…city of magical factions where Fallen angels mingle with magicians, alchemists and witches… Emmanuelle is the Fallen archivist of House Silverspires, and only wants a quiet life with her books. But when Selene, the latest student of Lucifer Morningstar, walks into the library, Emmanuelle finds herself drawn in an adventure to steal from another House. It’s a thrilling and dangerous task, but the most dangerous thing about it might just be Selene…

…grace of a queen, her face oddly expressionless–what would it look like, if it creased into a smile? And, day after day, Emmanuelle found her gaze drawn towards the depths of the library, and the silent struggle at the table–until one day she found herself smearing glue across the first page of a beautifully illuminated manuscript, instead of efficiently dabbing it on the top of the spine. Right. Enough was enough. Want one? Where to Buy Amazon US…

…to you whether you have one or not? (image credits: Shepherd gate clock at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, UK, retouched by CarolSpears, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)…

…as the natural order of things, too–that they had to modernize in order to compete, to become more Western because the West was so clearly intrisincally superior. They massively sent their children to Western schools–to London, Paris–to be educated as a mark of privilege. Some countries, like Japan or Thailand, managed to modernise and retain national independence and some measure of culture. Others… had less success. Yes, there was military super…

…hey, future blog posts!), but let me talk about motherhood for a while. It comes pre-burdened with a set of powerful expectations, not least of which is that entirety: that it is a threshold beyond which you become a parent (and especially a mother, because let’s not kid outselves that is an ungendered thing) and should be only that–that you’re a bad mother if you don’t take care of your children 24/7, and that there will always be time for your o…

Brief update on stuff set in the universe of The House of Shattered Wings: I’m over at the Gollancz blog on Writing Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship, the adventure/courtship prequel Still over at the blog on Challenges, Baking and The House of Shattered Wings, or how learning to bake saved my novel… And finally, if you’re in the mood for more Dominion of the Fallen short fiction, I have a short story, “Against the Encroaching Darkness”, which i…

…y Xuya story “Crossing the Midday Gate” (epidemics! Cranky old women scientists! Ethical dilemmas and disastrous choices!), and work by Vandana Singh, Gwyneth Jones, and countless other luminaries. Check out the TOC here! -And Yanni Kuznia’s A Fantasy Medley 3, which includes my Dominion of the Fallen novelette”The Death of Aiguillon” (the illustration includes my main character, Huyen, and… hum, let’s just say that if you liked the Dragon Kingdom…

…e UK (London/Manchester) this weekend, for the Gollancz Festival. My full schedule (and the face-to-face schedule of all events) is here: note that both Manchester on Friday and London on Saturday have sold out, but there are still spots for the Sunday event. Though sadly I can’t do the mass signing on Sunday, as I have to get home. There’s also an online event if you can’t make it to any of these: the schedule is below (and yeah, some of us will…

…Game of Fives in Kate Elliott’s Court of Fives, crucial to navigating the underground of the city, has been deliberately obscured by the rulers of the country). Myth and history take on a literal, pressing meaning–it can kill you if you don’t work it out in time. Knowledge of the past is also a source of power, particularly in post-apocalyptic narratives (Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s Canticle for Leibowitz, Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman, Zelazny’s L…

…ould really use some financial help. We’ve set up a fundraiser here: And, hum, I know people have been asking about hard-to-obtain Xuya stories? If you donate to this, you’ll have access to an exclusive ebook which features three Xuya stories which aren’t online: namely, “Fleeing Tezcatlipoca”, “Two Sisters in Exile”, and “Memorials”. (Apologies for the generic cover, I put that together in ~1h yesterday evening. I can guarantee you that the text…