This month I am doing something a little different this month. I usually write a little blurb for each book release I list but as you can imagine, that takes a LOT of time and energy and research. Which I love to write but the energy it takes it beyond my paygrade. So instead, I am writing a short blurb on those that I am most excited about and list the others I am also placing on my TBR.

I signal my most anticipated books with a star. And as always, this post contains some affiliate links (which cost you nothing to use but can help sustain this little hobby of mine). Thanks for your support.

📚 SEPTEMBER 1

Most Anticipated

⭐️ The Knave and the Moon – Rachel Gillig
Fantasy | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Hands down my most anticipated release of the month. The Stonewater Kingdom sequel that Gillig fans (i.e. ME) have been counting down to. The Knight and the Moth was one of my favorites 2025 releases. So if you devoured the first book, get excited for the sequel. My only issue with Gillig’s writing is that she publishes duologies as opposed to longer series. I’m begging her for moooore!

⭐️ Paper Ghosts – Sarah Addison Allen
Magical realism | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Sarah Addison Allen writes beautiful magical realism, like you’re stepping into a dream you don’t want to leave. I expect Paper Ghosts to be similar to her earlier works: a touch of magic woven into the everyday with prose that linger. This is one of my most anticipated reads of the month.

⭐️ Before You Were Anne – Emiko Jean
Mystery/Thriller | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Before You Were Anne follows a detective trying to solve the mystery of a murdered Seattle woman, originally from rural Japan, and her missing daughter. Although the plot sounds like a standard mystery/thriller, Emiko Jean wrote one of my favorite mysteries, The Return of Ellie Black, so I can’t wait to dive into her latest.

⭐️ The Birthing Tree – Amanda Peters
Historical Indigenous fiction | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Peters’ The Berry Pickers was one of the most devastating novels I have ever read. So of course I want to read more from here. I have no doubt that The Birthing Tree, which explores how an Indigenous woman navigates traditional midwifery and “modern medicine,” will be another favorite of mine.

⭐️ Kiss Slay Replay – Rachel Harrison
Horror / Dark comedy | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]
As a rule, I will read everything and anything that Rachel Harrison writes. I love her comedic take on horror that frequently comes with a side of supernatural elements. This latest involves horror wedding time loops, so sign me up.

⭐️ An Immaculate Deception – Isabela Livino
Gothic thriller | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Gothic horror set in Brazil? A woman raised in a deeply religious household who can’t escape the family compound. A deal with the devil? This book has my name all over it. I actually received an ARC of this debut and I’m only a fifth of the way through and LOVE it.

Other Releases

• The Three Graces of Pearl Street – Elizabeth Wellington Rollins
  Literary fiction | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Body Language – Meg Howrey
  Literary fiction | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The Truth About Ruby Cooper – Liz Nugent
  Psychological thriller | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Under Story – Chloe Benjamin
  Literary fiction | September 1 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Savage As You – J.M. Weaver
  Horror fantasy | September 1 |[Buy] · [Listen]

• Mother Daughter Sister Stranger – Hank Phillippi Ryan
  Thriller | September 1 | [Listen]

🌹 SEPTEMBER 8

Most Anticipated

⭐️ The Witches of Cambridge – Alice Hoffman
Magical realism | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Alice Hoffman releases a book and I am there. The Witches of Cambridge follows two women in 1950s Massachusetts as they join a secret witch society. Need I say more?

⭐️ Tempest – Victoria Aveyard
Fantasy | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]
I cannot resist a female pirate story. And a pirate love story? I am sat.

⭐️ We Turn Gruesome at Night – Eric LaRocca
Horror | September 8 | [Listen]|
Book 2 of the Burnt Sparrow series has arrived! You know that I love queer horror and LaRocca does it better than almost anyone else. The first of the series opens up to a Christmas morning massacre in the small community of Burnt Sparrow. This installment takes place 10 years after that event. I find LaRocca’s books are best experienced at night through headphones so it feels like someone is whispering directly into your ear. Is that creepy?

⭐️ She’s a Doll – Barbara Truelove
Horror | September 8
The talk of the town! Or at least Bookstagram. This blurb on the publisher’s website has me sold: “Lucy isn’t a normal girl. Ghost. Victim. Killer. She’s a doll on a mission—to find the man who killed her and return the favor.” And I somehow got an ACL of it as well. Let’s go.

⭐️ Taipei Story (Deluxe Limited Edition) – R.F. Kuang
Coming-of-age / Literary fiction | September 8 |[Buy]
While I haven’t read all of her works, I have loved all that I’ve read from R.F. Kuang (yes, even Katabasis). I’m excited to see her take on a coming-of-age story that weaves cultural (and language) differences and grief.

⭐️ Pictures of You – Josh Malerman
Horror | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Malerman wrote one of the only books that genuinely scared me and gave me nightmares, Incidents Around the House (soon to be the film Other Mommy). Pictures of You centers around a woman who, after a night out, wakes up trapped in a painting while her partner wakes up in their hotel room alone. I’ve seen mixed reviews from advanced readers but I’m always game for a Malerman story.

⭐️ Switzy – Emma Cline
Literary fiction | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Let me preface this by saying that Emma and I used to carpool to high school so I’m more than a little biased when it comes to her books. I also managed to snag an ARC and have been slowly working through it. Cline is one of the most precise writers and I am not surprised that this has been longlisted for The Booker Prize.

Other Releases

• The Pirate Queen – Ariel Lawhon
  Historical fiction | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• We Already Dug the Grave – Emma C. Wells
  Horror | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Darling – Mercedes M. Yardley
  Southern gothic horror | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The Enigmatic Madam Ingram – Meihan Boey
  Supernatural mystery | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Meet Cute Magic – Morgan Elizabeth
  Romance / Fantasy | September 8 | [Buy] · [Listen]

🍂 SEPTEMBER 15

Most Anticipated

⭐️ Exit Party – Emily St. John Mandel
Literary sci-fi | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Emily St John Mandel is one of my favorite dystopian writers (Station Eleven is a masterpiece), so I’m always excited to see a release from her. This one takes place in the distant future (2031 Los Angeles) after the collapse of the United States. Given her spot on predictions on how the United States would handle a pandemic in Station Eleven, I’ll be reading Exit Party to better understand how to respond to the inevitable collapse of our society. I mean … for fun. I’ll be reading this for fun.

⭐️ Fallow – Sarah Anderson
Horror / Literary fiction | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]
More dystopian horror! This debut features a woman who signs up to be an extremely generously compensated in-house corporate surrogate. Yeah, read that again. I cannot wait to dive into this one.

⭐️ Dead Beat – Leigh Bardugo
Fantasy (Ninth House #3) | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]
The conclusion of the Ninth House trilogy. I adore Bardugo and have been counting down the months until Dead Beat’s release. If you love dark fantasy academia, and you haven’t started this series yet, now is absolutely the time to binge it.

⭐️ A Thousand Monstrous Forms – Saratoga Schaefer
Bluebeard gothic | September 15 | [Buy]
A gothic retelling of Bluebeard with a sapphic twist - Saratoga Schaefer, your mind! I have absolutely loved her previous two books, Trad Wife and Serial Killer Support Group, so I will trust Schaefer to take us on a brilliant journey with this fairytale retelling.

⭐️ We Chase Shadows – Richard Osman
Cozy mystery | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Oh I love a Richard Osman mystery. Although nothing can top The Thursday Murder Club, I really enjoyed We Solve Murder and look forward to its sequel.

Other Releases

• Hollow Bones – Jodi Picoult
  Literary fiction | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Our Noble Selves – Kate Atkinson
  Literary fiction | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Rooted – Leopoldo Gout
  Horror | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Love Antidote – Brynne Weaver
  Romance | September 15

• Falling for Peachtree Bluff – Kristy Woodson Harvey
  Women’s fiction | September 15 [Buy] · [Listen]

• If Not You – Ellen O’Clover
  Romance | September 15 | [Buy]

• The Palace Beneath the Sea – Lauren Wiesebron
  Fantasy | September 15 | [Buy] · [Listen]

🎃 SEPTEMBER 22

Most Anticipated

⭐️ Free Falling – Lyla Sage
Romance | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]
If Lya Sage has no fans it means that I am no longer alive because I ADORE her books. Rebel Blue Ranch series (Done & Dusted)? The only cowboy romance series that I would dare to read. She has figured out the exact formula for my type of romance and I can’t stop reading her books.

⭐️ Sometimes I Scare Myself – Jeneva Rose
Horror / Psychological thriller | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Jeneva Rose writes horror that really gets under your skin. I love her psychological thrillers and I managed to get an ACL of this one so I’ll let you know what I think before it comes out.

Other Releases

• Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel – Lucy Foley
  Thriller | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The Wretched Divine – Adalyn Grace
  Fantasy | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Call Off the Dark – Hallie Shepherd
  Horror thriller | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Incarnate – Alma Katsu
  Social media horror | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Our Cut of Salt – Deena Helm
  Haunted house horror | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Hollywood, Ending – John Green
  Literary / YA | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Little Kin – Katya de Becerra
  Survival horror | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• In the Woods They Wait – Carrie Lee South
  Southern gothic horror | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• It’s Not What You Think – Clare Mackintosh
  Psychological thriller | September 22 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Hail Mary – Elizabeth Urso
  Horror / Thriller | September 22 | [Buy]

🌙 SEPTEMBER 29

Most Anticipated

⭐️ American Hagwon – Min Jin Lee
Literary fiction | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]
While Pachinko is currently on my backlist TBR list, I think that American Hagwon might actually come first. Seoul to Sydney to Southern California, American Hagwon follows the Koh family as they find their footing and secure their future.

⭐️ The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman – Deesha Philyaw
Literary fiction | September 29 | [Buy]
The wife of a megachurch pastor goes from riches to rags once her secret past comes to life? Say less! If only this is what happened in real life. I love mess.

