THE CURSED TIDE is the follow-up to my debut novel, although it can be read as a standalone. It follows Kensa a year on from the events of THE SALT BIND. That's all I can say yet...
There are some characters that arrive to an author more easily than others, individuals you can sink into or accept. And then come the wicked creatures who terrify you, even when you're writing them. I encountered this with THE CURSED TIDE. Some curses are inside us, some chase us even beyond our nightmares, and some we welcome, hoping desperately for change.
I loved writing this novel. It's a little more rock n' roll, being my last stint in this world, and so I made it count. Prepare for an explosive adventure. Everything you thought you knew about this place, these people, is about to change. I can't wait for you to find out how.
Emoji Summary for THE CURSED TIDE:
🔮🌊🕯✨️🦉🌒🩸🪓
Further updates coming soon!
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THE SALT BIND hardbacks arrived on my doorstep amidst a snow flurry last week. Aren't they stunning? I've also been utterly thrilled to receive such lovely praise in the press lately, as well as the blurbs from authors who took time from their busy writing lives to read proofs of my debut novel and provide such kind, thoughtful words. I have included some here. It's a strange experience to land a book deal and go on this publishing journey, but I've been very supported and very held not only by old friends, but by new ones I've made along the way. I can't wait for this storm-swept novel to be out in the world and find her readers.
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THE SALT BIND is out 22nd January. This gothic fairytale begins with a sea monster's death and a young woman desperate to be wanted by her community. She'd do anything, even accept a role as a wise woman's apprentice, even make a deal with a devil-like creature desperate to escape the ocean's pull.
#bookrecommendations #fantasybooks #writingcommunity #bookaesthetic #beautifulbooks
BOOK NEWS! Delighted to announce my debut novel THE SALT BIND is coming out next year with @dialoguepublishing imprint Renegade. Immense thanks to my agent Alex Cochran at @cwagencyuk and my editor @christinademos . Expect feuding sisters, tricky sea gods and Cornish folklore. I cannot wait to share it with you. Thanks for being a part of this journey so far - more updates to come soon!
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Isn't she stunning? I have a short story in A BREATH OF TIME, an anthology of romantic fantasy stories featuring elements of time travel, out now. My own contribution THE HOUR-GLASS TRAP is a gothic creature filled with yearning and corrupt institutions (as if there's any other kind). See the next page for a preview.
I could not think of a better home for it
Shiny foil, sprayed edges, new writers to fall in love with. What more could you want? Available wherever you buy books.
@flametreepress@flametreepublishing
#writingcommunity #romantasy #amreading
I am celebrating today as a poem of mine has been shortlisted by Bhanu Kapil for the inaugural Propel Cambridge Poetry Prize, making it into her top seven poems from over 1,400 entries.
The poem is about obsession and love, inspired by a surrealist painting (and the writings about it) I encountered one morning at Modern One.
Truly delighted to be on the shortlist, in full here:
Chii Ọganihu @chiioganihu
Elisávet Makridis @elisahhhvet
Nyachiro Lydia Kasese @ms_lilly_py
Rebecca Ferrier @rmlferrier
Simran Singh @simran_singhxo
Sneha Subramanian Kanta @snehaskanta
Tasneem Maher
For more information visit @propelmagazine and its website or @cambridge_ccw
#writingcommunity #poetsofınstagram
Retreat Day 6 - 8 -
Sipped wine at the Lord Byron Café, wrote a dozen pages, stopped by the local witchcraft shop in Sintra (above a Viking bar) and had a helping of mead. After one moody day, where the wind picked up and the skies were grey, the sun came out - in time for a day or two at Cascais. We visited the Boca do Inferno (the Devil's Mouth) where the grim occultist Aleister Crowley faked his own death. This morning we swam in the sea (avoiding Praia da Rata, aka Rat Beach), people-watched, and ate at inordinate amount of pasta.
I've finally figured out an issue with the foundational chapters of my work-in-progress, and developed a decent structure for another side project (thriller!) that I've been toying with for a while. Also devoured YESTERYEAR by Caro Claire Burke, the perfect holiday read: clever, sharp and wickedly readable. Now onto INVISIBLE CITIES by Italo Calvino and preparing for the journey home.
If you're waiting for a reply from me, it will come as soon as I'm back at my desk. Expect book promo and various novel-related updates, too!
Pages Written: 30
Books Read: 3.25
Retreat Day 5 -
A hike to the Moorish Castle, a hilltop fortification overlooking Sintra. We admired the Door of Betrayal, a final point of retreat should the castle fall, and the Keep, its brickwork peppered with daisies finding home in cracks and crumbling brickwork.
Each night, at sunset, the people in the villa next to us blast classical music. It feels like a summons, as a film score chases the birds away and sends the nearby farm chickens into an eerie quiet (they perpetually cluck, it's strangely endearing).
I'm almost at the end of my time here, and although I haven't put thousands of words to the page, I feel reinvigorated and eager to finish my current projects and begin the next. Rest, and time away from a laptop screen, I remind myself, is also productive.
First, however, I must rest my legs!
Pages Written: 8
Books Read: 1.5
Workshop Announcement! 🍃✍️
On Monday 18th May at 6:30pm, we’ll be running a Nature Writing workshop with debut writers Rebecca Ferrier and Elspeth Wilson, authors of The Salt Bind and These Mortal Bodies respectively!
