say hi if you see any of us on the streets of Charleston. If you can’t make it but still want signed books, you can order from BLUE BICYCLE BOOKS, the beating heart of the festival.

More info on my YALL schedule can be found HERE.

And for those RED QUEEN readers out there, we just announced SEVERAL special editions coming to you from across the globe!

You can preorder the 10TH ANNIVERSARY BOX SET with SPRAYED EDGES from your favorite retailers HERE. Aren’t they gorgeous - and just in time for the holidays?!

AcryliPics is also cooking up a beautiful box set edition, launching November 28th. I’ll let you know when orders open, but you can keep an eye on things HERE.

And last but certainly not least - the super deluxe, direct-to-reader jeweled edition of RED QUEEN concocted by my UK publisher Gollancz. You can order 1 of 500 signed editions with slipcase, or the unsigned. Both are STUNNING. I was lucky enough to hold one when I visited my publishing team in London. If you’ve seen the video already, you know I was SPEECHLESS.

You can preorder either edition HERE.

AND THAT’S IT FOR NOW!!

I promise to have some more blasts in the coming weeks, including behind-the-scenes tour recaps and (finally) links to my must-haves in the office, on the road, and everywhere in between!

And of course, I have lots and lots of TEMPEST info to share….when allowed. Stay tuned. ;)

Cheers,

Victoria

Hello friends, we have another dispatch from the messy desk. I’m still editing TEMPEST (two weeks to go on this particular draft) and therefore still very much in the mood to talk about editing. While my previous post was about the multi-draft process from a bird’s eye view, I thought I’d get into the nitty gritty of how exactly I attack the first round of edits - the second draft.

1. First things first - I submit the first draft draft. Duh.

2. And then I go into what is probably the most valuable part my process - the recharge. I do not look at the draft again until I receive my edit letter. I try to not even think about it. I find this helps me both refill my creative well and “forget” the draft so that when I do return for edits, I have the freshest eyes a creator can have.

3. Once I know when the edit letter is coming - and essentially when my window of recharge closes - I can reread the draft and experience it like a reader, which is so helpful in feeling out issues I would otherwise miss. I like to do this on paper so I will print out the full manuscript and put it in a binder, taking notes or making edits by hand when they pop out to me.

4. Zadie Smith explains this process so well in a lecture she gave at Columbia: “When you finish your novel, if money is not a desperate priority, if you do not need to sell it at once or be published that very second — put it in a drawer. For as long as you can manage. A year or more is ideal — but even three months will do. Step away from the vehicle. The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat backstage with a line of novelists at some festival, all of us with red pens in hand, frantically editing our published novels into fit form so that we might go onstage and read from them. It’s an unfortunate thing, but it turns out that the perfect state of mind to edit your own novel is two years after it’s published, ten minutes before you go onstage at a literary festival. At that moment every redundant phrase, each show-off, pointless metaphor, all the pieces of deadwood, stupidity, vanity and tedium are distressingly obvious to you. Two years earlier, when the proofs came, you looked at the same page and couldn’t see a comma out of place…”

   “…You need a certain head on your shoulders to edit a novel, and it’s not the head of a writer in the thick of it, nor the head of a professional editor who’s read it in twelve different versions. It’s the head of a smart stranger who picks it off a bookshelf and begins to read. You need to get the head of that smart stranger somehow. You need to forget you ever wrote that book.”

5. Forgetting that I wrote the book - that is exactly the energy I’m chasing when I dive back into edits.

6. Then there’s the fearsome beast that is the edit letter. Honestly, the worst part for me is just clicking ‘open’ on the document and ripping off the Band-Aid. I’ve gone through the edit letter process…nine times now? Yikes. And I can safely say the TEMPEST edit letter was a joy in comparison to some in the past. Not because it is entirely glowing or complimentary - but because I agree with so many of the edits, they are sparking new ideas, and I feel absolutely seen and supported by my editors. I know we are all so sharply on the same page with the same vision and love for this project, which makes executing edits easier because I trust what we’re doing together.

7. After I read the edit letter - I break it down. The TEMPEST letter was organized just the way I like, and I was able to take my own notes in a secondary document, responding to each section with my thoughts and new ideas. This also includes me creating excel sheets showing an overview of the draft - the chapters with their word counts, the act structure. I find this super helpful in visualizing the draft as a whole, and it helps me immediately pick out which sequences may be unbalanced.

   1. This is especially helpful for TEMPEST because the story is told through dual timelines, alternating between chapters. And I need to make sure those timelines aren’t lopsided, and echo each other in the rising action of the story.

8. I’m now in the thick of executing the edits and moving through the draft LINEARLY. I cannot work in pieces, I can’t jump around in the draft, at least not on the major run through. I know once I get to the end I will be able to go back and tweak pieces as needed, to layer in a new subplot or smooth out continuity - but I need to run it through as a reader would. Front to back, start to finish.

For me, the first draft is the highest mountain to climb, with every draft afterwards being a slightly smaller mountain. But you do need to climb them all, and by the end, you are really really tired of climbing.

Then you get to climb a new mountain - marketing and publicity!!! But that’s another post entirely.

And I’ve got to get back to my current mountain.

Love,

Victoria

Replacement.

I will also add - while it is excruciating to known tech billionaires are behind platforms stealing from artists to enrich themselves, it is so disheartening to see our own book community engage with and support GenerativeAI. It is a soulless creation stealing my creative work and your creative abilities, destroying your opportunities to grow and improve as a writer, an artist, etc.

I’m not stupid. I know the proverbial cat is out of the bag. The best I can hope for now is legislation to hopefully create guardrails like required licensing, compensation for the artists upon whose work the AIs are trained, environmental protections, and watermarking. Unfortunately, our current government is hell bent on restricting all legislation on AI for the next ten years.

It both makes no sense, and perfect sense at the same time. The point is profit, and, in an added bonus, destroying our abilities to think critically. And creatively.

Several of my colleagues and I have signed an open letter to our publishers asking for protections, and promises, to make us feel a bit safer in an increasingly unsafe world for artists.

Author friends & colleagues, if you would like to add your name, you can at the link above.

Thanks for reading, and listening. I appreciate it, and I know we are in this together.

Love,

Victoria

If you’ve been following along on my other social media platforms (Threads, Instagram, TikTok), you’ll know that TEMPEST is officially in edits. Meaning I’ve finished the first draft of the novel, and I’m now in the stage of writing a book that means I have bedrock beneath me.