⭐️ Trad Wife – Sarah Langan
Horror / Thriller | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]
It’s really unfortunate that there are several books titled Trad Wife (one already mentioned in this article) but this is one that cannot be missed. Sarah Langan has won the Bram Stoker Award for horror three times. THREE TIMES. So you know that this is going to be one of the better takes on the performative trad wife phenomenon.

⭐️ The Sisters of Crimson House – Melissa Anderson Sweazy
Southern gothic | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]
Sisters from a long time of famous psychics and a house filled with magic. What’s not to love? This feels like the perfect paranormal horror to start spooky season.

• Ply – Hernan Diaz
  Literary fiction | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Sophie, Standing There – Meg Mason
  Literary fiction | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Jenny Will Eat You Now – Gillian Daniels
  Horromance | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• Hollow Folk – Andrew K. Clark
  Appalachian horror | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The Ship of Death – Kyle Winkler
  Cosmic / Game horror | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The Man of Wind and Moss – Alex Gonzalez
  Folk horror | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The American Way of Killing – Malcolm Gladwell
  Nonfiction | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

• The Radiance – Ayad Akhtar
  Literary fiction | September 29 | [Buy] · [Listen]

And that’s the September stack: 60 books, five Tuesdays (yay!), and a genre range that covers everything from Appalachian folk horror to John Green’s most anticipated novel in a decade. Tell me in the comments: which September releases are you most excited about? (Mine is obviously The Knave and the Moon). And if you want more day-to-day book chaos, come find me on Instagram.

Happy reading, Nicole 📚

Hi sweet friends,

I know that I started last week’s post in a similar way but I am ready for the August crazies to be done and my routines to be firmly back in place. Anyone else feel the same way?

· · ·

T — Thinking

Cobbling together summer childcare

Clearly childcare is my current top of mind. I am fully ready to admit that August is the month that breaks me a little bit. Four, almost five weeks of the kids being home and me competing in the logistics Olympics as I figure out care for them each day. Is someone taking the day off work? Is someone coming to watch the kids? Do we have camp for them? Whew.

I love summer and I love my kids. I also spend most of the spring months meticulously planning out each week of summer and hoping that it all comes together in the summer (all while ignoring the low hum of guilt running in the background).

This week it all came to a head during one of my many video calls. I was mid-sentence with my team (who I luckily know very well), and both kids popped up next to me to show my coworkers the granola bars dissolving in their mouths. Just a typical Tuesday afternoon around here.

· · ·

R — Reading

Book club catch-ups.

I am currently in two book clubs and I am attempting to catch up with both. This week one book club is meeting to chat about The Road to Tender Hearts, which is surprisingly sweet. It makes me want to curl up with a blanket and a hot cup of tea.

And I am also obviously reading all the ACOTAR, TOG, and CC theories since we got word of the new ACOTAR titles and covers. Big releases like this are one of my favorite things about being part of a fandom. We all get excited and get to spin out together. It’s the best.

· · ·

O — Organizing

Back to school, x2

The kids are in different schools again this year, which means that the back to school logistics have been reset to zero and we have to figure it all out again. Different drop-off times (why does kinder start at 8:45?!), different allowable items in their backpacks, different food protocols. And there I am, somewhere in the middle of it all, trying to make it all work. Organizing in August is pure logistics triage.

· · ·

M — Making

dinner easy

During busy times I fall back into routines and predictability. And I really lean into that with meals. So we’re doing the bare minimum over here:

• Monday - pasta, veggies, protein

• Tuesday - tacos, burritos, quesadillas

• Wednesday - pizza + protein

• Thursday - dinner with friends

• Friday - dinner with friends

• Weekends: um, who knows

· · ·

P — Practicing

trying to meditate, again

I'm working my way back into meditation through the Activations app, which I found through . I appreciate that it’s more focused and inspiring than the typical ‘clear your mind’ meditation.

· · ·

Mantra: we cobble it together, and it works.

With warmth,

Nicole

Compassion, specifically self-compassion, is genuinely something I’ve been told I need more of by every therapist I’ve ever had. It came up in my couples therapy session earlier this week and it came up again today as I write this up. I’ve spent a lot of my life being quite good at understanding and extending grace to other people and considerably less good at turning any of that toward myself. I think that is pretty common if you’re an only child, or an eldest daughter, or a woman of color who grew up understanding that getting things wrong doesn’t really look the same for you as it does for some other people. And hey, I’m all three of those things. So when Cameron opened on this theme, I was oddly feeling open and ready for the chapter. Hello, new feeling.

But then from the jump, I felt Cameron calling me out with this:

“The blocked artist does not know how to begin with baby steps. Instead, the blocked artist thinks in terms of great big scary impossible tasks.”

As much as I view myself as a recovering perfectionist, this chapter really drove home how much I still maintain those characteristics, just dressed differently. And then one page later, a related truth I sat with for a minute:

“Setting impossible goals creates enormous fear, which creates procrastination, which we wrongly call laziness. Do not call procrastination laziness. Call it fear.”

Julia, please! Here is what makes this especially fun: my actual full-time job is helping programs create, define, and measure goals and performance metrics. I know what a SMART goal is. I have explained them to people on a weekly basis. AND YET I am constantly building enormous sprawling goal systems for my own creative life that inevitably collapse and leave me staring at a blank page with no clear idea of where to start. FWIW I do know that this sounds similar to ADHD, but none of my three (3!) therapists have considered that a diagnosis. Just my regular OCD getting in the way.

What I truly loved about this chapter was the emphasis on enthusiasm. One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet, founder of the Romantic Movement, my favorite of the literature periods, [yes I have a favorite literary period]): “Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm.” What gets us excited? For me it’s anything that lets my mind and spirit actually roam without an agenda. The chapter is at its best when it stays here. And I will say that there is a surprising lack of God references throughout Week 9 and I think that is because Cameron is too preoccupied with name and name dropping. Moving on.

• • •

A Note for Paid Subscribers

Below the fold this week, I’m getting into:

• Rereading Morning Pages (I thought that we weren’t doing that in this program but alas I was wrong)

• Visualizations (picturing how I want to show up in the world)

• Morning Pages & Artist Date Recap (what did and did not happen this week)

• Priorities (creative practices for the next year, month, and week)

Come in.

Read more

I have been a Hobonichi Cousin A5 fan girl since 2019. It is truly my ride-or-die (sorry, husband) that has been with me through all of life’s ups and downs. I take tremendous pride that I have turned several friends into fellow Hobonichi Cousin lovers (be it the A5, Avec, or spring start).

But over the years I’ve expanded my Hobonichi (and general journal / planner) collection. In 2025 I used my Cousin A5 as my everything planner (daily captain log, work tasks, home to-dos, appointments) and a separate Weeks Mega for my Health journal where I tracked my fitness and journey to get back down to my prebaby weight. And in 2026 I thought that two journals (plus my morning pages journal) just wasn’t enough so I decided to have 10 (TEN!) journals in daily rotation. Please note that I recognize that 10 journals is absolutely bonkers, even if 3 of them are five-year journals. And yes I will be cutting back in 2027 to somewhere between 7 to 8.

But this newsletter (blog post?) isn’t about my journal ecosystem or techo kaigi. This is about how I schlep 7 of those 10 journals around the house with me and at times, outside of the house. I’ll start by saying that 2 of my 10 live in my home office. One, a Sterling Ink, sits next to my work computer as I use it to organize my work tasks and notes. I’ve realized that I don’t like looking at my work tasks (big stress) next to my home and family tasks (little stress) and memory keeping (big love). Two, my tarot journal, the Writual, sits with my tarot and oracle decks. Three, my own personal five-year journal sits on my nightstand so that I’ll actually remember to use it at night.

So you might be thinking, Nicole, why do you have 7 (SEVEN!) other journals and planners and how do you move them around the house and on the go?

Thank you so much for asking, my friend.

For a while I was stacking them up in my arms and just carrying them around with my delfonics pouch sitting on top. As you may imagine, this resulted in a lot of dropped journals and lots of frustration. And don’t even get me started about how I would try to take my journals and supplies out of the house.

Enter the Soolla Studio Bag. Is it possible to fall deeply in love with a bag? Rhetorical question because I know it’s true. Because somehow it holds 7 journals, the pens I keep in rotation, my favorite stickers and PET tape, and an assortment of other supplies. Oh baby, it’s fantastic.

First up, my personal journals. I use the dark green Leuchtturm as my morning pages journal and the Moomin Hobonichi Weeks is my everyday carry (which means I carry it with me everywhere I go but it lives in this bag when I’m at home). The other two Weeks Megas are my health and hobby journals. Truthfully, these two get the least amount of attention but I’d like to change that in the back half of the year.

Next we have my memory keepers. The floral print is my beloved Hobonichi Cousin A5 that I use mostly as a captain’s log and memory keeper. It is my tried and true love. The other two are 5-year journals for my daughter and son. I have never been good with baby books, so I decided these (beautiful!) A6 journals fit the bill.

Other important items that fit in my Soolla Studio bag: my delfonics pouch that holds my favorite PET and washi tapes, two sticker books with my most used stickers, a glue sticker, tweezers, scissors, rulers, tape runner, stencils, in use Tombows, and favorite pens. I also keep my iPad, Apple Pencil, and ziip photo printer in there for easy access.

The bag is heavy and my shoulder definitely feels it when I lug it up and down the stairs, but it’s made my life so much easier.

with love and a gorgeous Soolla Studio bag that is somehow always just heavy enough to hold seven journals and my entire personality,
Nicole

Hi sweet friends,
Is August kicking anyone else’s butt or is that just my experience? My wonderful, beautiful, caring, creative, and brilliant kids are home all month and I am losing my mind. I always have so much respect and admiration for stay-at-home-parents but times like these really put it into perspective for me.

· · ·

T — Thinking

Transitions, big and small.

Although both of my kids are home this month, everyone is thinking about school. My son will officially be moving from the daycare class to the preschool class. I know that he’s ready but in my mind he’s still a little tiny baby to cuddle all day long. That perception is probably reinforced by his constant desire to still be held and cuddled nonstop but I know that won’t last much longer.
But the big shift is that my daughter is moving to kinder at the end of the month. Kindergarten! It feels very real and very disorienting at the same time.

Before becoming a parent, I frequently judged parents that had a difficult time letting their children grow up and become their own person. And while I still judge those who assert a stranglehold over their children’s development, I am in fact struggling with the transition to a real elementary school. And what I really didn’t see coming was that she was nervous too. To me, she is someone who is sure of herself in social situations and loves to be around new people. But she’s shared that she’s both excited and nervous. And in her words, “it’s a lot to process.” So while I am not ready for this change, I need to show her that I am, while also reassuring her that it’s ok to be nervous. We can do hard things.

· · ·

R — Reading

Thrillers upon thrillers

After finishing my SJM reread, I had a little literary hangover. I felt a little groggy and in a rut, unsure of where to go next. When in doubt, fantasy or a thriller almost never fails me. And since the NYTimes recently released their 100 top thrillers collection, the choice was clear. I started The Anniversary by Alex Finley because I tend to enjoy his books and one of my favorite narrators (Brittany Pressley) voices the female character POV. So far it’s exactly what I want in a thriller.

· · ·

O — Organizing

Gamifying the to-do list

This weekend has been a panicky one. I’m overwhelmed by the things on my task list, things in my house, and things in my calendar. The kind of weekend where I took stock of it all and decided that I would rather lie down on the kitchen floor with my eyes closed than face my responsibilities. So I took inspiration from Ammie Y’all and created a bingo sheet for my weekend to-dos. Some are sall tasks (text my friend back!) and some are large (organize the sock bin of doom), all get the same weight. And for every bingo I get, I’m giving myself permission to extend my screen time by 15 minutes. Am I using the same rules that I use for my kids? Absolutely. But if it motivates a 3-year-old I assume it will motivate me.

· · ·

M — Making

…It through

Some weeks I make art projects with my kids, some I pick up new hobbies. This week I focused on just trying to make it through when I felt my mental health starting to head somewhere vulnerable.

· · ·

P — Playing

New music weekend

Hello to Phoebe Bridgers and Phoebe Bridgers only. Okay, and Bo Burnham, too. Her new album has been playing on repeat in our house, from both me and my husband. Her sad girl music is filling every inch of our home and somehow brings us joy.

· · ·

Mantra: We can do hard things. (Even August.)

With warmth,

Nicole

P.S. If you’ve sent a kid to kindergarten and survived, I’m taking all the reassurance you’ve got.

Sometimes there are lines in The Artist’s Way that make me feel like I am in a cozy embrace and others that leave me feeling dismissed and a little mad. When I read “the artist and the intellectual are not the same animal” after tucking in to start Week 8, I stopped abruptly and thought “wtf?” Maybe it’s because I am a recovering academic, but I was flooded with the sense of a quiet superiority in that line. There is the sense that choosing a “left brain” job over a more creative one is a kind of surrender. I suppose that fits in well with her general thought of our shadow artists but I have spent enough of my adult life doing intellectual, unglamorous work, and finding a way to bring a sense of creativity and art to it. I don’t find that anyone is served being told that their choices are somehow smaller than others. And to be honest, maybe that’s why I decided to leave the ivory tower of academia.

But I kept reading anyway, because that’s mostly what this whole project has taught me. I can disagree with Cameron (and I do, a lot) and still find value in the work.

“Art is the act of structuring time.” · Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Week 8 was not my favorite. In addition to the line above, it just felt … icky reading some of this chapter. Parts of it read as unbelievably self-absorbed and I say that as someone who is literally writing in a glorified online journal about my experience with a self-help book. Cameron compares artistic setbacks to things like miscarriage and harassment in a way that felt far more careless than edgy helpfulness.

What did land, and landed hard, was the reframe I found myself writing over and over again:

• Ask how, not why me.

• What next, instead of why did this happen.

It’s the kind of anti-victimhood language that could very easily tip into “don’t be a baby” in uncareful hands and minds. Cameron really pushes this throughout the chapter even while admitting in the same breath that the artist inside all of us still needs, in her word, mommying. So my artist within needs to both toughen up and be gentle with myself. I suppose this is true but the chapter lacked the nuance of this duality and when one might need to take the lead. I am more interested in resiliency than “buck up buttercup”

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Week 8 is called Recovering a Sense of Strength. Underneath the parts I bristled at, the actual work of the week is mourning the small losses that come with putting your heart into something. It might be the hard blow of rejection, the soft tap of not doing your best, or quietly quitting something that you invested yourself in that no longer serves (i.e., me and my doctorate). Cameron wants that grief acknowledged, not stepped over. The line that stuck with me longest was: doing the work points the way to new work. Showzing up creates the next thing to show up for. Oof that hit me

• • •

the mommying I apparently still need

This week’s exercises are called Early Patternings, twenty fill-in-the-blank sentences about what you were taught, by whom, and how early. Like most activities in this book that center upon early childhood, I struggled and immediately got defensive. So much of these exercises revolve around our perceptions of our parents and how we think they perceive us. Well, not everyone grows up in a two family household. And not every two family household is heteronormative. I don’t know if this is a function of the time that this is written or who I am (okay, I am confident that it is a mixture of both) but I find this so off putting. These exercises really force me to confront that my childhood, while lovely and loving and totally normal, did not conform to her reference point of what a childhood should look like.

As a kid, my dad thought my art was: unknown. That made me feel: sad that I did not know. And I know that I am not the only one to feel that way. I am sure that there are many people in my life who would describe something similar (but it being due to an emotionally reserved father as opposed to an absent one).

Further down the list I found the sentence that explains half of this newsletter: the thing that ruined my chance to be an artist was my perfectionism, and the negative lesson I got from that, which wasn’t logical but I still believe anyway, is that I can’t draw and be an artist. I have never once tried to reconcile that belief with the fact that I’ve been drawing, in one form or another, in every notebook I’ve owned. I just decided a long time ago that specific kind of drawing and doodling didn’t count.

My great-grandmother believed in me before anyone asked her to. My theatre teacher gave me the closest thing I had to a real creative role model.

• • •

A Note for Paid Subscribers

Below the fold this week, I’m getting into:

• Early Patternings (the rest of the fill-in-the-blanks I didn’t put in the free section, including the one about religion I’m still turning over)

• The Affirmations (the five I picked, and the one I almost couldn’t make myself write down)

• Morning Pages & Artist Date Recap (what did and did not happen this week)

• Goal Search and New Childhood (what happens when you ask a recovering perfectionist what she actually wants, with no adult supervision, and what I skipped)

• The Color Exercise (my favorite!)

Come in.

Read more

I did it. My friends, I finished my SJM reread. The full SJMaasverse goal from May, officially done, months ahead of the new book. I feel like that deserves its own newsletter but I read all of ACOTAR in June and July and now I just have to wait until October for the next. When I finished A Court of Silver Flames, I was almost shell-shocked. I’m done. And then my next thought was that maybe I should reread Crescent City 3: House of Flame And Shadow since there is so much crossover.

Life was lifing, as it does, and I didn’t post to substack in July. So that meant that I didn’t get a chance to share my June reads (16!!) last month so I’m wrapping them up with my July (a less impressive 5, but average page count was 500) reads now. So 21 books across 2 months, just shy of 9,000 pages (8,999 pages but who is counting?). As always, assume that the copy that I read was an audiobook because I genuinely do not have time to read more than 1 or 2 physical books a month.

loved

The Tapestry of Fate — Shannon Chakraborty | Amina al-Sirafi #2
Buy · Listen
Genre: Fantasy, Historical Adventure | did I cry: yes
⭐️ 5/5 | Best for: anyone who’s been waiting for more Amina since she went on her “one last mission”

My most anticipated sequel of the year! I love me some middle aged mom pirates who just can’t stay away from one last job. Chakraborty picks the crew back up for the second of three books but also mixes in some beautiful vignettes that had me crying.

Best Offer Wins — Marisa Kashino
Buy · Listen
Genre: Contemporary Fiction | did I cry: no
⭐️ 5/5 | Best for: anyone who’s ever gotten a little too invested in a bidding war (meeee)

The hype is real! It’s sharp, fast, and way funnier than I expected. Like I almost spit out of my drink reading it. I know how hard the house market can be - in this economy?! - and Best Offer Wins makes you root for people being petty in a very specific, very relatable way. I read it in two sittings and immediately wanted to talk about it with someone. And thank goodness the internet had plenty of thoughts.

Kin — Tayari Jones
Buy · Listen
Genre: Literary Fiction | did I cry: yes
⭐️ 5/5 | Best for: anyone who loves strong lit fic (which isn’t usually me but here we are)
Two motherless children who start as “cradle friends” and evolve into chosen family. I loved everything about this book. It was hard to read at times but the most beautiful prose . read it, now!

The Everlasting — Alix E. Harrow
Buy · Listen
Genre: Fantasy | did I cry: yes
⭐️ 5/5 | Best for: anyone who wants their fantasy to double as a groundhog day ghost story

A scholar and the legendary knight he is researching walk into a bar sit under a tree. They are doomed to relive their fate repeatedly across time loops. It’s beautiful and funny and heartbreaking. And truly hilarious; my favorite line in the book takes a dig at itself: “because time travel is very fricking complicated!”

ACOTAR, the entire series reread
Genre: Fantasy Romance | did I cry: yes
⭐️ 5/5 | Best for: you already know

I still maintain that ACOTAR is SJM’s weakest series but it’s still a 5 star read for me (except for the novella? And everything Nesta? And I actually don’t like any of the main characters but love the supporting cast).

liked

This Story Might Save Your Life — Tiffany Crum
Buy · Listen
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Thriller | did I cry: no
I love a podcast book! I think this one does it well but not quite as well as others like Listen for the Lie.

Make Me Better — Sarah Gailey
Buy · Listen
Genre: Queer horror | did I cry: no
Gailey is so good at writing queer horror. One of the best, actually. Her books crawl under my skin in the best way and this one, about cults, is no exception. Their books aren’t always satisfying but they’re so well written.

Vicious & Vengeful — V.E. Schwab | Villains 1 & 2
Buy · Listen

Genre: Dark Fantasy | did I cry: no
Morally bankrupt superheroes, let’s goooo! Reminds me of The Boys at times but written in only the way that V.E. Schwab can deliver. Schwab’s ability to make you root for genuinely terrible people, and have you question their terribleness, is unmatched. The third in the series comes out later this year!

The Last Time We Drowned — Saratoga Schaefer
Buy · Listen
Genre: Psychological Thriller | did I cry: no
I’ll read anything that Saratoga Schaefer writes (although Serial Killer Support Group might be my favorite). This is a bit more of a departure from her other books that lean more horror / slasher while this is more of a thriller.

Lincoln in the Bardo — George Saunders
Buy · Listen
Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical | did I cry: yes
I really did not know what to expect when my book club picked this for our July read. It took me a minute to get into but I ended up really enjoying it. I also loved it on audio since there were 100+ narrators. I cried several times throughout because grief is a motherf-cker.

It Could Have Been Her — Lisa Jewell
Buy · Listen
Genre: Mystery, Thriller | did I cry: no
Lisa Jewell is a master at her craft. Multiple POVs, a mystery that actually holds together, and an ending that recontextualizes earlier chapters in a satisfying way. And I really love that she wrote from the perspective of an “old” character.

Rage Becomes Her — Soraya Chemaly
Buy · Listen
Genre: Nonfiction | did I cry: no, but I did scream
Best for: anyone who’s ever been told to calm down
“11 is a prime age to introduce your family to the feminist killjoy you have become” i underlined half the book while shouting “YES”.

Women Who Run With the Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Buy · Listen
Genre: Nonfiction, Mythology | did I cry: no
One of my therapists recommended this one to me after I told her I read Rage Becomes Her. And I’m so glad that she did. It’s perfect for anyone who loves their psychology and feminine rage with a side of folklore

june & july by the numbers

Books read: 21
Pages: 8,999
Average rating: 4.11
Average book length: 428 pages
Average time to finish: roughly 4 days for the non-rereads
Books that made me cry: 6
Rereads: 5 (the entire ACOTAR series)
5-star reads: The Tapestry of Fate, Best Offer Wins, Kin, The Everlasting, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin
Genres: Fantasy, Fantasy Romance, Dark Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir
Fiction/Nonfiction split: 86% fiction, 14% nonfiction
Top moods: romantic, feral, tense, dark, adventurous, reflective

What did you read in June and July? Drop your reads in the comments below, I always want to know. 📚

Hi sweet friends,

It’s nice to be writing consistently again. I knew I missed it but I didn’t know how much I would feel the loss until I was back. This week, as with all Augusts, felt loud in a quiet way. Let’s get into it.

· · ·

T — Thinking

On portals, triple eights, and writing down what I want

The Lion’s Gate portal opened this week, well yesterday, 8/8, and I felt it in a big way. Like something shifting you can’t quite name but can feel in your bones.

And while the Lion’s Gate portal is always on 8/8, this year it is 8-8-8 (‘26: 2+6=8). So this year happens to be a strong day of abundance if you happen to believe those sorts of things (and I do). I tried to let the triple eight of this year’s date pull me toward my journal instead of my phone. I sat down and wrote eight things I want to manifest for the back half of the year.

I know how that sounds but I wrote them anyway. Eight specific, slightly embarrassing, entirely sincere wishes, in ink, in a notebook only I read. And the internet when I decided to share my pages.

I wrote manifestations for myself and my family, for work and for hobbies. Naming a want on paper makes it feel less like wishing and more like planning. Maybe that’s the whole trick, dressing up plain old commitment in a little stardust.

· · ·

R — Reading

The Overstory, and the book that keeps interrupting it

My book club picked The Overstory this month. I had never heard of it but when I saw the 20+ hour audiobook I immediately thought “challenge accepted”. I’m only a few chapters in and it’s already rearranging how I look at the trees outside my window. Mostly because it is, so far, deeply reminding me of North Woods. They’re built completely differently, but both treat land like it has memory and will of its own, not just a backdrop. I’ll report back once I’m further in, and if you’ve read both, I’d love to hear what you thought.

· · ·

O — Organizing

Bad Art Everyday’s 75 Grow challenge

If you happen to follow my instagram, you’ve probably seen my stories about how I am participating in Bad Art Everyday’s 75 Grow Challenge. I like to participate every year but this is the first time that I am really documenting it. The premise is similar to my weekly tromp but it’s for 75 days. The acronym, MAPS, stands for Move, Avoid Avoidance, Practice Creativity/Play, and Simplify. It’s been the permission slip I needed to share more intentional content online and actually get my life together (I struggle with avoiding avoidance so having one task each day that I’ve been putting off is empowering). The Grow 75 challenge is quietly reshaping my days in the background, one small habit at a time.

· · ·

M — Making

Crochet chains and the humility of a new skill

I’m worse at crochet than I expected. My chains come out uneven because my tension is either a death grip or nonexistent, with no in between yet. There’s something grounding about being bad at a thing. I tend to not try things I think that I will fail at or stick with hobbies that are difficult. But I am not letting go of this yet. I don’t have to be good at this, I just keep making the chain, loop after loop, until my hands catch up to what my brain already knows.

· · ·

P — Playing

Coming back to my tarot ritual

I’d drifted from my tarot practice for a while when life got loud. My decks sat in their drawer and I passed them by each morning in favor or something else.This week I picked it back up, and I can already feel the difference, my mental health is noticeably better with this small ritual back in rotation. For me it’s less about prediction and more about the pause it creates, just cards, quiet, and ten minutes of asking myself a real question before the day gets its hands on me.

· · ·

Mantra: Write it down. Let that be the spell.

With warmth, Nicole

P.S. If you wrote down anything this week under a Lion’s Gate sky, I’d love to hear it. Not the wish itself if you’d rather keep it close. Just that you wrote it down at all.

Quick key before we dive in: ⭐️ = my most anticipated picks this month, ✊🏾 = Black authors, 🌈 = queer characters or queer authors. Genre and vibe tags are included as well.

Links in this post are mostly Bookshop.org and Libro.fm affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting the newsletter this way.

🔥 August 4

✊🏾 Take What You Can – Naima Coster
Buy · Listen
Literary Fiction | August 4 | Vibe: quiet family reckoning
Coster writes family fracture and reconciliation like no one else. Her earlier novels balance ache and tenderness in a way that always sneaks up on me, and I expect this one to do the same. I’m setting aside a whole slow afternoon for it.

✊🏾🌈 Find My Way Down to You – Julian Winters
Buy · Listen
Romantasy | August 4 | Vibe: swoony, high-stakes love story
Winters pivoting into romantasy has me thrilled. His warmth and humor have always made his characters feel like old friends, and that voice seems perfectly suited to a swoony, high-stakes love story. I’m expecting big feelings and even bigger banter.

🌈 Immortal Game – Allison Saft
Buy · Listen
Fantasy | August 4 | Vibe: lush sapphic slow burn
Saft’s fantasy voice is lush and atmospheric in a way that pulls you fully into the world within a few pages. Pair that with a sapphic slow burn, and this is exactly my kind of trouble. I already know I’ll be rationing chapters to make it last.

🌈 Meet Me in the Garden – Nina LaCour
Buy · Listen
Literary Fiction | August 4 | Vibe: quiet devastation
LaCour writes quiet devastation better than almost anyone working today. Her books tend to sit with you long after the last page, and I expect this one will do the same. It’s going straight to the top of my porch-reading pile.

✊🏾 A Clash of Carnivores – Liselle Sambury
Buy · Listen
Fantasy/Horror | August 4 | Vibe: monstrous and magical
Sambury blending fantasy and horror is a combination I didn’t know I needed until I saw this cover. Her past work has that same instinct for turning magic into something with real teeth. I’m expecting equal parts wonder and dread.

🌈 Survival Show – Juno Dawson
Buy · Listen
Dystopian Fantasy | August 4 | Vibe: reality TV gone dark
Dawson does sharp, socially aware speculative fiction so well, and this premise sounds deliciously bleak. A reality TV show dropped into a dystopian setting is exactly the kind of satire I want right now. I’m bracing myself for how close to reality it might feel.

Meat Bees – Dane Erbach
Buy
Horror | August 4 | Vibe: bug horror, buckle up
Filed firmly under bug horror, which I did not know I needed until this title crossed my feed. There is something about insect-based dread that hits different than your standard monster fare. I’m equal parts curious and mildly itchy just thinking about it.

⭐️ The Unknown – Riley Sager
Buy · Listen
Horror/Thriller | August 4 | Vibe: creepy island secrets
Sager has a gift for turning ordinary premises into something genuinely unsettling, and this one might be his eeriest yet: a director gathers five actresses on an isolated island to rehearse for a film, unaware that the island has its own dark history, five women vanished there a century ago, and the old rumors of something supernatural never really faded. I’m expecting the same twisty, can’t-put-it-down pull his books always deliver.

The Amateur – Chris Bohjalian
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 4 | Vibe: slow-build tension
Bohjalian never misses when it comes to slow-build tension. He has a way of turning ordinary settings into something quietly menacing, and I’m always first in line for his next one. This is an easy auto-buy for me.

All We Hide – Robyn Gigl
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 4 | Vibe: grounded legal-thriller edge
Gigl’s legal background gives her thrillers a grounded, high-stakes edge I always trust. Her courtroom-adjacent plots tend to feel real in a way that a lot of thrillers don’t. I’m expecting the same sharp procedural detail here.

The Castle of the Cloister – Laura Weymouth
Buy · Listen
Epic Fantasy | August 4 | Vibe: lush fairy-tale immersion
Weymouth’s fairy tale inflected fantasy voice makes this an easy add for anyone who wants something lush and immersive. Her past books lean into atmosphere and old, half-remembered magic, and this title sounds like more of the same. I’m here for a slow, gorgeous read.

