The Jasmine Throne, the World Fantasy Award, and the year ahead

Some highlights since our last chat:

• The Jasmine Throne won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

• What Souls Are Made Of is one of Audiofile Magazine’s Best Audiobooks of 2022

• It’s been four years since the release of my first book Empire of Sand

• I have some upcoming events!

Happy New Year! I’ve been away visiting friends and family, and it’s been wonderful. Over New Year’s Eve, my friends and I stayed in a cottage and played D&D, drank snowballs and prosecco, and ate truly astonishing amounts of cheese. It was a great way to welcome 2023.

It snowed recently, and while my two cats live in a warm house, my rabbits spend their life in a (beautiful! deluxe! customised!) garden shed. Every morning and evening my family trudged to those ungrateful fluffy bowling balls through cracking ice to slide pet safe warmers under their blankets, and stuff their boxes with straw.

Amusingly though, at least one of my two rabbits loves the ice and the snow. We’ve nicknamed him our arctic bunny. He’s always out frolicking in the cold. Here he is in his run, begging for frosty grass to eat.

On a more bookish note: The Jasmine Throne won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel! Look at the beautiful award I was sent!

I don’t really know what to say about this except that I am absolutely honoured. It really is overwhelming in the best way possible.

The sequel The Oleander Sword has been reaching readers - thank you to everyone who sent me their screams of agony, your feedback was a sweet balm to my ears, etc - and I can’t wait to be at the point where I’ve finally whipped book three into shape.

I’m also thrilled that What Souls Are Made Of (my YA remix of Wuthering Heights) received some love for its audiobook. You can buy audibooks wherever suits you best, but I’ve heard Libro fm is pretty great.

I think it’s very natural to reflect when you reach a new year. I’ve been thinking about my time as a published author, and how long fear has followed me: the fear that my books will not sell or be well received; that I will disappoint my readers; that I will not get the chance to write another book. That my dream will end. Four years ago in November 2018, Empire of Sand came out and changed my life. I’m now five books in, with at least one more book on the table. That’s more than I could have hoped for, once upon a time.

The fear will always be there. This is a fickle industry where authors have very little control, after all. But I want to take more time to focus on the wonderful things that have happened to me since publication: the awards I’ve won, and the friendships I’ve made; the opportunities I’ve gained that I could never have dreamed of. I have to remind myself it’s okay to be happy, and okay to hope for more in the years to come.

Returning to the topic of book three… I’ve had a few questions about when book three of The Burning Kingdoms will be out. I’m afraid I can’t confirm anything yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I can. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be 2023. Entirely my fault. I simply couldn’t write and revise the book at the speed that would have required, and I really want to make it the best book it can be before it lands in your hands.

If you want to indulge in some pre-orders in the interim, the sequel to CL Clark’s The Unbroken is out in March and has a very sexy cover and name: The Faithless. Samit Basu’s The Jinn-Bott of Shantiport is a wonderfully inventive book I’m currently reading now and is also out in March, as is the brilliant The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. The Surviving Sky by Kritika Rao isn’t out until June, but its heroes are married disasters so I’d be remiss not to mention it.

Another brilliant upcoming release is Godkiller by debut author Hannah F. Kaner, and I’ll be moderating an event with her, CL Clark and Saara El-Arifi at Tottenham Court Road Waterstones on 18th January - I’m afraid it’s sold out, but I’m sure you can get in touch with the store for signed copies of any of our books!

I have two events with the brilliant TBRCon including a D&D event on the 22nd January (I’ll be a paladin, if you’re curious) and a panel on ‘Bringing History Into Your Story’ on the 25th January.

On the 26th January I’ll be in conversation with Scarlett St. Clair in a Waterstones digital event. No banner yet, I’m afraid, but you can book online and order signed copies of our books at this link.

In Feburary I have one event with Samanatha Shannon to celebrate the release of A Day of Fallen Night in Norwich on the 27th Feb 2023. I’m really thrilled to have so many wonderful events ahead!

And that’s all for now, pals! I’ll be in touch with a new newsletter as soon as I have any updates for you - but for now, I wish you a joyous start to 2023.