*If you want more timely updates on my writing process, make sure to follow me on my other platforms, where I post videos and photos almost every day.

So what does the edit stage look like?

I must caution it is a little different for every author - we all have our own process - but there are shared steps for many of us in the traditional publishing space. Namely, once we finish a draft to our liking, we pass it on to our developmental editors and then eventually copy editors. They are integral in transforming a manuscript into a book.

Some authors will take their drafts to a round of beta readers before going to their editors. That isn’t a step I utilize in my process, largely because I don’t write fast enough for it. My drafts Tokyo Drift into my editor’s inbox on the day of deadline, if not after. In the case of TEMPEST, which ended up being much bigger than I expected, it was way after.

Now that TEMPEST is with my editors (I’m working with both my US and UK editors on this one), here’s how the process will hopefully unfold based on my previous experience - and my preference.

• I sent my first draft (the unedited, finished manuscript) in to my editors.

• My editors then take what time they need to read the first draft, digest it, and write up an edit letter. I prefer getting my notes in a full overview that I can take in as one big piece, versus notes imbedded in the draft, which some other authors prefer. The edit letter is a scary thing to open, and I still have to hype myself up to read them. They’re usually a macro and micro view of the story - what worked, what didn’t, what suggestions and questions the editors might have, along with any other thoughts they have on the work. My agent also reads at this point too.

• I execute the edit letter. No, I don’t cut its head off (though sometimes I wish I could). Instead I print it out, highlight and annotate the letter (I’ve had letters as long as 10 pages), and keep it in hand as I dive back into the draft looking to make her better. Usually my editors have great notes and ideas, but no one agrees with 100 percent of an edit letter. I’m not exception. The skill is in figuring out where the bumps are, and smoothing them out as much as possible for a reader. By the time I finish this round, I will be sending the second draft to my editors.

• This is where things can start to differ book to book - I usually have one or two more rounds with my development editors, meaning I end up with a third or fourth draft. These rounds are smaller and focused on fixing smaller issues in the work that slipped through on the previous rounds.

• A really exciting part of the process is going to copy edits - when the third/fourth draft goes to copy editors. They specialize in the nitty gritty of spelling and grammar, not to mention they are wizards for continuity errors and repetition. At this point, it’s also great to get new eyes on the manuscript. I’ve had a lot of things caught in copy edits before that slipped us all in previous rounds, and I’m immensely grateful. But I’ll still never learn how to use a semi-colon correctly. Copy edits is also exciting because a manuscript is considered delivered and accepted at this stage. Meaning, for most contracts in traditional publishing, you get paid another installment of your advance! Hooray!!

• Following a round of copy edits, now you have a fifth or sixth draft of your manuscript. And your eyes are falling out. Lucky you, now we get to look at proofs (or pass pages). This is when the manuscript is typeset - or laid out as it will be in the printed book. You’re looking at the manuscript as it will look on the shelf - these used to be printed out but now usually come as PDFs. At this point, I am mostly looking for typos and any egregious slips, but I’m also editing for the eye*.

• After proofs, it’s time to go to print. And once that day passes, the book is LOCKED. Meaning you can no longer touch it, she is out of your hands, and now all you can do is go slightly insane until pub day. At this point, I refuse to look anywhere near the draft in case I find something wrong or want to change something. Because I no longer can! Timelines vary - I’ve had books locked a year and a half out, to less than 4 months. It all depends on your publisher, and shorter timelines are more common with books in a series.

That’s the basic steps through editing - stay tuned for my next letter where I go over exactly how I approach this process, and what I do to make my manuscript the best book it can be.

Summer Updates

It’s officially summer in Los Angeles, and I hope you’re enjoying nice weather and long days wherever you are! Here’s a little info on where I’ll be and what I’m hopefully doing over the next few months.

• Events - stay tuned for more info when I can officially announce, but I will be chairing 2 local book events in LA/Orange County area, and visiting THREE countries in Europe this fall for festivals and touring! I can’t wait to let you know where I’m going.

• Indy - Thanks so much for all the kind thoughts and well wishes as my dog Indy went through another surgery. It’s her first abdominal emergency surgery in four years, and we are very grateful to have access to her excellent vets at VCA West LA. As many of you know, Indy has had multiple surgeries over the years, first due to a freak intestinal episode, and then to break up scar tissue forming after her surgeries. This was a similar episode, and she is recovering beautifully.

• Goals for the summer

  • I’m setting one work goal, and that is to finish the second draft of TEMPEST, if not be stuck into Draft 3. I will also most likely be working on a proposal for a new book, but I have to get my one-sheets** in order before I can brainstorm directions with my agent.

  • Read three books. GASP. Only three? Victoria, for shame. YES FOR SHAME. I have been a ridiculously slow reader since 2020, and I think my brain is a little broken. I also find it hard to read when I’m drafting/editing, and that’s almost all the time - it’s especially bad now because TEMPEST is 1000+ pages long. But I will try!!! I’m setting my bar very low so hopefully I sail over it.

And that’s it for me for this installment! Never fear, I plan to get another newsletter out soon with more info on editing AND events in the near future.

I would be remiss if I did not add that, at present, the President of the United States is sending the National Guard and US Marines into my city, against the will of our state government and our local law enforcement. It is an egregious abuse of power, designed to instigate violence and justify a violent response. All because the city of Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, and we will not betray the core values of our community. I stand in solidarity with my friends and neighbors. We will not turn on each other, and destroy a community built on hard work and hope. I am particularly inspired by the brave educators of the LAUSD protecting their students, and their futures in America.

Stay safe, stay curious, I love you all.

Victoria

*I plan on doing a video/post on what I mean by “editing for the eye.”

**I just posted a TikTok explaining one-sheets but I’m happy to do the same in a future newsletter!

So what is PLOT TWIST?

Hosted by bestselling authors Victoria Aveyard (Red Queen, Realm Breaker) & Soman Chainani (The School for Good and Evil), PLOT TWIST takes you behind the scenes of the biggest creative swings in our careers:

⚔️ Victoria’s TEMPEST — her first-ever adult novel, an epic pirate fantasy.

🌎 Soman’s YOUNG WORLD — a red-hot YA political thriller

Each week, we:

• Pull back the curtain on our creative process

• Debate hot topics in publishing & entertainment

• Pitch wild plot twists we want to see IRL

• Answer your mailbag questions

🎧 New episodes available to listen or watch every Thursday.

And lucky you, the first episode is RIGHT HERE! Hope you enjoy, I know we did.

