Hello and welcome to my very first newsletter!

I have some exciting things to share with you this month, so I won’t waste much time with a long intro post, and just get into it.

FIRST CREATION News

I’m sure a lot of you have seen on Goodreads and Amazon that FIRST CREATION is now part of a series, the Gods and Monsters ‘verse. I have planned 2 more books with Stolas and Amitiel, with a couple of side characters getting their own standalone novellas. This universe is getting BIG y’all.

I’m really excited to share more detail from these upcoming books as I get closer to releasing them! I’m also excited to explore Amitiel and Stolas’ relationship more, as well as the world they’re exploring right now. (Lots of cannibalism, fucky Americana and more about what’s going wrong with Heaven to come!!)

Next, I’m excited to announce that paperbacks are closer than ever to being released! I’m working to get the PDF looking good enough to send off and waffling on the interior formatting, but I have MORE exciting news.

I’m working with a good friend, and very talented artist, Wendy from @/theartofabirdy (on twitter and Instagram) to design a new, illustrated cover for FIRST CREATION and the sequels.

She’s already done some incredible fanart for me, and I’m so excited to collaborate with her on this! I’ve seen some beginning concepts and color schemes (pink!!!! and green!!!!), and let me tell you, these covers are going to be GORGEOUS.

I’m looking at an October release for paperbacks (just to give myself and Wendy time to work on the cover and interior formatting to make it look wonderful.) I don’t have an exact date pinned down yet, but I will soon!

I’m still working hard to get the bonus scene ready to send out next month, but for now, I have a little bit of it ready, and you can find it down at the bottom of this newsletter! I hope you enjoy Stolas and Amitiel’s first meeting!

Finally, I just want to thank everyone who has bought, reviewed, and shared their thoughts on FIRST CREATION with me. I know I keep saying this, but this really is a dream come true, and I’m so thankful to y’all! I can’t wait to explore the world of FIRST CREATION more with you.

New Project Announcement

Some of you probably remember the ‘short story’ that Monster Manor helped me do the cover reveal for on Twitter, The Witch’s Necromancer. (Thank you, Monster Manor, for helping me with that!)

Well. Things have changed quite a bit, as I started fleshing the story out more and writing the characters, I realized that the idea didn’t fit with what I’d planned. This short story has now developed into an entirely new, novella-length idea. I’m also updating the title to reflect the changes.

I present to you:

MIDNIGHT MASS x THE BASTARD SON AND THE DEVIL HIMSELF

SWEET LAMB takes place in the FIRST CREATION universe, but doesn’t have any characters interacting on-screen. It is a novella-length romp through the rural plains at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, with cults, necromancers, sex rituals, polyamory, and doppelgangers.

It follows nonbinary cult survivor Liv Hartwin, who escapes the clutches of a sinister new age cult that thinks they’ve trapped an angel to do their bidding. Liv runs to the only place they can; the ancestral home of one of the most dangerous necromancers in the world. (Who also happens to be a neighbor to the cult compound, conveniently.)

Sloane and Clark Wainwright are a married t4t couple who run the most complete magic service anyone can hope for. Sloane is a necromancer, and Clark is a green witch who specializes in keeping things alive. They both try to stay out of the business of the cult as much as possible, but when Liv comes knocking at their door with ominous, world-ending news, they can’t turn them away.

Liv is dying, the cult has set something in motion that only Sloane and Clark can stop, and Liv holds the answer to everything that is going wrong in their small, Rocky Mountain town.

To save Liv, they’ll have to test their relationship to the breaking point, and possibly fall in love along the way. There’s an age gap polyam romance, sex, magic, horror, and finding tenderness in the most unlikely of places.

If FIRST CREATION was a love letter to fallen angels, this book is a love letter to escaping toxic spiritualism, standing up to your oppressors, and working through family trauma. It’s the same sort of religious trauma told in a different vein. I hope it can touch as many people as FC did, even though it’s a bit different.

While I’m foaming at the mouth to get this out into the world, I’m giving myself plenty of time for this one. I don’t plan to have it out until early this winter, because I want to take more time and make sure I have a good cover, paperbacks and everything sorted out right at release time! FIRST CREATION was definitely a lesson in patience (one that I failed lol). I’ll share news about preorders, ARCs, and more soon!

Books I Read This Month & Recommend

I had the privilege of reading a lot of wonderful books this month, mostly betas and ARCs, and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did!

Devout, An Anthology of Angels, edited by Quinton Li, ARC read
Out now, this wonderful anthology includes works from Morgan Dante, Freydís Moon, Rafael Nicolás as well as other amazing authors. There are all different kinds of angels, from horrifying to wonderful, and many of these stories will stick with me for a long time. I want to go back and reread the poetry and stories in here over and over again. There’s a kind of magic here that I haven’t found in any other anthology series. If you love angels as much as I do, this is a must read!

Wolf, Willow Witch, by Freydís Moon, (releases Sept. 4th), ARC read
If you read Heart, Haunt Havoc, the first book in the Gideon Testaments, you’ll know what a treat this is. If not, I beg you to read both books! Moon has such a wonderful way of writing gorgeous prose that sucks me in every time, with every book they write. The second installment of the Gideon Testaments is no exception. It follows Tehlor and Lincoln, and MAN I love a good villain romance. Gunnhild the rat was also one of my favorite characters. I laughed out loud several times reading this, and I hope that you will too!

Providence Girls, by Morgan Dante (releases Sept. 5th), ARC read
The comps for The Shape of Water and Portrait of a Lady on Fire drew me on to apply for this ARC, and it did not disappoint at all. (In fact, this book broke me a little in the best way possible.) I loved the setting, the characters, (Azzie is just like me fr) and the way the lore was spun into the text slowly and subtly. This is a sapphic romance that you don’t want to miss! I definitely recommend it for anyone who likes sapphic pining, body horror, and The Horrors that are the ocean.