Eyes of Kings – Chloe Gong
Buy · Listen
Fantasy | August 4 | Vibe: razor-sharp political intrigue
Gong’s political intrigue and razor sharp prose make this one of my most anticipated picks of the whole month. She has a gift for high-stakes court politics that still makes room for real emotional weight. I’ve been waiting for this one since it was announced.

🕸️ August 11

🌈 She Haunts Me Still – De Elizabeth
Buy · Listen
Dark Academia Horror | August 11 | Vibe: queer haunted campus
Dark academia and horror is one of my favorite combinations. A queer haunting layered on top of that is exactly my speed, and the campus setting always adds a nice claustrophobic edge. I’m expecting this one to be atmospheric and a little heartbreaking.

✊🏾 The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass – Leslye Penelope
Buy
Fantasy | August 11 | Vibe: fully lived-in world-building
Penelope’s fantasy worlds always feel fully lived in, down to the smallest cultural detail. This title alone has me ready to clear my schedule for it. I trust her completely to deliver something rich and immersive.

✊🏾 The Ladies Halls – Vanessa Miller
Buy · Listen
Literary Fiction | August 11 | Vibe: unverified but buzzy
This one’s going on the list for the premise and the early buzz around it. I don’t know Miller’s catalog as well as some others on this list, but the setup alone was enough to convince me. I’m curious to see where she takes it.

The Secrets We Hide – Karin Slaughter
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 11 | Vibe: appointment reading
Slaughter’s thrillers are appointment reading for me at this point, full stop. She has a way of building dread that never feels cheap or rushed. This one is already on my calendar.

Reliquary – Hannah F. Whitten
Buy · Listen
Gothic Horror/Fantasy | August 11 | Vibe: eerie fairy-tale gothic
Whitten’s gothic, fairy tale adjacent fantasy has never let me down. This one looks appropriately eerie, with just enough romance to soften the edges. I’m expecting the same lush, moody atmosphere she always delivers.

A Tender Age – Chang-rae Lee
Buy
Literary Fiction | August 11 | Vibe: precise, quiet devastation
Lee’s precise, quietly devastating prose style makes any new release from him an instant priority. He has a rare talent for finding the ache in ordinary moments. This is exactly the kind of literary fiction I want for a slow week.

🌈 Nest of Tongues – Randy Ribay
Buy · Listen
Fantasy/Horror | August 11 | Vibe: emotional depth, sharp teeth
Ribay stepping into fantasy and horror territory feels like a natural extension of the emotional depth in his earlier work. His characters always carry real weight, even when the plot leans speculative. I’m curious how that translates into something scarier.

🌈 Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay – Lex Croucher
Buy
Romantasy | August 11 | Vibe: chaotic and funny
Croucher’s romantasy voice is chaotic and funny in the best way. It makes for an easy palate cleanser between all the horror picks on this list. I always finish one of their books in a single sitting.

Stay Buried – Jennifer McMahon
Buy · Listen
Horror | August 11 | Vibe: slow creeping dread
McMahon’s small-town horror always has that slow, creeping dread I can’t get enough of. Her books tend to unfold quietly before the real horror sets in. This one looks like it will follow that same pattern.

The Butcher Legacy – Alaina Urquhart
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 11 | Vibe: dark procedural instinct
Urquhart brings the same dark, procedural instincts from her podcast work straight onto the page. Her fiction has that same true-crime-adjacent attention to detail that makes the horror feel plausible. I’m expecting something grim and meticulously plotted.

⭐️ A Dance of Burning Blades – M.H. Ayinde
Buy · Listen
Epic Fantasy | August 11 | Vibe: big fantasy swing
This is shaping up to be one of the month’s big epic fantasy swings. Everything I’ve seen about the world-building and scope suggests a genuinely ambitious read. I am fully here for it.

The Hill in the Dark Grove – Liam Higginson
Buy · Listen
Gothic Literary Horror | August 11 | Vibe: gothic and literary
Gothic and literary horror together is my exact sweet spot. This one’s cover alone earned it a spot on the list, and the title has that same brooding energy. I’m hoping the writing matches the atmosphere it’s promising.

🌙 August 18

🌈 The Minimalist – Kailee Pedersen
Buy
Horror | August 18 | Vibe: queer and unsettling
A queer horror premise from Pedersen has me intrigued from the jump. Her past work leans into tension that builds slowly and then hits hard. I’m expecting something unsettling in the best way.

✊🏾 These Walls Remember – Del Sandeen
Buy · Listen
Southern Gothic Horror | August 18 | Vibe: haunted and humid
Southern Gothic horror is a genre I will always show up for. Sandeen’s take sounds appropriately haunted, with the kind of humid, history-soaked dread that genre does best. This is an easy add to my fall preview shelf, even though it’s still technically summer.

🌈 Unprecedented Times – Malavika Kannan
Buy · Listen
Literary Fiction | August 18 | Vibe: sharp contemporary voice
Kannan writing contemporary lit fic with a queer lens is an easy yes for me. Her voice tends to be sharp and current in a way that feels genuinely of the moment. I’m curious to see how she handles this particular premise.

✊🏾 Bound by Fury – Noelle Monét
Buy · Listen
Paranormal Fantasy | August 18 | Vibe: fury and folklore
Paranormal fantasy from a Black author is exactly the lane I want more of on this list. The title alone has me hooked, and the premise sounds like it leans hard into folklore and fury in equal measure. This is one I’ll be picking up on release day.

Promise Me Never – Liv Constantine
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 18 | Vibe: twisty and glossy
The Constantine sisters’ thrillers are twisty, glossy, and always a good time. They tend to write the kind of domestic suspense that’s perfect for a single greedy weekend read. I’m expecting plenty of reversals here.

Better Than Revenge – Bea Fitzgerald
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 18 | Vibe: sharp and propulsive
Fitzgerald’s sharp, propulsive style makes this one an easy add for anyone craving a fast, biting read. Her books tend to move quickly without sacrificing character work. This feels like a great palate cleanser thriller.

Once Written in Gilded Blood – K.M. Moronova
Buy
Fantasy | August 18 | Vibe: that title says it all
That title is doing a lot of work, and I mean that as the highest compliment. It promises the kind of ornate, blood soaked fantasy I can’t resist. Sign me up immediately.

Never Whistle at Night, Part II: Back for Blood – anthology
Buy · Listen
Horror Anthology (Indigenous authors) | August 18 | Vibe: must-read horror collection
The first Never Whistle at Night anthology was one of the best horror collections in recent memory. A sequel featuring Indigenous horror writers is an automatic must-read for me. I already know I’ll be recommending this one before I even finish it.

⭐️ Calamities – Chuck Wendig
Buy · Listen
Horror | August 18 | Vibe: horror with teeth
Wendig’s horror always comes with teeth. He tends to write chaos that feels both grounded and utterly unhinged at the same time, and this one looks like no exception. I’m expecting a wild ride.

Siren Says – Jennifer Michelle Herrera
Buy · Listen
Fantasy | August 18 | Vibe: siren song hook
A siren-driven fantasy premise is exactly the kind of hook that gets an instant spot on my list. There’s something so classic and yet endlessly reinventable about siren mythology. I’m curious what angle this one takes.

First Summer – Ekin Oklap
Buy · Listen
Literary Fiction | August 18 | Vibe: instinct pick
Filed under books I’m trusting on instinct alone. The title and the timing feel right for late-August reading, when everything starts to feel a little wistful. I don’t know much about this one yet, but I wanted it on the list anyway.

Sleeping Sisters – Jennifer Givhan
Buy · Listen
Horror | August 18 | Vibe: emotional gut-punch scares
Givhan’s horror always carries an emotional weight underneath the scares. Her books tend to use fear as a way of processing something much deeper, and this one looks like it will do the same. I’m expecting to feel as much as I’m scared.

🖤 August 25

✊🏾 The Sunken, the Adored – Donyae Coles
Buy · Listen
Lovecraftian Horror | August 25 | Vibe: reclaimed cosmic horror
Coles writing Lovecraftian horror is an immediate yes for me. I love when writers reclaim that corner of the genre and push back against its uglier history. This title alone suggests something suitably strange and unsettling.

🌈⭐️ Earthbound – Saara El-Arifi

Buy · Listen
Sapphic Romantasy | August 25 | Vibe: my most anticipated book of the month, full stop
I need to be honest, this is the release I am most excited about this entire month. El-Arifi’s world-building is gorgeous and immersive, and a sapphic romantasy from her is basically a dream come true for me. I have already cleared my release-day schedule for this one.

✊🏾 Blood Rising – Markus Redmond
Buy · Listen
Horror (vampire sequel) | August 25 | Vibe: round two
A follow-up in this vampire horror series has been on my radar since book one. The first book set up a world I wasn’t ready to leave, and I’m ready for round two. This is one of my most anticipated sequels of the year.

Heart of Glass – Jennifer Hillier
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 25 | Vibe: unnerving gut-punch twists
Hillier’s thrillers are consistently unnerving in the best way. This one looks like it will deliver the same gut-punch twists her other books are known for. I’m expecting to read this in one sitting.

The Shadow Friends – Tess Gerritsen
Buy
Thriller | August 25 | Vibe: classic slow-burn suspense
Gerritsen is a reliable auto-buy for me every single time. This one sounds like classic slow-burn suspense, built the way only she can build it. I have full trust in this pick.

Daggerbound – T. Kingfisher
Buy · Listen
Fantasy | August 25 | Vibe: warm, funny, a little unsettling
Kingfisher writes fantasy with humor and warmth wrapped around something a little unsettling. It’s a hard balance to strike, and she does it better than almost anyone. I trust her completely with this one.

If We Survive the Night – Jo Salazar
Buy · Listen
Apocalyptic Horror | August 25 | Vibe: end-of-days dread
An apocalyptic horror premise is such a great way to close out the month. This title has real end-of-days dread baked into it, which feels appropriately final for the last Tuesday of August. I’m ready to be thoroughly unsettled.