If you have questions for our mailbag, email mail@plottwistpod.net.

Cheers,

Victoria & Soman

Believe it or not, I’ve been publishing books for a decade. And in those ten years since I first debuted, I’ve done it all with the added burden (or privilege) of existing as an author Online. The social media platforms have certainly changed. Not to date myself, but when I started Twitter was the space du jour. But the rules of engagement, for the most part, have not.

Now, this is not meant to be taken as a hard mandate or an exhaustive list. Or even a true guide. One of the more frustrating things about having a platform is knowing the rules are actually different depending on who you are, who your following is, what you do, what personality you’ve curated etc. etc. I know something I post on my account will be met with far more backlash (or praise!) then the same thing posted on the account of another author. So take what you want from this diatribe, and apply what works for you and what you’ve discovered the rules are for *you*.

These are the rules for *me* that I try to follow in my spaces, that I have discovered work best for me (and my platform) over ten years and multiple changes in the Way The Internet Works.

1. We exist on algorithm driven platforms now. The FYP is king, be it on TikTok, Instagram, or Threads. The video you posted today may be the first time another person sees your content, and they enter that relationship with no idea who you are, what your context is, or where you are coming from. Keep that in mind. I’ve run into a lot of trouble speaking on the publishing industry when I didn’t make myself specifically clear as to my experience or background in traditional publishing. The flip side is true as well, if you see someone speaking on the industry in a way you disagree with, make sure you guys are actually speaking about the same things. So much gets lost in translation now.

2. You must be invited in. Like a vampire, I’m not engaging in a space where I have not been summoned. Obviously I can go looking for reviews and even hashtags, but unless I am directly tagged in something, I must not engage. Especially in critique of my work. The only times I’ve broken this rule are when an account is accusing me personally of something I did not do, be it through willful malice or fundamental misunderstanding. And even then, I usually restrain.

   1. If you are invited in, still proceed with caution. Assess. Read the room. Feel out the energy, and your own bandwidth.

      1. Is it a critique of my work?

         1. If positive, I will sometimes like, comment, or even repost. Sometimes I feel weird or self-centered doing this, so don’t feel sad if I don’t interact. It’s a me thing.

         2. If negative, I generally ignore unless this is a repeated action and then I will ask to not be tagged. And sometimes zip over to Threads to reiterate one of the of the agreed upon Rules of Engagement for Readers: don’t tag authors in negative reviews.

      2. Is it a critique of me personally?

         1. Yes - and seems to be in good faith, coming from a place of misunderstanding or I’ve misstepped and need to be corrected. Clear to engage and try to understand what I’m missing or what they’re missing.

         2. Yes - and seems to be in bad faith. The energy is off in some way.

            1. This account has all the hallmarks of a sockpuppet/troll situation. Usually ignore.

            2. This account has shown this behavior repeatedly or this account seems to have a personal vendetta, this account *wants* to tussle.

               1. Why? Just mad at me? Clear to engage if time and energy allows, but usually let it go. No oxygen is best, and some people can be frightening. And at the end of the day, these people do not want to understand your perspective, they just want a wall to throw their anger at, and you happen to be it for the day.

               2. Why? Is this the account of *another* author looking for attention, and a way to get onto my platform to use for their own gain because they aren’t finding traction with their own content? *SEE BELOW*

            3. This account is posting something I disagree with on a moral level. Clear to engage, especially with the latter, when I want to make it crystal clear where I stand and what I believe in.

3. The public platform of an author is not the platform of a reader. While I love reading and books as much as the next person (if not more), I’m very aware that my position as a professional author means I cannot engage with literature Online the way others do. I have essentially crossed a line where I am not just a reader, but a colleague to other authors. And personally, I think being a good author means trying to avoid friendly fire within the trenches we occupy.

   1. Did I like this book? Hell yes, shout it from the rooftops.

   2. Did I like parts of this book but not others? Highlight only the things I enjoyed.

   3. Did I hate this book? Say nothing. If asked in person, my response is “it wasn’t for me.”

   4. Can I speak more broadly on writing craft and common topics within the industry, like trends and tropes and business practices? Absolutely. As long as I’m not calling out a specific author or book, I think this is fair game. *However* this does require nuance and your own judgement, not to mention acceptance that others may disagree or misunderstand you. Then it’s time to work through Rule 1 again.

   5. Sometimes I will slip and say something shady or ill-advised. It’s up to me to stand by it, explain it, own it, or apologize for it.

4. Who do I invite in? What kind of behavior am I tolerating in my spaces and who am I allowing to engage? On the one hand, it’s almost impossible to silo a social media platform, especially those that are more algorithm-driven where the platform pushes content to people who don’t follow you and your content is subject to the whims of the FYP. There is no way to disinvite without extreme attention and curation, and even that fails. But there are boundaries we can try to hold and some things I have done to make sure I’m not inviting in more than I can handle.

   1. No more Twitter. Self-explanatory. It’s an unusuable cesspool under the thumb of a tech oligarch trying to buy love and respect. The abuse is rampant, there is zero oversight, and truly heinous shit is platformed for clicks all day every day.

   2. Clear instruction as to how to contact me for business inquiries. Every single platform I maintain tells everyone to email my agent. Fielding inquires for interviews or partnerships or blurb requests via dm is not doable for me. You’re just adding an extra step because I’m going to loop in my agent anyway, to help me vet requests and schedule them. I also think when this clear mandate is ignored or skipped, it helps designate what accounts are serious about their inquiries, and which are shooting off DMs like their outbox is a railgun.

   3. My DMs are only open on one platform (Instagram) and only then from accounts that already follow me. I do not check DMs elsewhere, and I barely check DMs on IG. The scaling back of DMs is something I’ve had to do recently because I truly can’t keep up or take on the emotional weight of some of the things I’m sent.

      1. (my inbox is still open on Tumblr too but no anonymous messages allowed, shhhh)

   4. When do I block? I do think blocking is personal and there is zero harm in blocking as you see fit, for your mental health and boundaries. Personally, I very rarely block, and only then I reserve it for spam accounts or abusive behavior.

   5. What interactions do I reward with my attention? This is a bit more psychological. It’s proven that negativity stays with us and takes up more space than positivity, so I’m actively trying to engage more with positive interaction than negative. This ties in with that point above I haven’t extrapolated on yet, SO I WILL NOW!

** I’m noticing a particularly gross trend more and more. It isn’t new (I saw this on Twitter too), but we operate now on platforms that greatly reward friction and controversy. So I see a lot more accounts trying to use that to fuel their own reach. Clickbait, essentially. Again, it isn’t new, but it exists in a very odd and, in my opinion, off-putting way on author social media.