As the Light Goes Out, by Olive J. Kelley (expected release, Oct 31st), beta read
This one releases a bit later than the rest of these, but I have to talk to you about it right away! I had the privilege of beta reading this for Kelley, and I’m so glad I did! I signed up for the lighthouse, and went into it expecting a sweet contemporary. I was delighted to find that they crafted an intense, heart-breaking story that had me clutching my computer until the last word. It is hot, intense, and delves deep into mental health in a way that made me feel incredibly seen. You don’t want to miss this one, it’s incredible!

Sneak Peek of Amitiel and Stolas’ First Meeting

Thank you for making it this far, here is your treat! (Don’t worry, they won’t all be this long, I have about 2 months worth of information for this first one lol.)

I hope you enjoy this sneak peek of Amitiel and Stolas meeting, and I’ll keep drafting and editing away to get it to you for the next newsletter! I’ll include it as a downloadable ePub or PDF file for the complete thing, but for now it’ll just be copy/pasted text from scrivener.

(Disclaimer: You might see slight changes in the final document!)

Something in the air sets Amitiel’s teeth on edge tonight.

Heaven told him, take a small group out east, see why the sky is so dark. Amitiel complied, as he always does. He didn’t say, there’s something off. He didn’t say, you’re wrong, even if he felt like it was true.

They don’t like what he has to say, even when they ask for the truth, and Amitiel has learned to keep certain pieces of it to himself. Even though it hurts, even though he feels like he’s sinning when he does it.

They know best, he tells himself over and over again as he swallows truths down like poison. We’re winning.

It tastes like a lie.

And so, he has ten of his best soldiers out in the furthest reaches of Heaven’s wilderness, so close to the edge of creation that he wonders if they’ll fade away into nothing.

The sky bleeds a violent shade of grey and the air is too still. Amitiel wants to draw his sword, to shove it into someone’s body, just to take the edge off. He aches for violence with an edge he’s never felt before. It feels like hunger. It feels like mania.

I’m better than this, he thinks. It tastes like a lie, like everything does these days.

He lights the torches one by one, until the eerie dark is chased away in their small circle. “We’ll camp here tonight,” he says, and the assembled angels nod, rustling their wings and looking no more enthused to be here than him. “It’s too dark to continue.”

“It’s not going to get any brighter,” someone mumbles. If they were closer to home, Amitiel would have said something, would have told them not to talk back. Here, though… he pretends he doesn’t hear. He pulls a pack closer to him and starts dividing up rations instead. His hands shake with guilt, with hunger, with everything in between, but he’s too tired. They all are.

“We’ll wait to eat until the scouts get back,” he says, and there’s another gentle murmur of consent. They’re all too tired, too hungry, to really argue. Not that Amitiel expects them to. His best are well-trained, shining paragons of everything a Soldier of Heaven should be. He feels a brief glow of pride swell in him, but it’s pushed back by the gnawing ache in his stomach.

They get smaller every week, it seems. Dried jerky and whatever plants they can get their hands on. Just enough to keep them going. Amitiel feels the fatigue as much as the rest of them, the way he’s been slowing down in battle, not reacting to attacks as fast.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks. We’re winning. It tastes bitter in his mouth, and he swallows thickly.

Before he can dwell on it much longer, there’s a shout. Amitiel stands, hand on the pommel of his sword, but as the beat of angel wings fill the air, he relaxes. He shields his eyes, squinting as the four scouts appear on the horizon.

Amitiel frowns, alarm skittering through him. There’s five shapes growing larger and larger, and by the time they land at the edge of the makeshift camp, Amitiel still can’t quite fathom it.

“Sir,” one of the scouts says, Laylah with her gentle face and soft voice. The grip she has on the slumped figure between her and Oriel is anything but gentle. “One of ours.”

I can see that, Amitiel thinks, drinking in the sight of him. He’s not one from Amitiel’s legion, or any that they work closely with. Amitiel doesn’t forget faces, especially not ones as striking as this.

He has a handsome, proud face, with high cheekbones and striking, dark hair. His wings are black tipped, as if each one had been dipped in ink and left to dry. Father took care making you, Amitiel thinks, and then shoves the thought away. They’re all equal in His eyes.

“Where did you find him?” Amitiel asks instead.

“By the river,” Oriel replies. He takes the weight of the unconscious angel from Laylah and gently sets him down at Amitiel’s feet. “He was like this when we picked him up.”

Amitiel crouches and brushes the hair off the angel’s face as gently as he can. The angel’s eyelids flutter, like he’s in a restless dream, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “Bring one of the torches,” Amitiel commands, and someone complies.

Warm torchlight spills over the angel and Amitiel bites back a gasp. His face, hidden in shadow before, is cast in stark relief. The bruise on his cheekbone isn’t new, but it looks painful. It arcs up to his temple and disappears into his hairline.

Similar bruises, less severe, litter his neck and disappear into the collar of his tunic. He doesn’t have any armor, and the only weapon around his waist is a wicked-looking blade that reminds Amitiel of something a demon would carry.

He lets go of the angel like he burns, and sits back on his haunches. Skies above, he thinks faintly as he watches the firelight play over the beautiful features of the angel. Something sets off alarm bells in his brain as he continues looking, growing louder and louder the longer he looks.

Something’s wrong, he thinks again, and as if to concur, thunder rolls above in the sky, so loud and deep that it reverberates through his chest.

Amitiel shivers. It’s the first truth he’s tasted in a long time.