The Dark in Her Veins – M.K. Lobb
Buy · Listen
Fantasy | August 25 | Vibe: moody and romantic
Lobb’s fantasy voice tends to be moody and romantic in equal measure. This one looks like it will follow suit, with just enough darkness to keep things interesting. I’m expecting a broody, atmospheric read.

✊🏾 The Big Bad Book of Kaiju – anthology feat. Tananarive Due
Buy
Horror/Sci-Fi Anthology | August 25 | Vibe: giant monsters, great pedigree
A kaiju horror anthology with Tananarive Due as a contributor is an instant must-read. She never misses, and having her name attached instantly elevates the whole collection for me. I’m expecting giant monsters and genuinely great writing in equal measure.

Big Little Truths – Liane Moriarty
Buy · Listen
Thriller | August 25 | Vibe: secrets under the surface
Moriarty’s ensemble-driven, secrets-under-the-surface style is comfort reading for me at this point. Her books always manage to be both funny and quietly devastating. This feels like the perfect way to wind down the month.

Heir of Prophecy – Analeigh Sbrana
Buy · Listen
Fantasy | August 25 | Vibe: classic prophecy hook
A prophecy-driven fantasy is such a classic hook. I’m always here for it when it’s done well, and this premise has enough of a fresh angle to keep my attention. I’m hoping it leans into the tropes rather than away from them.

The Burn Line – Jonathan Sims
Buy · Listen
Horror | August 25 | Vibe: eerie audio-drama sensibility
Sims has a background in horror audio drama, and that eerie, atmospheric sensibility tends to translate well to prose. I’m curious to see how it holds up on the page instead of through headphones. This feels like a strong, moody note to end the month on.

And that’s the stack: 48 books, four Tuesdays, and a genre range wide enough to cover every mood August throws at us. A few of these were sourced from bookstagram round-ups rather than official publisher listings, so treat pub dates as close-but-verify before you set your pre-order alarms.

Tell me in the comments: which of these are you most excited about? (Mine is obviously Earthbound. I will not be taking questions about this.) And if you want more day-to-day book chaos, come find me on Instagram.

Happy reading,
Nicole

It is Lughnasadh. The first harvest. The point on the wheel where summer begins, almost imperceptibly, to tip. The days are still long and hot but there is something in the quality of the light that knows. I have always loved this turning point more than I can fully explain. It asks you to look at what you have tended and reckon with it honestly. What came up. What didn’t. What you let go of and what held.

This felt like exactly the right week to be asking those questions.

(Affiliate links live here, as always. Thank you for using them.)

· · ·

T — Thinking

the season took the rituals and I am taking them back

Summer has a way of being generous and greedy at the same time. More people over and later nights. The loosening of the usual container. I said yes to all of it and I don’t regret any of it, but somewhere in the middle of all that beautiful busyness, my morning rituals quietly slipped out the back door.

Not all of them. Skincare held. The red light mask held. (Some things are apparently non-negotiable for me and I have made my peace with that.) But my morning pages stopped. Tarot stopped. The slow, deliberate part of the morning that is just for me, the part that makes the rest of the day feel like it belongs to me too, that part got crowded out by the season.

Lughnasadh feels like the right moment to notice this. The harvest festival is not just about what grew. It’s about what you’re bringing back inside before the cold comes. I want to bring my rituals back inside. Not as punishment for having let them slip, and not with the kind of dramatic re-commitment energy that never actually sticks. Just quietly. Just: morning pages again. Cards again. The small daily things that remind me who I am when no one is asking anything of me yet.

That is the harvest I am working on this week.

· · ·

R — Reading

Chuck Tingle, SJM, and the reread that surprised me

I spent a meaningful chunk of July finishing my Sarah J. Maas reread, which I had been doing with great devotion and some very strong opinions. My ranking remains: Throne of Glass, then Crescent City, then ACOTAR. I will not be taking questions. What I did not expect was how much the reread would remind me why certain characters got me in the first place. Cassian and Mor, specifically. They walked back into my brain and sat down like they owned the place. A Court of Wings and Ruin surprised me most on the reread, which I say as someone who thought she had already formed all her opinions about it. I also liked Silver Flames more than I remember the first time around. I think I was so overwhelmed by the smut in my first reading (it is a LOT) that I didn’t really enjoy the true story. Second time around I really enjoyed Nesta’s story (as much as I still hate her).

Currently I am 25% into Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle and it is exactly what I needed after all that epic fantasy. Chuck Tingle writes queer horror with such specific, tender, unhinged energy and I adore him for it. If you have somehow not encountered his work yet, this is your invitation. Do not be intimidated by the titles. Just trust.

· · ·

O — Organizing

a drawer, a home, a whole feeling

I organized my tarot and oracle cards and witchy things last week. They have a drawer now, all to themselves. Everything sorted by type, everything exactly where it belongs, and I want you to know that opening that drawer gives me a satisfaction I am not going to try to intellectualize.

The thing is, I think this is connected to the ritual piece. The morning pages fell off partly because the supplies were around but not quite ready. Not exactly where they needed to be to make it frictionless. But the cards have a home now. A real one. And I think having a dedicated, organized, beautiful space for the things that matter to a practice actually makes the practice more possible. It lowers the resistance just enough.

Lughnasadh, again. Tending the space so the space can tend you back.

· · ·

M — Making

my daughter wants to crochet and now apparently so do I

My sister-in-law visited recently and she is, by any reasonable measure, a craft queen. My daughter watched her work and decided on the spot that she needed to learn. We talked through the options and landed on crochet over knitting (no sharp needles, gentler learning curve, more forgiving tension) and today we sat down together and tried to learn how to make chains.

Just chains. Loops into loops into loops. We are at the absolute beginning of the beginning.Truthfully it wasn’t until she went to bed and I could watch video upon video that I finally got it.

But there is something about learning something with your child, side by side, both of you equally lost and equally trying, that is one of the better feelings I know how to describe. She was patient (until she wasn’t). I was only slightly more patient than her (until I was extremely frustrated). I made a lot of chains. None of them were even but I’m very proud of them anyway.

If you crochet and have beginner resources you love, please send them. We are going to need all the help we can get.

· · ·

P — Playing

Pokopia has my whole heart and I will not apologize

Pokopia is a Pokemon spin-off for the Nintendo Switch 2 in which you play as Ditto, who has transformed into a human, and your job is to rehabilitate an abandoned world by befriending Pokemon, gathering resources, building structures, and essentially tending a broken place back to life. It is a cozy sandbox life simulation in the spirit of Animal Crossing and Minecraft, but with Pokemon, and with a genuinely mysterious and moving story underneath it.

If you love Animal Crossing, Minecraft, or Stardew Valley, you will love this game. If you love Pokemon, you will love this game. If you are me, you will play it nonstop and feel nothing but joy about it.

I have been playing it every spare moment I can find and it is exactly the right game for this season. Building something slowly. Watching it come to life. Making a place worth returning to.

Which is, now that I think about it, more or less what Lughnasadh is asking all of us to do.

· · ·

This week’s mantra: tend the space and the practice will follow.

· · ·

August. The wheel turns. The light is starting to know something the rest of us aren’t ready to admit yet.

Tell me what you’re thinking, reading, organizing, making, and playing. I always want to know.

With love,

Nicole

P.S. Fabulous Bodies. Chuck Tingle. Just trust me and go.

Pour something cold, sit somewhere with a fan on you, and let’s map out the month.

✨ August Fun Facts

• August is named for Augustus Caesar, who apparently couldn’t let a month go by without one named after him too (see also: July).

• The birthstones are peridot and spinel, both associated with strength and protection. Peridot is famously green, which feels correct for the last full month of summer green.

• The Perseid meteor shower peaks around August 12-13 this year, which lines up almost exactly with the New Moon, so the sky will actually be dark enough to see them.

📅 August’s Meaningful Dates

The Sacred & Celebratory

• August 1 — Lughnasadh (the first of the three harvest festivals, more on this below)

• August 12 — New Moon and Solar Eclipse in Leo

• August 22 — Sun enters Virgo / Virgo Season begins

• August 27 — Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse in Pisces

Awareness Months

• National Wellness Month, National Black Business Month, Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month

The Delightfully Random Ones

• August 8 — the Lion’s Gate Portal (8/8), a big one for the woo girlies among us

• August 10 — National S’mores Day

• August 19 — National Aviation Day

Planning note: this month has two eclipses bookending it, which tends to bring things to the surface whether you asked for them or not. Nothing to fear, just don’t be surprised if August feels a little louder than July did.

🥕 What’s Fresh Right Now

• Fruits: Peaches, blackberries, watermelon, plums

• Veggies: Corn, tomatoes (Gerald’s finally delivering), zucchini, cucumbers

• Herbs: Basil, before it inevitably bolts on me

This is the last real gasp of the farmers market before everything starts leaning toward apples and squash. Buy the tomatoes now. All of them.

The Lunch Break

What's in Season: August 🍉🌽

Happy August…

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a month ago · 8 likes · Natalie Marie

🏡 The August Home Reset

August is when I start quietly, secretly prepping for fall before I’m ready to admit it out loud. Here’s what’s on my list:

• Sort through summer clothes before the back to school clothing scramble hits

• Clear out the “figure it out in September” pile that’s been building on my desk all summer

• Give the reading nook a reset before cozier months bring us back to it

🔮 The Mystical Side of August

August opens under Leo’s full confidence and closes stepping into Virgo’s practical clarity, with an eclipse on each end to make sure you’re paying attention.

New Moon and Solar Eclipse in Leo — August 12

Leo New Moons are about creative courage, being seen, letting yourself want things loudly. With a solar eclipse attached, this one carries extra weight. I’m asking myself what I’ve been quietly building that’s actually ready to be shown.

