Winner Announcement, Another Giveaway, Preorder Sneak Peek, & Reading Recommendations
Only five weeks until the release of THE BOOK OF GOTHEL!
Hello, hello—
Thank you to everyone who participated in the exclusive giveaway this weekend, and congratulations to newsletter subscriber Teri H. for winning the signed ARC!
Another Giveaway
For those of you who are still interested in winning a copy, I’m kicking off a public ARC giveaway right now on Twitter and Instagram. I’m giving away one signed ARC on each platform. To enter, go to either of these links and follow the directions on the post:
If you’re on both platforms, you can enter twice!
Preorder Campaign Update
The limited preorder campaign will kick off here on the newsletter on June 28; for the general public, it will begin July 1. Supplies are limited, but newsletter subscribers will get first access before they run out. I will send out a newsletter reminding everybody that the campaign has opened with directions on how to claim your incentives on June 28. I’m excited about everything I will be able to offer:
A fairytale bookmark
A signed bookplate
A recipe card featuring a delicious recipe that is used in the book
Here is a sneak peek at some of what I’ll be offering (not pictured: the recipe card, which is still being printed). More about this next week!
Reading Recommendations
Finally, I’m excited to share with you some reading recommendations for three witchy, recently published books that I read while I was on maternity leave! All three of these novels have a shared theme with Gothel: they’re interested in perspective and the way stories change depending on whose point of view is explored. In each of these novels, the author chooses to retell a patriarchal mythic story from a woman’s perspective, turning the story on its head and making the reader rethink why some women are called wicked.
The book I took with me to the hospital is The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. This novel, which came out last year, explores Norse mythology from the perspective of Angrboda, the witch who is said to have prophesied Ragnarok, married Loki, and given birth to the monsters who brought about the end of the world. If you haven’t read it already, it’s such a moving book. It made me laugh and cry (several times), it gave me all the motherhood feels, and Gornichec conjures so much empathy for Angrboda and the Norse gods as characters! They all feel so human…
The next book I read during the first few weeks after my son was born—this one as an advance copy to consider for a blurb—was The Witch and the Tsar, the Baba Yaga retelling by debut author Olesya Salnikova Gilmore that is coming out this September. If this book isn’t on your radar yet, it’s a powerful, original story that reclaims the oft-maligned witch, Baba Yaga, as a sympathetic character. I was especially impressed by the setting and atmosphere. The novel takes place during Ivan the Terrible’s reign in 17th c. Russia, and the story is rich with history, references to ancient myth, and folk magic. It’s so good!
That brings us to the novel I’m reading now, Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi, a feminist retelling of the ancient epic the Ramayana, which came out in April. The novel reclaims Kaikeyi, the legendary queen who was maligned for exiling her stepson Rama. Even if you haven’t read the Ramayana, this novel is fascinating. Kaikeyi learns a sort of diplomatic magic that allows her to manipulate others’ thoughts from an ancient meditative scroll she finds in the palace library, and she uses those powers to manipulate the court in which she finds herself as an adult—but she uses her powers for good, to improve the living conditions of the other women in her kingdom. It’s a political novel, and a feminist novel, and I’m loving it so much.
Next on my list is Chelsea Abdullah’s One Thousand and One Nights-inspired fantasy debut, The Stardust Thief, which came out in May!
I’ll be back with preorder information later next week. In the meantime, don’t forget to find me on Instagram and Twitter to enter the giveaway and learn more about The Book of Gothel! On Instagram, I recently posted photographs of some of the beautiful places I visited in southwest Germany and the Black Forest when I was researching the novel.
As always, thank you for your support!
Mary