…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…

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…

…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…

…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…

…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)…

…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…

…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…

…ation, an engineer obsessed with the past works on a machine that will send her thirty years back, at the height of the Citadel’s power. But the Citadel’s disappearance still extends chains of grief and regrets all the way into the fraught atmosphere of the Imperial Court; and this casual summoning of the past might have world-shattering consequences… From the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed On a Red Station, Drifting comes a new…

…o help season (crab fritters, lardons), and using Grace Young’s method of dumping the rice water in it and soaking for 20 minutes to clean it (mostly because it does save a bit of water 🙂 ). Really nice to have browned chicken and steaks again, I have to say. Maillard reactions in a non stick pan just don’t really happen… Also have been trying to update my knife-wielding skills on Craftsy. I think I’ve got the low cut (for small veggies) worked ou…

…ntact, I’d likely be side-eyeing them anyway). Note that a slate isn’t a recommendations list. Those are fine, I’m very flattered and grateful to be on them (and obviously even more flattered to be on people’s ballots!). In fact, this year I’ve already started taking notes one eligible stuff I read, so that I can make sure to post my usual awards recommendation post at the beginning of the year. But slates are not fine (in case you’re wondering: b…