Across the 2 hours, participants will explore different exercises to consider nature as character and its role in scene setting, plot and world-building in fiction writing! We recommend this workshop for anyone with a project in development, or who are keen to build towards a larger fiction project in the future–at the end of the workshop, there will be a chance to ask Ferrier and Wilson questions about the literary industry more generally. 😊
We hope to see you there! You can book a space via our website now, or by following the link in our bio.
Retreat Day 4 -
A day of revisiting, first with Monserrate Palace and its romantic gardens, gothic arches and follies. I went here on my first visit to Sintra and enjoyed it so much I had to go again. I've also been re-reading WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys beside a noisy frog pond; a book of rich contrasts, wild storms and stuffy, unforgiving heat. I also cultivated a short story idea based on my childhood memories of living in Gibraltar, then finished the day reading by firelight.
I've been enjoying documenting the days, trying to hold onto memories, sunshine, happiness.
Everything is so fleeting.
I originally began my Instagram because I enjoyed landscape photography and used to meet with other amateur photographers. Then it become a different creature during the pandemic; aware that I was clinically vulnerable and unsure as to what that meant, I wanted a space I could express myself, where I existed, in a time when existence wasn't guaranteed. Then, as my writing career took off, it's become a tool for book promotion and connecting with readers and the writing community. It's still a little of everything: pretty scenery, myself - because I am here and blessed to be so and want to embrace my body in all forms - and the novels and poems I write.
"I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it."
- Jean Rhys, WIDE SARGASSO SEA
Pages Written: 8
Books Read: 1.25
#writingcommunity #writersofinstagram #writinginspiration
Retreat Day 3 -
Silence rules in the Convent of the Capuchos, also known as the Convent of Cork, a Franciscan monastery in the hills. An example of simplicity and discipline, it lacked luxuries and comforts; sources of pleasure, personal books included, were banned. Doors to individual monks' cells are tiny, forcing the occupants to bow before entering and leaving their rooms, perpetually humbling themselves before God. Those who visit the convent, as we did, are banned from speaking, with warnings for guests to observe the strict code of silence across the grounds.
The convent was founded after a Portuguese nobleman became lost in the Sintra hills while chasing deer. He eventually slept and a dream came to him, a divine prompt to build a holy space upon this site.
I rang the pilgrim bell upon entering the convent - one which used to tell the monks a visitor had arrived. My creative writing PhD involves pilgrimage, so clambering through the heat and dusty forest paths was a researcher's delight. Wall lizards scampered from my view, while the occasional hornet passed overhead. On the way were wildflowers, birds of prey, endless croaking frogs and bright pink lilies floating atop Lagoa dos Mosqueiros.
What draws us towards these sacred places? What makes a place sacred at all? I always thought I liked the order, the quiet, the routines of monasteries. Is it akin to the military upbringing I knew as a child? Now, as I approach the end of my PhD, I wonder if I was drawn to such places because I long to rail against them? To push against unfair rules and put faith in myself, rather than an indifferent outside force? In writing this novel, I've experienced my own journey, finding my feet as an academic and navigating a space I never thought - with my background - that I'd venture into.
Pages Written: 5
Books Read: 0.75
Retreat Day 2:
Today was historical research around decadence and decay, extravagence and symbolism, all for a secret project. I have been wanting to visit the Magpie Room in National Palace of Sintra for a while. The story goes that King John I was caught kissing a lady-in-waiting by his queen, Philippa of Lancaster. Eager to put a stop to the gossip, he had the room decorated with as many magpies as there were women at the court. It is a beautiful place, with colourful artwork across the ceilings, including ships, swans and stags. Elegant Islamic-style water pools and courtyards pay homage to the palace's Moorish Al-Andalus era.
Evening was listening to a fun, adventure-romance audiobook by the fire, watching the sun set and the moon appear, as well as bat-watching while eating pastel de natas and being serenaded by frogs. As is my habit, I have a new book idea while I'm writing the current one and I'm trying very hard to ignore it. Also, it was Alyson's birthday! Because I am a WONDERFUL friend, I put up a cute banner to surprise her and sang at her - aggressively - as soon as she woke up.
Pages Written: 3.5
Books Read: 0.5
#writingcommunity #writinginspiration #writersofinstagram
Retreat Day 1 -
I am welcoming soft days and sunshine on a self-guided reading and writing retreat in Sintra, Portugal. First, arrival to Lisbon, where we visited the oldest bookstore in the world Livraria Bertrand, tried ginjinha, soaked up the atmosphere of Igreja de São Domingos, the Church of St. Dominic, formerly the home of the Inquisition, all before collapsing in our villa in Sintra. We're nestled in what was once called Lunae Mons, Mountain of the Moon, which was - according to legend - the retreat of Diana the Huntress.
Our location feels suitably apt, as I am currently reading THE BOOK OF BEASTS by @elizabethsulis , an absorbing and insightful work of non-fiction exploring folklore, mythology, magic and religion. It's a modern bestiary grounded in ancient practices and historical observations, out in August from @chattobooks .
This is my first time travelling with a new diagnosis (always a struggle) and half my carry-on was medication, face masks and the necessary bits and pieces to keep my body functioning at my new normal. Still, nothing a big smile, fake tan, and a giant hat can't mitigate. I'll be sharing bits and pieces from my research (the next book-in-progress!) and beautiful sights. I've worked so very hard to be able to reach this period of rest and I'm so thankful to be here, to seek inspiration and attempt (!) to relax.
Pages Written: 2
Books Read: 0.5
#writingcommunity #writinginspiration #writersofinstagram #lisbon
