BIG one-day Fantasy Romance Sale, and the last day of Frocktober

Biggest news first: FaRo Society authors are holding a 99c sale on 250+ books, including my own Magician First Class. You can find other witchy fantasy romance in the Cauldrons and Curses category, or explore more widely!

I especially recommend:

  • Colleen Cowley's Subversive - I haven't read this, but I've liked a lot of Colleen's other work, and I'm always going to go for some progressive politics in my fantasy!
  • A Good Demon Is Hard To Find, by Kate Moseman - I just started this fun paranormal romcom, where a woman curses her useless cheating ex and ends up with a demon in her kitchen. Erin has named her dog Nancy Drew, which made me like her at once.
  • Mel Aitchess's Mate To His Incubus Boss. LOOK, as we know, I love an incubus struggling to control his powers, and I'm definitely picking up this one.
  • Marie Cardno's Dear Diary - a short, sweet, shockingly lovely romance between an eldritch horror from the depthless void and a reluctant monster hunter.
  • Stephanie Burgis's Good Neighbours - a delightful cozy/spooky fantasy that puts the romance back in necromancy.
  • Mel Harding-Shaw's City of Souls - a very hot post-magical apocalyptic enemies to lovers set in New Zealand.

This is a one day sale, so head to the FaRo Society Book Blast and stuff your e-reader!

It is the last day of Frocktober as you receive this, and here is me in my frockiest frock on the penultimate day, curtseying for the camera and blinking at the exact wrong moment with some of my lovely colleagues:

Our team has raised nearly three thousand dollars - close enough that I'm confident it will be over that by the end of the month - and I'm really thrilled. I'm so pleased I got to contribute something to this excellent cause.

Today, I'm finishing my last frock and taking my last photo. Sewing is a cool and normal hobby, where you find yourself saying very sane sentences like, "I am deeply in love with this new ruffler foot." (BUT I AM. Watch out, tiered and gathered skirts, I'm coming for you.)

Speaking of sewing, I have been playing a game called Dressmaker, where you design and create dresses for the charming citizens of your small town, incidentally learning quite a lot about their personalities and romances.

I was going to say "not this", but actually, a little bit like this, but with way nicer townspeople and no Hemsworths in a grain silo.

The game mechanics are like sewing, but also not at all like it in the best possible way. I saw content where someone was like "velvet should be harder to work with in game" and absolutely NOT, NO. This is an ideal sewing fantasy, in a world where you never have to do any hemming, no pressing or seam grading is required, you don't have to remove sequins from the seam allowance before you stitch, and you can buy as much gorgeous gradient silk as you like. And I do like.

The best bit is that if you make a mistake or change your mind, you can return the pieces and the fabric reappears! This absolutely does not happen in real life, where if you make a mistake you have to drive to the store 15 minutes before it closes to try and find – well, not your original fabric, because that is long gone, but something that will harmonize with it, and also matching thread, and this has now cost you more than both the original fabric and the game Dressmaker.

However! Dressmaker doesn't have a ruffler foot, so real life sewing is still a touch ahead.

What's Karen Reading?

  • a metric ton (six) of Kate Atkinson's Brodie Jackson mysteries - two new to me, and re-reading the four before them. Something the binge highlighted for me is the role of women (and children) in this series as both survivors and eventual avengers of violent crime. Quite a lot of women get away with the murder of very bad men, in a way that feels justified, and our sort-of hero tends to look the other way or muddy the evidence to protect the not totally innocent where they have targeted the extremely guilty. Also, Kate Atkinson is a phenomenal writer. Emotionally Weird is one of my touchstone books, a brilliant meta novel on novels and art making and family history. I recommend reading it for the first time when you're slightly feverish.
  • The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1, by Beth Brower. Oh no, I can't afford a new fixation right now! I listened to this one (wonderful reading by Genevieve Gaunt) and because I don't find that as immersive as reading text, this may be the only thing that's stopped me from precipitously buying the rest of the series and plunging in. I foresee some holiday reading when the school year is over. Hawkes/Emma for life! I understand that other romantic interests are going to show up later but I do not think I can be moved.

That Healey Girl is the weeklyish newsletter of Kate (or Karen) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river. Feel free to share the newsletter with anyone you think would like it.

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