I break it down into three categories - pity bait, cringe bait, and rage bait.

• Pity bait - We’ve all see those staged videos. No one showed up for Grandma’s book signing. Surprise, Grandma’s gone viral and that picture book is sold out! What a miracle! (it was not a miracle, the empty book signing wasn’t real, but the manipulation was!)

  • In my opinion, worse still are the pity bait videos that actively push misinformation on the publishing industry, and can be very damaging to aspiring authors trying to understand how it works. I.E. “This big 5 publisher loves my book but won’t publish it until I get X amount of followers.” It’s just bullshit and we are all dumber for having been subjected to this idiotic sales tactic.

• Cringe bait - Dove tails with pity, based on whether or not an old lady at an empty table also makes you cringe. But usually predicated upon saying the book isn’t good enough for whatever reason, or invent another scenario that isn’t based in truth and designed to manipulate someone into buying a product.

• Rage bait - Again, another emotional manipulation. In my experience, rage bait to me specifically looks like baiting not a reader into buying a book, but another author (usually with a larger platform) to platform the account in question. Even to get dunked on. Essentially, inventing controversy with another author to use their name to expand the reach of their content.

  • I’ve gotten better at identifying when another author is doing this to me, and refusing to platform their attempt.

So what’s wrong with these tactics? Anything for clicks right? We’re in the Wild West of content and everyone is just fighting to be seen. We shouldn’t hate the player, we should hate the game right? Honestly, yeah. Do whatever you want and build whatever platform you think you need to sell copies and get more eyeballs on your work.

But I must advise - the bait content is *not* a long term strategy to maintain readers. And you cannot maintain longevity as an author without getting readers to continue to invest in you. Not to mention, it looks shitty to anyone who might be your colleague later on.

On we go.

4. You will never be fully understood. This is a rule that I am continuously reminding myself of. I am a person who is deeply sensitive to being misunderstood, and it makes me a bit relentless in trying to explain myself. But I also must understand that I am speaking to a wider audience of people I do not know*, who may not know me or have context about who I am. There will be gaps I can’t fill in. There will be moments when I realize….this person is not playing with the same deck of cards and we will never see eye to eye. Or this person is just not acting in good faith. And I have to be better at letting those interactions go. AND YET.

5. There is an inherent power imbalance. This goes back to the crossing of the line from reader to author. The responsibility of a larger platform is different, and carries a lot of weight. Wield it wisely. That said, there is also the flip side - I am a real person creating a hopefully authentic image of myself online. I use my platform not just to talk about my books and find new readers, but to connect and humanize myself. Many accounts do not operate in the same way, and for me, I do not know 99.9% of the little faces that come into my space. I have a lot of responsibility in how I engage, they have none. And there is an inherent inequality to the standards public persons are held to versus the anonymous horde.

6. Prioritize yourself and your mental health. This is a rule I regularly forget, or actively toss into the garbage. I shouldn’t, of course. But I am working on finding a balance that allows me to still feel like myself on my platform (she’s a yappy bitch!!!), but save energy to do the things I love like writing my books and living my life with the people (and dogs) around me.

7. Believe in what you say. I am, to the best of my ability, never asserting something I don’t believe, and rarely do I restrain myself from speaking on something I feel strongly about. There’s nuance of course - unfortunately personal safety comes into play, and has been a factor in my mind since my experiences as A Woman Online In 2016. Does that mean I speak every little dumbass thought that crosses my mind? Usually not.

8. Everything you see on social media is curated, including my own platforms. We are all choosing what to show and how to portray ourselves. This isn’t unique and a good thing to keep in mind when engaging. You have no idea what people are going through, what struggles they do not show, and what burdens they carry unless they decide to let you in. Not to mention what narratives about backgrounds, success, struggles, and obstacles are highlighted - or hidden.

9. Other people are watching. It’s true, our content is angled for readers first, so it might be annoying to people who don’t fall in that bucket. My friends make fun of my posts all the time but they aren’t *for* them and we all know it. The other piece of this, especially if you are an author - other authors do see your content, how you engage, what you say. Make sure you are representing yourself in the way you want to be seen, not just by readers, but colleagues too. I’ve made plenty of mistakes myself and one of the only ways to realize that is to see the same behavior mirrored by someone else, and realize, oh shit that is a bad look. Oh shit *I* did that to. It’s far from the end of the world, but worth keeping in mind.

10. To quote Dorinda Medley, “say it, forget it, write it, regret it.” Don’t put anything in print you wouldn’t want repeated out loud. I’m serious. Or put it in the (trusted) groupchat.

11. Scale down. This is a rule I’m pursuing and failing. I am trying to scale down my social media presence because I am simply Too Online and I need to be More Functional. Nevertheless, she persisted (in refreshing the website)!!!

I hope this made sense, and helped break down exactly how much thought, care, and stress goes into the social media platforms of many, many authors.

I would also acknowledge that I am a straight cis white woman, with the privilege of a dream career and success I can hardly fathom. So I am very rarely battling for my identity on top of all the other nonsense we see day in and day out. I am operating from a place of relative safety, and even then it can be very difficult. Please keep that in mind when demanding time and energy from your favorite authors, especially those of marginalized identities and backgrounds.

I leave you with a quote from the acknowledgements of Nic Stone’s new book DEAR MANNY. She read it aloud at Teen Book Con in Houston, and it struck me to the core. This isn’t just a rule for engagement on social media, but a good rule for engagement in Real Life.

“Well, in the seven-ish years since Dear Martin was published, I've encountered a gloriously wide range of young people who read and were moved by it. Through emails and messages and letters from and conversations with them, I've come to realize three universal truths:

1. Being a person is hard.

2. Being a person in relationship with other people is harder.

3. Being a person in a multicultural world where you have to be in relationship with lots of people, many of whom look, think, feel, and believe differently than you do, is the hardest thing of all. Number three feels especially true right now. Just turn on the news if you don't believe me.) And yet here we all are: trying to figure out not only how to survive, but how to thrive and to do the most good in a world full of other people.

The same is true for young men like Justyce McAllister, Quan Banks, and Jared Peter Christensen (that's who's on the cover of this book): Despite being from very different walks of life, all three of these young men have done the best they can with the information they have about the cards they've been dealt. What makes the difference is what they decide to do with those cards once they get new information.”

To new information.

Love,

Victoria & Indy

And if you’re wondering what I’m talking about (Meta pirating books to train a new AI platform, huh?), you can find more information here. The Atlantic also posted a database so you can search and see if your work was also pirates alongside millions of protected works. Wired also broke a story about this in January, here.

And here’s what I had to say. We spoke for a bit longer than the interview, and I’m so grateful to be given the space to echo what so many of my writer colleagues are feeling. Thank you to Hafsa Quraishi and Deepa Fernandes for including me.

“I've written eight novels, and to see that they have been stolen, essentially — not just in English, but in so many different languages … it's quite a violation,” Aveyard said.

“I think we're all just a little bit scared for our jobs and our future as artists,” Aveyard said. “At the end of the day, it does feel like our work was stolen and piracy is a bigger conversation — but to know that it's not an individual theft, it is the theft by a multi-billion dollar corporation.”

How hard is it to be a writer — and how is your work impacted by piracy?

“I think there's this misconception that a lot of authors — especially the authors most people know — they're very successful. But that is not 99% of working writers, let alone working artists. This job takes so much luck to continue doing it, let alone talent and opportunity and determination. And piracy is unfortunately one of those things that threatens the livelihood of authors and makes it harder for us to be compensated for our work so that we can keep doing the work. It is proven to show that it does reduce sales, it does affect authors’ careers.

“I feel like there's a lot of nuance here. Of course, we're talking about access to reading, but at the same time, you have to think about the people who are creating those stories for you and what do they want and what do they need.”

Meta makes the argument that it’s “fair use” to train their AI models using copyrighted books without a license because it will transform the original material into brand-new work. Is that a fair argument?

“It's not brand new work, right? You can't submit an AI-written paper in a college classroom. It wouldn't be considered your material. So how can you call an AI-written novel, for example, legitimate and original? It's not original work. It's just remixing and regurgitating pieces that it's already been given. There's nothing new there.”

What do you hope will come out of the lawsuit other writers have brought against Meta?

“I think we’re hoping that it turns into a class-action lawsuit that we can all be included in. A lot of us don’t understand this technology and it’s evolving so quickly, it’s evolving faster than the laws can be made. I think we're hopeful that down the road there can be some sort of oversight, some sort of legal framework, because AI is here. People are using it without our consent. So we just need some sort of structure to make sure there is consent involved, because the intention is to create a competitor. It's not just theft of the work; it's theft of the work to create something to replace us.

“[Meta] have very clearly chosen in this discovery — we've seen it in their emails — to say, ‘We can look to license and do this legally, but it's too slow and we don't care.’ So they would rather pirate. So now I think the only thing we can hopefully enforce is compensation and consent.”

What are the implications for the world of literature moving forward?

“I'm not sure, because I'm one of those people who looks at generative-AI moving into the art space and I'm like, ‘Why are we doing this? Why are we moving AI into the humanities?’ Some people would argue it's a tool, like a modern update to a paintbrush. But even Photoshop requires artistic skill — and I'm not handwriting my books, but I need to know how to write, no matter how many times Mr. Clippy pops up.

“I do worry about anyone who thinks generative-AI can make them an artist or an author. You're kind of saying you can't do this without machine interference, and I don't know why you would want to do it in the first place. So I don't really even know who this is for.”

Thanks for sticking with us, and continuing to support artists so that we can continue making art.

Love,

Victoria

I think this chapter hints at A LOT of where I intend to take these characters next, and I’ll leave it at that. ;)

Domacridhan swam beneath a dark sea. Sometimes light rippled on the surface of the water, close enough to touch. As if he might only lift his head and breathe again, the sun warm on his face. Sometimes the light seemed far away, fading until blackness took hold, and there was only the water. Somewhere in his mind, he wondered how he could swim and swim and swim, and never surface. But also never drown.

A minute or a year passed. The immortal could not tell in the dark. But the light remained, distant at first. Then closer and stronger. Until he realized the light was not the glow of a golden sun. Nor even the flickering burn of a candle.

He awoke to the lantern-warmth of tiger eyes.

Sorasa Sarn stared from across the little room, her body coiled in a chair like a snake on a stone. She was wound just as tightly, legs drawn up beneath her, arms wrapped around her frame. As if the assassin feared she might fly apart, her body held together only by the strength of her own grasp.

Somehow, Dom felt the same. Liable to fall apart at any moment, torn to irretrievable pieces.

Sorasa’s copper gaze fixed on his face, her focus so absolute she did not blink as he stirred. No part of her moved while feeling returned to Dom’s limbs.

At first, only his fingers twitched, each one unfamiliar and slow to respond. He felt pinned to the bed beneath him, so heavy he feared he might crash through the frame to the floor. For a long moment, all he could do was stare at Sorasa, her gaze more piercing than any blade. He expected her to say something. A cutting remark or derisive comment about his inability to die. Even just a sneer.

But her lips never moved. Her face never changed.

His abdomen twinged, pain waking from his wounds. As feeling returned to his limbs, so did the agony. Dom winced against it, the twinge sharpening into a visceral burn. Whatever other bruises and injuries he carried, all paled in comparison. For a moment, he could not breathe, near strangled by the spearing ache.

Through it all, Sorasa kept still. She could be a bronze statue and not flesh, but for the slow rise of her chest and the steady, familiar beat of her heart.

It felt like being examined; a corpse on a slab instead of a living body in a soft bed. Dom could not help but grit his teeth at her silence and forced himself to sit up. Pain ripped through his torso with the motion.

Only then Sorasa flinched, her calm shattering as she sprang up from her chair. Her heart rammed, suddenly racing. Her pulse thrummed; the loudest thing in the little room.

Still, no words ever came.

It isn’t often I find you lost for words, Amhara, Dom wanted to say. But what little sense he still possessed made the immortal hold his tongue. Grimly, he swallowed the jibe.

Once, long ago, Sorasa fell silent and would not speak for many days. It was how she marked the deaths of her kin, the Amhara assassins she slayed to save Corayne. To save me, he knew, remembering the forest clearing. The ring of bodies, Amhara all of them. Dead but for one. Sorasa prayed over each, whispering her last words for long weeks.

She was silent again now. In her pain, in her grief.

Despite the ache in his body, the wound in his torso screaming in protest, Dom eased himself back against the pillows. He moved slowly, deliberately, thinking more clearly with every passing second. It was not like an immortal to think through every inch, shifting precariously as a mortal. Dom felt like a clumsy child, trying not to harm himself.

Sorasa let him adjust, still standing at the foot of the bed. Her eyes ticked over him, noting his movements, halting as they were. Dom watched her read the pain on his face.

“I am alive, Amhara,” he finally said, his voice raw from disuse. Or from screaming.

Perhaps both, Dom thought, wondering how much time had passed since the battle.

Her throat worked, swallowing around something. Sorasa finally blinked, black lashes fluttering against bronze skin. She had bruises too. The worst ringed her neck in a purple shadow, tracing the outline of a hand.

A sudden wave of rage washed over Dom, both icy and burning. He growled low in his throat, remembering the sight of Lord Mercury. Once Sorasa’s master, her maker. And then, her would-be executioner. Like all the other horrific things in the world, he crashed down on Iona too, arriving in the final onslaught. As Taristan and his undead army ravaged the castle, so did Mercury, intent on destroying all Dom held dear. And but for a few seconds, he would have succeeded.

Sorasa felt his scrutiny. She turned her head, allowed her hair to fall loose and obscure her neck. Hiding the tattoos of who she was once, and the bruises of who she had become.

In spite of his wounds, Dom leaned forward, trying to close some distance. Pain laced up his ribs and he hissed through his teeth, flinching.

It was enough proof of life for Sorasa Sarn.

“You should keep still,” she finally said, her voice halfway between a snap and a sigh. With a shrug, she returned to her chair, and a looser position, one leg crossed over the other.

Despite the aches all over his body, Dom lifted a corner of his mouth.

“Somehow you manage to sound both annoyed and relieved by my survival,” he said, matching her tone. “This is survival, isn’t it?”

Whatever annoyed mask Sorasa decided to wear slipped a little, her tiger eyes flashing. For a paralyzing second, Dom wondered if she might simply disappear into a wisp of smoke. It was worse than all the other pains put together, and the air felt stolen from his lungs.

Somehow, Sorasa understood.

“I am alive, Elder,” she said slowly, in the most gentle voice he knew her to possess.

His mouth felt dry. “Haunt me.”

Sorasa said those words on the steps of the castle, before all the realm turned to hell. The same words hung between them now, spoken in his voice. It was a statement as much as a question Dom could not bear to ask.

Are you a ghost? he wondered, eyes stinging.

Am I?

“I am alive, Elder,” Sorasa said again, as if she could read his thoughts.

This time, she left the chair behind, until there was no space between them at all.

Her hand was warm in his own, solid, the bones fragile in his grasp. Bruised and breakable. Mortal.

Dom flinched at her touch. He was more than familiar with Sorasa Sarn, having journeyed at her side for months on end. They bickered and bled together, crossing blades, trading insults as easily as they breathed. But nothing like this. Never like this. Not even on the shipwrecked beach.

His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist. Again, her pulse flared. This time he felt it blazing against his own, both hearts stubbornly still beating.

Then her hand was gone, pulled back, leaving Sorasa to stand awkwardly at his bedside. Her tiger eyes dropped, shifting to look anywhere but at him.

Dom used the opportunity to collect himself, and the little room came into better focus.

He was in the east wing of the castle, in a narrow chamber with stone walls and cramped bookshelves. Across the room, a single window opened to face the rising dawn. The air was cold and fresh, a balm against his fevered skin. Dom knew this place, as he knew all of Tíarma. After five centuries living within the castle, there were few places beyond his memory. Even so, he could not recall a bed here. It must have been dragged in for his use, the small reading room transformed into his personal chambers. Or my grave.

Still hovering, Sorasa let him look. Her sharp edges softened, some tension releasing from her shoulders. While Dom felt run through, Sorasa certainly looked the same. Her leathers and chain mail were long gone, but even her plain clothing was battered, wrinkled from days of wear. Her long sleeves did not hide the bandages around one hand, bits of dried blood peeking through the folds. Her black hair hung ragged, stringy against the tops of her shoulders. Shadows ringed her eyes, and her cheeks were sunken, forming hollows in her bruised face. Dom swallowed down the impulse to ask if she bothered to eat.

There was another question weighing heavy instead, so heavy he could barely ask. It felt like moving a mountain.

“Corayne—” he began, voice going hoarse again.

Sorasa was kind enough not to let him finish. She held up a bandaged hand, her bruised fingers blue beneath the fabric.

“Alive,” she said quickly, fiercely, her eyes flashing. The Amhara was so good at inducing pain but would not draw his out.

The mountain slid. Beneath the blanket, Dom’s chest rose and fell as he released the worst breath he ever held.

There was no word strong enough to describe the relief he felt. It coursed over him, and Dom was happy to be pulled under, his eyes falling shut against grateful tears. The pain was still there, impossible to ignore, but now Dom was grateful for it. The pain was an easy trade for Corayne’s life.

“All of us,” Sorasa continued, and again he felt her hand in his own. This time, her touch was tentative, hesitant. “We are all alive.”

Dom opened his eyes again, her figure swimming before him. Andry. Charlie. Valtik. Sigil. Alive, alive, alive. He recited their names over and over, their faces dancing. It was all he could do to keep from crying.

His fingers closed, Sorasa’s palm flush against his own.

He wanted to ask so many questions, about too many things. The shadow of Taristan lay heavy across his thoughts, the edge of his white face a bolt of lightning against blackness. He remembered the Queen of Galland too, vague through his bloody memories. She rode into the courtyard as his vision failed, his eyes drifting shut.

Another name rose to his lips instead.

“What of Isibel?” he murmured.

His aunt’s name felt like another wound punched through his heart.

Sorasa’s silence, and steady gaze, were answer enough.

Another wave crashed. All Dom could do was let it break, and hope he did not drown. He would not think of his aunt’s betrayal, and the utter pain that drove her to it. He would not think of Ridha among the undead corpses, unrecognizable but for her green armor. Her smile as far away as Glorian Lost.

He could only hope they were together, mother and daughter. He could only pray the beliefs of his people were wrong. That a soul lost in Allward was not lost forever.

Looking at Sorasa, at the rising sun behind her, Dom hoped he had a long time before he found out for himself.

Her palm itched, prickling with the sensation of his skin. Sorasa felt torn. She wanted to run back to her chair and retreat to a point of safety. It was not like an assassin to live so exposed. But she stayed rooted, frozen in place. Unwilling to let go, even though her instincts screamed to pull back.

This is not the first time you’ve touched the immortal oaf, she told herself, chiding her own discomfort. In her head, she saw all the other moments. In battle, on the road, in a clearing filled with Amhara corpses. On the bittercold [ARR3] [VA4] coast, with night rapidly falling, her own body tucked against his for some semblance of warmth.

