Safe as Life
southern events + hot weather scent edit + digital gardens
Hello my beautiful fireflies! I’m on the road this week visiting family and friends, currently drinking cold brew in Kentucky while watching horses out the window. Summer is here in all her sticky thunderstorm and velvet night glory, and I’m soaking in the vibes South of the Mason-Dixon line. I’m wandering through overgorwn greenery, sipping juleps on porches, peering down at snakeskins with little kids, re-and listening to cicadas scream. Which is to say: it’s Raven Cycle summer baby.
I want to make sure I fill y’all in on some upcoming events, deals, and favorites before I hit the road again.
29 Days Until ASCENSION
I cannot believe that ASCENSION, book two in the Summoner’s Circle series, will be here on July 8th! She’s soapy, she’s sexy, she’s soaked with academic perfectionism and catholic angst and gay snark and too many demons! You’ve all been very patient while chewing on the bars of your enclosure for book two, so I’m going to slip you a treat. I’ve teased before that ASCENSION features a new love interest, and while I won’t spoil who he has his eye on or how that endeavor plays out, I’d love for you to meet him.
Our new love interest may not be everything he seems, but he sure knows his way around a circle of salt, and he makes “do as thou wilt” look pretty good. Nothing like a flame from the past to set the present on fire 🔥
If you haven’t preordered ASCENSCION yet, grab your hardcover or your Waterstones signed special edition before we sell out!
New to the Summoner’s Circle in all its queer witchy glory? Start with Odd Spirits, the revamped, illustrated, foiled prequel novella about a marriage in trouble in a haunted house 👻 There’s a matching emo colorway special edition from Waterstones if you are a ~collector~.
Events
I had a blast at Imaginarium in D.C, tabling with my bestie and co-author Laura Samotin (and slipping some contraband first pages of our yet-to-be-sold speculative crime romance under the table to guests). It filled my cup to meet so many wonderful author friends and readers!
If you missed me at Imaginarium, hopefully I can catch you TONIGHT at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Kentucky with my other bestie (and author crush and critique partner) Elizabeth Kilcoyne. We’re kicking off the evening at 7pm and will be talking all things Summoner’s Circle and craft together. It’s sure to be a blast. This event is FREE and unticketed, so show up and bring a friend!
Finally, I hope to see you at RomanceCon in Milwaukee in early September! General passes and day passes are still available, but they will sell out soon, since the VIP passes are now all gone.
Everything I’ve Been Loving Lately
books
my therapist has never recommended me a book in our whole year together, so I took him seriously when he told me to read Martha Beck’s THE WAY OF INTEGRITY. Written by a sociologist, it centers living in alignment with one’s own integrity while decentering inherited cultural markers of approval or success. The author structures her book on top of the movements of Dante’s inferno, so you know I am obsessed. I’ve also been luxuriating in the audiobooks for POSSESION by A.S. Byatt and re-reading by favorite dark fantasy book from my middle school years, POISON by Chris Wooding.
smells
I got approved for a ShopMy1 account, so all my perfume recommendations are now in one sleek place in a themed collection! Check out my favorite warm-weather perfumes, from woody fig frags, to citrusy matcha sparklers, to tropical fruit sexbombs.
beauty
One of my top favorites of May is the OUAI detox shampoo. I have very thick, dense, wavy hair, and this gently strips the product and oil buildup from my hair without drying it out. I own and love a lot of Violette lip products, but I am DELIGHTED to find that their Bisou Jelly Lipstick deposits color while looking like a gloss without giving me any of the horrible texture ick I experience with lip oils and lip glosses. Leave it to the French to perfect lipstick.
Lastly, if you want to be decadent with me; check out the mulberry silk sleep mask from Quince. It’s real silk for under $20 and it keeps me so cool while I slumber. Then I wake up feeling like I’m in Breakfast at Tiffanys.
videos
I’ve been watching some banger Youtube videos lately! Current favorites are: Why Do We Hoard Information We’ll Never Use? by Lady of the Library , The AI Hoax is Destroying America with Ed Zitron on Adam Conover’s channel, You Can’t Outgrow a Cage You’re Still Trying to Decorate by Pearlilee, and conceptual fashion: curating spaces for inner peace (rick owens / gaultier / westwood philosophy) by Rian Phin. Also, new Contrapoints dropped a couple months ago and once again, Natalie never misses.
That’s all I have for you this time, dear reader! My-big ass cultural commentary/personal essay piece of Catholic aesthetics, religious irony and religious sincerity, and conclave is out now, so if you didn’t check it out yet, give it a read. This month’s essays are going to be more actionable publishing craft advice essays, and I’m also working on week-in-my-life-as-a-full-time-author article too!
Be safe and well until we two meet again!
Product links in this newsletter are Shop My affiliate links, which means that if you buy via that link, I get a small kickback. As always, these products are things I’ve bought, road-tested, and loved for me first: nothing is sponsored. I’m working to see fi I can get you guys discount codes on some of my faves too; more to come on that soon!