Sun into Virgo — August 22

Leo asked us to shine. Virgo asks us to build the actual system that holds the shine up. As Virgo moon, I am in my element. I feel this shift every year, a pull from big feeling toward small, useful tasks. That’s Virgo, and it’s exactly the energy I want heading into a busier fall.

Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse in Pisces — August 27

Pisces Full Moons bring things up from underneath, feelings you’ve been swimming past all month. With the eclipse, expect a little more intensity than usual. Let yourself feel it instead of organizing your way around it (I say this as someone who will absolutely try to organize her way around it).

Crystals for August

• Citrine: for Leo season confidence and creative momentum

• Moss agate: for the shift into Virgo and grounded new routines

• Labradorite: for the Pisces Full Moon and emotional protection

• Clear quartz: for the eclipse energy on both ends of the month

August Tarot Spread

Pull three cards:

• What is the Leo eclipse asking me to finally show?

• What system does Virgo season want me to build?

• What is the Pisces Full Moon bringing to the surface?

🌾 Lughnasadh: The First Harvest

Lughnasadh falls on August 1, the midpoint between the Summer Solstice and the Fall Equinox, and the first of the three harvest festivals on the wheel of the year. Where Beltane in April was all bloom and beginning, Lughnasadh is about gathering in what’s actually grown. Less “look what’s possible,” more “look what’s real.”

I absolutely love ’s take on Lughnasadh and how to celebrate:

The Green Witch

Lughnasadh

Hello, my lovely…

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a month ago · 43 likes · 3 comments

Simple ritual: bake something with what’s actually in season right now, even if it’s just banana bread with the last of the summer fruit going soft on your counter. Lughnasadh is traditionally a grain harvest festival, and there’s something correct about marking it by putting your oven on.

🎨 August with Little Ones

• Press flowers from the last of the summer garden before it turns

• Meteor shower night: let them stay up late on the 12th (if that’s yoru thing), blankets in the yard, no expectations of them actually seeing one

• Start a “what I want to remember about summer” list together before school scrambles it out of memory

• Peach or corn taste test, because kids will eat almost anything if you frame it as a contest

💡 Your August Toolkit

Weekly Themes

• Week 1 (Aug 1-8): Lughnasadh energy, the Lion’s Gate on the 8th; a week for noticing what’s actually ready to be gathered.

• Week 2 (Aug 9-15): New Moon and solar eclipse in Leo on the 12th, meteor shower peaking alongside it; big, visible, a little loud.

• Week 3 (Aug 16-22): Virgo season begins on the 22nd; start building the small systems that’ll carry you into fall.

• Week 4 (Aug 23-31): Full Moon and lunar eclipse in Pisces on the 27th; let things surface instead of managing them away.

📝 What’s Coming to Soft Hours & Small Treasures This Month

After taking a break, I’m back on that writing thing. A quick look at what’s landing in your inbox this month, in case you want to know what to look forward to:

• The Artist’s Way ramps back up. I had to take a break because life was overwhelming but I’ve picked it back up and I’m so glad that I did.

• Journaling gets its own pillar. Not a paragraph tucked inside TROMP anymore, a real weekly slot starting with a piece on why I keep coming back to keeping a journal in the first place. Especially as the Hobonichi lineup is announced September 1 Japan time / August 31 Pacific!

• Weekly TROMP returns for its Sunday rhythm, same as always, no matter what else shifts around it.

• The June/July reading wrap up and August book releases round things out on the books side, both free for everyone.

💭 Closing Notes

August always feels like it’s holding two things at once. The last real stretch of slow summer, and the first quiet signals of everything that’s about to get busier. Two eclipses this month means things won’t stay hidden even if you want them to, and honestly, I think that’s the right kind of pressure to close out a season with.

My word for the year has been tend, and August feels like the month that word was made for. Not building something new. Not tearing anything down. Just noticing what’s actually grown this year and gathering it in before the next season asks something different of me.

The tomatoes are ready. The journal pages are filling up. TAW is closing out exactly when it should.

Here’s to an August that lets you keep what’s actually worth keeping.

With warmth,

Nicole

P.S. If you’re doing a meteor shower night with your kids on the 12th, lower your expectations for actual shooting stars and raise your expectations for how much they’ll talk about it afterward regardless. That’s the real win. 🌻

There is a line that’s been sitting in my chest like a stone I keep turning over to look at a different side of it.

“We are more the conduit than the creator of what we express.”

— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

That’s the sentence, and I read it on a Friday morning and then found myself repeating it to no one in particular while I was loading the dishwasher, the way you do when a sentence rearranges something in you before you’ve even decided whether you agree with it. Because there is a version of creativity I’ve been taught my whole life, the one where you sit down and wring the thing out of yourself through sheer effort and willpower, where the work is proof of how hard you tried. And then there’s this. The conduit. The idea that the thing was already moving somewhere, and my only job was to not get in its way.

I don’t fully know what to do with that yet. But I like it more than I expected to.

Week 7 is called Recovering a Sense of Connection, and the emphasis Cameron puts on it this week is less mystical-sounding than I braced for (no offense to the universe, we are still working on our relationship). It’s more reactive, more practical. We drop down the well. We pay attention to what comes back up. And there’s this idea of a second voice, something that adds to the creative voice through synchronicity, little correspondences and coincidences that show up if you’re paying attention to them instead of explaining them away before breakfast. I’m not someone who has historically trusted that kind of attention. I trust spreadsheets. But I’m trying it on this week, the way you try on a coat that isn’t yours to see if it’s the kind of thing you’d actually wear.

· · ·

the perfectionist, an old roommate of mine

“Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It’s a loop, an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and lose sight of the whole.”

“We correct our originality into a uniformity that lacks passion and spontaneity.”

“The perfectionist writes, paints, creates with one eye on her audience. Instead of enjoying the process, the perfectionist is constantly grading the results. The perfectionist has married the logic side of the brain. The critic reigns supreme in the perfectionist creative household.”

The critic reigning supreme. I could send that critic a holiday card. We’ve lived together that long. I read all three of those quotes back to back and had to put the book down for a second, because that last one in particular described a marriage I know intimately. The critic reigning supreme. I could send that critic a holiday card. We’ve lived together that long.

My perfectionism doesn’t come from ambition, or not only from ambition. It comes from OCD, the kind that doesn’t always look like the version people joke about (the symmetrical desk, the hand washing) and looks instead like a closed loop in my own head, checking and rechecking a sentence or a decision or a feeling until it’s been worn smooth of any actual meaning. For a long time I didn’t have language for the difference between “I care about doing this well” and “I cannot let this go until it stops feeling dangerous,” and Cameron’s description of the perfectionist with one eye on the audience, grading instead of enjoying, was uncomfortably accurate to what that loop actually feels like from inside it. It isn’t about wanting the work to be good. It’s about not trusting myself to survive the work being imperfect.

I am, by most measures, a recovering perfectionist. Some weeks that recovery looks like real ease. This week it looked like reading three quotes in a self-help book from the nineties and feeling unexpectedly exposed by all of them, the kind of exposed that makes you go quiet for a minute. But underneath the quiet there was something else too, something closer to pride, actually, when I let myself notice it. I used to live inside that loop full time. Now I visit it, sometimes for a whole uncomfortable week, and then I leave again. That’s not nothing. I’m trying to let it count as something.

One of the exercises this week asked us to reflect on something we would like to do if we didn’t have to do it perfectly. I, perhaps unsurprisingly, am someone who does not like to try new things if I think that I will not be good at them. So this exercise alone really forced me into some uncomfortable feelings.

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try learning an instrument. Maybe piano since that is something that my husband and father both play(ed). I wrote that down before I’d thought about it and then sat with how telling it was that the thing sitting right behind my perfectionism wasn’t a grand ambition. It was something as small and ordinary as wanting to be bad at something in a room by myself.

Morning Pages: I did them a few days this week, not every day, and it felt good to get back in touch with myself on the mornings I showed up for it.

Artist Date: I put on one side of a Local Natives album and just doodled while it played, no goal, no plan for what the doodle was supposed to become. It’s a small thing to report back on, but it might be the most conduit-like I felt all week. The pen moved, the music moved, I mostly stayed out of the way.

Below the fold this week, I’m getting into:

• The Jealousy Map (who I named, what it cost me to admit, and what it actually pointed me toward)

• Archeology (the sentence completion exercise that dug all the way back to childhood, the hard parts and the surprisingly tender parts both, in my own exact words)

• The mantra and the small acts of self tending (a scent, a collage, the least glamorous self-care object in recorded history: shoe inserts)

• Favorites (five films, and what it tells me that I can’t stop reading horror told through a marginalized lens right now)

Come in.

Read more

That’s Summerween. The unofficial spooky season for people who refuse to wait until October.

I went deep for this one. Community picks, Bookstagram threads, my own read shelves, my embarrassingly long TBR. I built the list I always wanted to find and could never quite locate anywhere, organized by vibe, six books per category, with my personal read notes baked in. Eight categories. Forty-eight books. One very specific seasonal mood. I’ve marked my favorites below with a star ⭐ (spoiler: most live in the haunt houses and lost in the woods categories).

Bookmark this. Screenshot it. You’re going to want it at 8pm when it’s still light out, you have nowhere to be, and the vibes are just slightly off.

(As always, I’ve used affiliate links below. Thank you for using them. And all of the “listen” options are through libro.fm which has a Buy One, Get One Free sale until June 22, 2026.)

· · ·

🏕️ Summer Camps

Isolation. Counselors who know too much. The specific dread of nowhere to run.

The Honeys – Ryan La Sala

Buy· Listen

YA Horror | Vibe: an elite summer academy, twin grief, a group of girls keeping dangerous secrets

After his twin sister dies mysteriously at an elite summer academy, Mars enrolls to investigate and discovers a group of girls called the Honeys who keep dangerous secrets. A twisted YA horror that blurs grief, identity, and something deeply sinister lurking in the bucolic grounds.