Her throat worked, swallowing hard.

This is the first time I’ve touched him without death hanging over us. Without the end of the realm on the horizon.

“You are the Monarch of Iona now,” Sorasa forced out, grasping for something to break the heavy silence. Slowly, she pulled her hand back. But her fingers still buzzed, tingling.

Dom blinked up at her from the bed, his eyes round at the implication. His new position was obvious, given the circumstances, but still a shock. On the blanket, his now empty hand flexed, as if feeling Sorasa’s absence.

“I suppose that explains the guards posted at my door,” he muttered. Clearly he could hear the clink of armor, if not the heartbeats of the Elders in the hall. “I’m surprised they did not put me in the Monarch’s wing. And instead chose this closet.”

His green eyes narrowed, taking in the walls again.

“I chose the closet,” Sorasa offered. “I thought you might not enjoy your . . . predecessor’s rooms.”

Judging by the look on his face, it was the right choice indeed. Dom gave her a small nod, ducking his chin against the bare skin exposed above the blanket.

“Thank you,” Dom murmured. Sorasa did not miss the way his pulse thrummed in his exposed throat, or the feathering tightness of his jaw as he clenched his teeth. It made something tighten in her too.

Then his forehead furrowed, brows drawn together. “How long?” he added, near to a whisper.

Sorasa fought the sudden, surprising urge to brush a lock of blond hair back from his face. The long strands were clean of blood again, and they gleamed like spun gold.

“Not so long as I thought it would be until you opened your eyes,” she answered, crossing her arms across her chest. Anything to keep steady. Her voice faltered. “If you opened them at all.”

Don’t dwell on it, she scolded herself, even as her worry rose up again.

“Three days, Domacridhan,” Sorasa said. She felt every hour like a blow to the head. “Three days since all of it.”

All of it. She had no other way to describe the siege of Iona. The killing ground that was the valley floor. The corpses vomiting up from the depths of the castle. Lord Mercury and the Amhara. The dragon. The red wizard. The Spindle burning at the heart of it all. And Dom bleeding to death in her arms, his immortal life spilling all over her.

Her head spun, a wave of dizziness threatening to knock her clean over. Sorasa stood firm against it, drawing a cold breath to steel her nerves.

Dom studied her through it all, his focus unrelenting. She watched as he chewed his words, choosing carefully. It rankled her, seeing the care he took, the way he tried to avoid causing her any more pain.

I prefer pain to the mess I’ve become, she thought bitterly.

“Are the rest—?” he finally said, glancing at the door.

“Injured?” Sorasa finished for him. Again, she spoke quickly, so as not to let him think the worst and suffer more than he already had. “Not like you. The rest of us had the good sense not to lose half the blood in our bodies. It’s an odd habit of yours, Dom.”

The jab landed well, and Dom grinned.

“One I do not intend to repeat,” he replied, trying to sit up a little more.

When he winced, Sorasa felt herself wince too.

“Do you need something for the pain?”

Dom shot her a perplexed look, one she knew too well.

“Do you have something?” he said, sounding surprised.

Despite her now immense experience with immortals, Sorasa could not help but shake her head in dismay. With a few quick motions, she went to her bag tucked behind the chair.

“You Elders are infuriating, you know,” Sorasa sighed, retrieving a pouch. She spooned a measure of ivory-colored powder into a cup of water and swirled, letting it dissolve. “How many thousands of years have you lived, and still none of your healers know how to drug you properly?”

Dom could only shrug as he drank down the mixture. He did not react to what Sorasa knew as a bitter taste, and she wondered if she gave him enough to aid an immortal body.

“We don’t have much cause for healers,” he said, passing the cup back over. “Or we didn’t, I suppose.”

Grimacing, he lifted the blanket a little, exposing more of his sculpted torso to the cold morning air. Sorasa didn’t need to watch to know what he saw. She’d seen enough of his body in the last few days, his pale skin slashed with blood. And now bandages, bruises, little cuts healing over while other wounds still tried to split open. He ran a hand over the worst of them, brushing fingers over a heavy bandage lashed around his body. Beneath was the wound Isibel gave him when she ran him through with the greatsword of Iona. It was a blow meant to kill.

“Was this your handiwork again?” he muttered, eyeing the bandage.

In her head, Sorasa remembered a broken cottage outside Ascal, and an immortal Elder splayed out on a table. She sewed up his wound then, barely a cut compared to the one he bore now.

“Some,” Sorasa said thickly. Her mind flew from the cottage to the castle courtyard, where she ripped apart her own clothes to stop Dom from bleeding out. “It took more than me to put you back together.”

With a will, Sorasa turned on her heel, putting her back to Dom before her mask could slip. But her heartbeat quickened and Sorasa flushed, embarrassed, knowing he could hear her thundering pulse. Knowing Dom could read the pain she still felt, and what more it meant. In the Amhara guild, Sorasa learned to school her emotions, to strangle them until she felt nothing at all. But her lessons felt far away, her grief too much to ignore.

He is alive, you stupid woman, she told herself, glaring out the window to the valley beyond. Army camps ringed the great ridge of the city, like a patchwork quilt against the golden fields. You grieve for someone living.

“Sorasa.”

Dom’s voice rang low and stern. She imagined it to be the voice he would use on the throne, as the Monarch.

Sorasa could only chatter on, willing her voice to stop shaking. “Luckily the Temur travel with healers of their own. They had you in good enough order.”

Good enough order. I watched your every breath for two days straight, just to make sure you never stopped breathing.

The Elder growled again. “Sorasa.”

“Your advisors are coordinating repairs of the city and gathering supplies. Sigil has been doing her best as ambassador between the Emperor’s army and your own, but she doesn’t have the patience for it much longer.” Sorasa felt her heart calm a little, enough to turn back from the window. “You have quite the headache on the other side of that door.”

From the bed, Dom gave her a piercing look.

“You’re headache enough, Amhara.”

In spite of herself, Sorasa felt a laugh rise up in her throat. It echoed through the room and Dom grinned.

“So here we are,” he muttered. “Afterward.”

“Afterward,” Sorasa echoed, half-stunned.

It felt so impossible before; their deaths all but a guarantee. The sudden possibility of life made her head spin, with all the realm spiraling around her. But for one place, one person, who remained fixed and still.

Sorasa took a step toward him. For some reason, she felt her hands shake.

