First things first: Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter! I'm calling it the Graveyard primarily because...COFFIN-daffer? graves? get it? I dunno, I lost all my cool ten years ago, what do you want from me
I meant to have an introductory one to send before this, but things in publishing can move extremely fast, usually when you least expect it.
Real talk: I have never had a cover design process go so quickly and smoothly as this one. The Roaring Brook Press team picked out exactly the kind of artist/art style I'd been hoping for; the artist herself, Micaela Dawn, hit every beat pretty much right from the jump; it was finalized this past Monday and rolled out almost immediately after. There are even preorder links already up?? It's an extremely wild experience given how long this book has been in the making. (Over a decade, but that's a story for another newsletter.)
Without further ado...
Like I said, Micaela did incredible work. I always wanted the book's main character, Val, to be the central focus of the cover, mask on and knives out, and this captures the atmosphere and tone so well considering this is a dystopian fantasy with a lot of Old West inspiration.
A little bit more about The Bloody and the Damned:
An assassin with outlawed, magical abilities will do anything to get their kidnapped sisters back in this dystopic-fantasy standalone, perfect for fans of Iron Widow and Hell Followed With Us.
Mercy has no place here.
On Trinity, a metal world where the privileged live in the skies and the rest fight for water below, you do what you can to survive.
18-year-old Val knows this better than anyone. They’ve sacrificed everything to provide for their younger sisters. Using their outlawed teleportation powers, they've become the most infamous assassin-for-hire on Trinity, known as the Butcher.
No one should be able to trace the Butcher to Val. But when things go horribly wrong on a routine mission and Val’s sisters are kidnapped by a gang in retaliation, it means that someone has to know the truth.
Desperate and friendless, Val has no one to turn to but their ex-childhood best friend turned vigilante thief. He broke their heart, but he owes them.
But as Val fights for the return of their sisters, they start to realize there might be something much bigger at play... something that could upend everything they’ve ever known about Trinity.
Val’s journey will take them from a maximum security prison transport to the headquarters of the most powerful gang on Trinity, and all the way to the Gate of Heaven. Each more heavily guarded than the last.
Good thing the Butcher has never blinked at an extra casualty.
Release date is April 7, 2026, and you can actually preorder it already. Macmillan has a lot of links up on their site, but of course I always encourage folks to order from indie bookstores like these:
That's all for now! Thank you again for subscribing. Here's where you can find me lollygagging around in the meantime: