Mornings With Marie: November 2023
Christmas Fairs and Online Shop, Nameless Queen, NaNoWriMo, Norsevember, and Winter's Wishfall
Hullo friends! I hope your October went well, because I had a wonderful time with my family! 🥰 They were over for a few weeks and we just had a blast. We even went to Stonehenge and hiked up to Glastonbury Tor, which made my mythology/folklore heart very happy! 🥹
PS. If you love musicals and you’re in the London area from now until 2 March 2024, please do check out The Little Big Things - it’s such an amazing production! 😍
Christmas Fairs and Online Shop
It’s 52 days before Christmas… which means it’s almost time for the holiday craft fairs! This year I’m actually participating, and I’m very excited 🥳 I’ll be selling copies of my books, bookish merch, handmade cards, and some bits and bobs. Please come say hi if you’re in the area! 🥰
25 November - Canwick Christmas Fair at the Canwick Village Hall, Lincoln 🇬🇧
8-10 December - Crafts and Gifts for Christmas at the St Mary Le Wigford Church, Lincoln 🇬🇧
8-10 December - Happy Holiday Pop Up at Ayala Central Bloc, Cebu 🇵🇭 (c/o 8Letters since I can’t travel back home yet 😅)
Special paperback bundle deals for The Prophecies of Ragnarok trilogy will be available on these days too — £30 for the complete trilogy plus Midnight Son for the Lincoln folks, and P1,500 for the complete trilogy for our Cebu friends!
My online shop will also be launching soon, so stay tuned for the announcement! 🥰
Nameless Queen
So you’ve read it all: Hotel Fen, Monster Ridge, Mist Gallows, Midnight Son, and Polar Knight. What’s next? Nameless Queen, of course 🥳 Hel’s story has to be told.
Pre-order now for 99c/99p if you haven’t yet!
New Project / NaNoWriMo 2023
When PJ's father left to work abroad a year ago, he'd put on a brave face for his mother and distracted himself with videogames. Just when he's gotten used to his new lifestyle, however, his mother carts him off to London to bring their family together.
PJ hates the cold. And the lack of proper beaches. And that Jollibee's spaghetti doesn't taste like it's supposed to. He dreads having to talk to the locals, because his once-polished English sounds broken in the face of people who seemed like period drama characters brought to life.
It's a relief, then, when his parents send him to a private, all-Filipino boarding school.
Until he finds out it's no ordinary school.
And that his father is no ordinary OFW.
This is the first story in the O.F.W. collection, which will include Overseas Filipino Warlock, Overseas Filipino Werewolf, and Overseas Filipino Wakwak. (And potentially more.)
Who needs a writing break? Not me 🤣 I’ve dived straight into NaNoWriMo with Overseas Filipino Wizard, a young adult fantasy inspired by my experience as a dependent of an OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) living in the UK, and Philippine mythology and folklore.
I'm doing a modified/rebel version of NaNo, though — my publisher/distributor in the Philippines for The Prophecies of Ragnarok series, 8Letters, has issued the challenge as a novella instead of a novel, with a minimum word count of 10K. (They will also publish your story if you submit it to them and it passes their screening!) I think it's a reasonable, much healthier target, and I aim to at least finish the flow. I can do the filling and polishing when I revise anyway.
If anyone here would like to be on my betareading or ARC team, please let me know! And thanks to my brother Michael for the fantastic cover! 🩵
Norsevember
Aside from November being NaNo month, it’s also Norsevember, a reading event in which we talk about, recommend, read and review Norse inspired books! Started by Alex of Spells and Spaceships in 2020, it was born after he thought to dedicate a month to read and review Norse books, and others on Twitter expressed their enthusiasm to do the same.
There's a reading challenge, through which you can collect badges! And to help you get started, I've compiled a list of Norse books — some nonfiction, some friends' recommendations, some books I've enjoyed myself, and some of my own books.
Book of the Month: Winter’s Wishfall by Ceri Houlbrook
November also brings us closer to the Christmas holidays, and what better way to ring in the season than a festive read? Let me introduce you to my new fave:
You're never too old to believe . . .
After losing her job, boyfriend and flat just a few weeks before Christmas, Ellie Lancaster makes some resolutions:
1. Exact revenge on ex.
2. Be unboring.
3. Find a job.With #1 complete, Ellie manages to tick off #2 and #3 simultaneously by accepting a mysterious archiving job on a tiny Scottish Island that doesn't seem to exist on any map.
In the new year, her equally new bosses - celebrity baker Clementine Jones and her straight-laced twin brother Cole - introduce Ellie to the archives: a vast network of underground caverns, filled with scrolls dating back centuries, each addressed to the same person, in a multitude of languages: Dear Father Christmas . . .
Despite the strangeness of it all, Ellie quickly falls in love with her new life - but things are never simple, and just as she and Cole seem to be overcoming their mutual distrust, Ellie makes a fourth resolution - one that threatens everything she's come to hold dear. As the big day itself draws near, she has one chance to put things right and bring about her own Christmas miracle . . .
Check out my full review and grab a copy of the book from Amazon!
That’s it for now! Thanks for reading and please feel free to write me back, I would love to hear from you 😘 I will 100% take memes, pet pics, and book recs!
Marie xx