“Your afterward is decided, Elder,” the assassin said softly.

She could see it already, Domacridhan of Iona, seated on his throne. The branch of an ash tree across his knees. Stoic and stern as the statues of his grand halls. Cold, distant, unfeeling. So far from the immortal she knew now.

Dom only tipped his head to one side, watching as she took another step. Sorasa could not hear his heartbeat, but she could see the flutter in his throat, the telltale sign of a hammering pulse.

“I decide when you do, Amhara,” he breathed, extending his hand again.

Sorasa wanted to run. Instead, her palm found his once more, her eyes locked to his own.

She watched as his lips parted, his pupils blowing wide. He looked like an animal, ready to sprint from danger. She knew the sensation too well and tightened her grip. Holding them both in place; holding them both together.

He used the hard voice again, the one better suited to a throne.

“My afterward is yours.”

Corayne expected Sorasa to find her and carry the news herself. Instead, she heard word of Domacridhan’s stirring from a passing guard. Andry was off in the city, helping with repairs to the wall, so she sprinted through the castle on her own. She felt her heart in her throat, too excited to notice bewildered faces as she tore through the halls.

Neither guard at his door tried to stop her. They knew better than to try.

But one did catch her eye, giving her a look beneath his helmet.

“The Monarch is sleeping,” he said, though he did not bar the way.

Corayne answered with a half-mad smile, her hand already pushing the door open to step inside. Only to freeze in the doorway, mouth agape and eyes wide.

Slowly, she took a step backward, letting the door close on two sleeping figures, one on top of the blankets, curled into the other. Glimpsed only for a moment but seared into Corayne’s mind like a brand.

“I told you,” the guard murmured as Corayne ran off again.

Her laughter echoed through the halls for a long time, the first joyful sound in Tíarma since the battle ended. But not the last.

2024 was a professional rollercoaster in a very good way! I started off the year publishing FATE BREAKER and finishing up the REALM BREAKER trilogy (for now 😉). I was lucky enough to do both a US tour *and* my first UK tour since COVID. Both went off without a hitch and I was so touched to meet you all on the road.

After the FATE BREAKER launch, I went full tilt working on the proposal for new project - my ADULT FANTASY DEBUT. After several months of back and forth with my agent, we went out on submission with the new project in June. After a very exciting (but stressful) few weeks, we went to auction, and my pirate fantasy TEMPEST landed with HarperCollins Voyager! I did a more in depth post about the submission process a few months back, that you can read here.

With TEMPEST sold on proposal, that meant I now had to actually *write* the rest of the novel. That’s currently what I’m working on right now, and my deadline is rapidly approaching! I’m so excited to get the first draft finished (easily the most painful and yet somehow most enjoyable part of the publishing process for me) and be able to talk about the book more with all of you!

I spent the rest of 2024 working on the Tempest draft, along with lots of travel and lovely book events meeting you guys! I even got to go to FIL Guadalajara in Mexico, my very first book event in Latin America! Everyone was so welcoming and I felt lucky to check another country off my list. I never dreamed I’d get to travel the world with my stories, and it means so much to do it!

As for 2025…like I said, I’m careening towards my TEMPEST deadline, and it looks like it’s going to be a bumpy landing. Maybe I should steer away from plane jokes while the current Secretary of Transportation is a reality tv wash-out….

Anyways, I’ve got lots of fun events coming up this spring, as detailed below!

My deadline coincides with a few scheduled events, as you can see, so I’m going to be REALLY entertaining. But strangely, I’ve been able to get great work done while traveling this year. So I’m weirdly optimistic!

I’m especially excited for RomantasyCon here in Los Angeles - it will be my first romance convention since RT many, many moons ago. I’m especially looking forward to meeting new authors and readers I don’t generally get to see on the YA track! Come say hi if you’re attending!

Now for the semi-monthly Q&A - keep an eye out for the question box on my Instagram, and I’ll try to get to yours!

Are you coming to Brazil (or *insert country here*)? - Thanks so much for asking! International tours are very complicated, and usually require organization from my foreign publisher and/or a book festival. Basically, I have to be invited! I was able to visit Brazil in 2018 for Bienal, along with a mini-tour, and it was stunning. I would love to come back one day!

Can you write another book where Maven is alive / can you write another RED QUEEN book? - I will never say never, but at present, I don’t know how much story there is left for me to tell in the RED QUEEN world. I have to be excited about the prospect, and gripped by a new idea, which just hasn’t happened. Of course I deeply love the characters and world, but I don’t see myself returning any time soon. I’m too excited about my new sandboxes!

Do you ever get writer’s block? - Yes! For me, writer’s block means one of two things: either you’re burnt out and need fresh eyes (so I take a break!) or the story has taken a wrong turn somewhere. The latter is much harder, because you need to start cutting back to wherever you took the wrong turn, and essentially remove the dead flesh to get back on track.

How long does the first draft of a novel take? - For me, I usually get a first draft finished in 6-7 months. But that isn’t a steady 6-7 months of work. I accelerate as I write, so I start slow, and by the end, I’m a breakneck pace. I joke that I write the first half of a book in 6 months and the second half in 1 month - but it helps that my third acts are always structured as a landslide. I just have to hold on!

Is there anything you wish you knew before becoming an author? - There’s no knowing how many other parts of the job exist beyond the writing until you’re in the job itself. So I was surprised to learn how much of publicity and marketing is part of our job, as well as maintaining a platform on social media.

Are you excited for any new projects this year? - After finishing the first draft of TEMPEST, I plan to give myself some downtime but not as much as usual. Because T is a standalone novel, I have to get my next project in gear quite quickly. Ideally, I’d love to get together my proposal for my next intended project, a YA duology, while waiting for edits on TEMPEST!

Has your writing process changed during your shift from YA to adult? - Not really. I still have to write in chronological order, and my writing style really hasn’t changed all that much. It’s the characters who are really different, as they are adults who know who they are, versus YA characters on journeys of self-discovery.

Will TEMPEST be first or third person POV? - Like the REALM BREAKER trilogy, TEMPEST is written in third person, but the POV is limited to a single character.

Do you have a favorite character in TEMPEST? - Yes, absolutely. The main character of TEMPEST, Cat Rose, is one of my favorites to date. I just love her pragmatic anger - she’s a woman who puts herself first, always.

Favorite books you read in 2024? - I adored THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SARAFI by S.A. Chakraborty!

And that’s it for February! Hope to see you next month, perhaps with good news about hitting my next deadline!

Cheers,

Victoria