Best for: anyone who wants their camp horror laced with real grief

Camp Damascus – Chuck Tingle

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Horror | Vibe: a gay conversion camp, supernatural dread, a debut with real teeth

Welcome to Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed most effective gay conversion camp in the country. The secret behind its success is anything but holy. Chuck Tingle’s searing debut uses supernatural horror to explore the real demons the queer community faces in America.

Best for: readers who want horror that means something

The God of the Woods – Liz Moore

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Mystery, Literary Fiction | Vibe: an Adirondack summer camp, a vanished girl, a powerful family’s long shadow

When a girl vanishes from an Adirondack summer camp in 1975, it triggers a haunting investigation tied to another disappearance fourteen years earlier, and the powerful family whose shadow looms over everything. A richly layered, propulsive novel that weaves together multiple timelines across three very different worlds.

Best for: readers who want literary depth with their mystery

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight – Kalynn Bayron

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YA Slasher | Vibe: a full-contact horror experience camp, a scripted nightmare turned real

Charity plays the “final girl” at a full-contact horror experience called Camp Mirror Lake, but when her co-workers start disappearing for real, her scripted nightmare becomes terrifyingly authentic. This heart-pounding YA slasher asks what happens when the game stops being pretend.

Best for: fans of meta horror that knows its own tropes

The Last Time I Lied – Riley Sager

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Thriller | Vibe: a reopened camp, three vanished friends, secrets that don’t stay buried

Fifteen years ago, Emma’s three camp friends walked into the woods and never came back. Now she’s returned to the newly reopened Camp Nightingale to uncover the truth. Secrets buried in the forest don’t stay hidden, and someone knows she’s been lying all along.

Best for: Riley Sager completionists and anyone new to her twisty style

Heads Will Roll – Josh Winning

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Horror Comedy | Vibe: a phone-free adult retreat, a haunted wardrobe, campy queer horror

Disgraced sitcom star Willow is shipped off to Camp Castaway, a phone-free adult retreat in the woods, where a terrifying woman appears in her wardrobe and campers begin to vanish. A campy, funny, and genuinely scary horror novel with a killer queer love story at its center.

Best for: readers who want their scares with a side of humor

· · ·

🔪 Final Girls & Slashers

She survived. Now what?

⭐ The Final Girl Support Group – Grady Hendrix

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Horror | Vibe: real-life massacre survivors, a support group, a killer hunting the group itself

Six women who survived real life massacres meet monthly in a support group, until one goes missing and someone starts hunting the rest. A breakneck, loving tribute to slasher cinema that asks what survival actually costs.

Best for: slasher movie lovers who want the aftermath, not just the chase

The Last Final Girl – Stephen Graham Jones

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Horror | Vibe: a Michael Jackson mask, a homecoming massacre survivor, horror told like a film script

Homecoming princess Lindsay barely survived a Halloween massacre and became her town’s heroic final girl, but a new killer has arrived in a Michael Jackson mask, and her high school is full of girls who all know the rules of the game. A wildly inventive, cinematic slasher told with the language of film itself.

Best for: readers who think in movie references

Final Girls – Riley Sager

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Thriller | Vibe: three sole survivors, a quiet life unraveling, the past roaring back

Quincy Carpenter is one of three women dubbed Final Girls by the press, the sole survivors of separate massacres, and she’s managed to build a quiet life. When one Final Girl is found dead and another appears on her doorstep, the past she’s been hiding from comes roaring back.

Best for: anyone who wants a thriller with a slasher backbone

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre – Philip Fracassi

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Horror Comedy | Vibe: a retirement home, suspicious deaths, dark humor with a blue-rinse cast

Rose DuBois is in her late seventies at the Autumn Springs Retirement Home when residents start dying in suspicious ways. Dark humor meets blood soaked mystery as Rose and her best friend Miller investigate whether there’s a killer loose among the blue rinse crowd.

Best for: anyone who wants their final girl to be seventy-eight

Breathe In, Bleed Out – Brian McAuley

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Horror | Vibe: a Joshua Tree wellness retreat, peace curdling into violence, New Age dread

Haunted by the mysterious death of her fiance, Hannah joins a restorative spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree, where peace and healing quickly descend into violence as a killer begins picking off attendees. A slasher that expertly uses the New Age setting’s aesthetics to amplify the dread.

Best for: readers who find wellness culture a little bit terrifying already

⭐ Bury Your Gays – Chuck Tingle

Buy · Listen

Horror Satire | Vibe: a Hollywood writers’ room, queer characters refused as sacrifice, literal monsters in the Hills

Oscar nominated screenwriter Misha refuses to kill off the gay characters in his streaming series finale, and suddenly finds a target on his back from both Hollywood executives and literal monsters stalking him through the Hills. Chuck Tingle skewers the film industry while delivering genuine supernatural horror.

Best for: anyone who wants industry satire with their supernatural scares

· · ·

🌊 Lakeside & Seaside

The water is beautiful. The water is wrong.

Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant

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Horror, Sci-Fi | Vibe: the Mariana Trench, a vanished expedition vessel, something hungry in the deep

A new scientific expedition sets out to investigate the Mariana Trench and the legend of the Atargatis, the vessel that vanished there seven years ago with all hands. What they find in the deep is real, it is hungry, and it has been waiting.

Best for: readers who want their horror to come with real science underneath it

Dead Silence – S.A. Barnes

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Sci-Fi Horror | Vibe: a vanished luxury space liner, Titanic meets The Shining, a nightmare still unfolding

Beacon repair technician Claire and her crew pick up a distress signal leading them to the Aurora, a famous luxury space liner that vanished on its maiden voyage over twenty years ago. Titanic meets The Shining: the nightmare on board isn’t over.

Best for: anyone who wants their haunted house in zero gravity

Chlorine – Jade Song

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Literary Horror | Vibe: a competitive swimmer, body horror, sapphic coming of age

Swimmer Ren Yu’s entire life is the pool, until she begins to wonder if she’s becoming something other than human. A dark, lyrical debut that blurs body horror with coming of age, immigration, and sapphic longing.

Best for: readers who want their horror literary and a little strange

⭐ The Drowning Kind – Jennifer McMahon

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Horror | Vibe: a Vermont estate pool, a wishing spring with a terrible price, dual timelines

When Jax’s bipolar sister drowns in their grandmother’s Vermont estate pool, she uncovers a history of the land stretching back to 1929, and a spring rumored to grant wishes at a terrible price. A dual timeline horror novel soaked in family grief and something deeply, wrongly supernatural.

Best for: anyone who wants their ghost story tangled up with family grief

The Drowning Summer – Christine Lynn Herman

Buy

YA Horror | Vibe: an unsolved Long Island murder, sand dollars over the eyes, ghosts rising from the sea

Six years ago, three Long Island teenagers were murdered with sand dollars over their eyes, and the case was never solved. Former friends Evelyn and Mina must work together to uncover the truth, navigating their growing attraction as increasingly dangerous ghosts rise from the sea.

Best for: readers who want a cold case wrapped in a ghost story and a slow burn romance

The House Across the Lake – Riley Sager

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Thriller | Vibe: a Vermont lake house, a vanished neighbor, voyeur thriller turned something stranger

Grieving actress Casey Fletcher retreats to her Vermont lake house, watches her glamorous neighbors across the water, and then the wife suddenly vanishes. What looks like a familiar voyeur thriller spirals into something no amount of lakeside surveillance could have prepared her for.

Best for: anyone who wants a Rear Window setup with a twist nobody saw coming

· · ·

🚗 Road Trip

The horror isn’t in the destination. It’s in the miles between.

⭐ Coffin Moon – Keith Rosson

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Horror | Vibe: 1970s Pacific Northwest, a vampire and a vengeful widower, noir meets monster story

Vietnam vet Duane Minor crosses the wrong man, vampire John Varley, who kills his wife, leaving him and his teenage niece united only by their need for vengeance. A gritty, atmospheric 1970s road novel through Pacific Northwest darkness, equal parts noir and monster story.

Best for: readers who want their vampire story to feel like a Western

⭐ Murder Road – Simone St. James

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Supernatural Thriller | Vibe: a deserted Michigan highway, a bleeding hitchhiker, decades of murders

Newlyweds April and Eddie pick up a bleeding hitchhiker on a deserted Michigan road in 1995, and find themselves prime suspects in decades of murders along Atticus Line. A propulsive supernatural thriller that delivers chills through both the living and the dead.

Best for: anyone who wants ghosts and a genuine whodunit in the same book

Survivor Song – Paul Tremblay

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Horror | Vibe: a rabies-like virus, a race against time, a pregnant best friend in danger

Massachusetts is being overrun by a rabies like virus with an incubation period of under an hour, and pediatrician Ramola Sherman is racing against time to save her pregnant, newly bitten best friend. A viscerally frightening pandemic horror novel that’s as emotionally resonant as it is relentlessly tense.

Best for: readers who want their pandemic horror to also break their heart

I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom – Jason Pargin

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Thriller | Vibe: a mysterious black box, $200,000 cash, internet conspiracy theories spiraling

A driver is offered $200,000 cash to transport a young woman and a mysterious black box from Los Angeles to Washington, DC. No questions, no phones, no looking inside. As social media erupts with theories about the box, this darkly funny thriller builds to a revelation that will change how you see the world.

Best for: anyone who wants a thriller that’s also very, very funny

Rovers – Richard Lange

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Horror | Vibe: immortal vampires, the 1970s American Southwest, tragedy and bloody action

Brothers Jesse and Edgar are immortal rovers, beings who survive by consuming human blood, drifting through the 1970s American Southwest until a young woman disrupts their grim routine. A hard boiled vampire road novel that’s equal parts tragedy and bloody action.

Best for: readers who want their vampires hard-boiled, not romantic

Red River Road – Anna Downes

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Thriller | Vibe: a vanlife sister’s missing route, a remote Australian highway, an uneasy alliance

Katy Sweeney retraces her missing sister’s solo vanlife route along a remote Western Australian coastal highway, searching for clues the police overlooked, and finds an uneasy ally in a woman running from her own dark past. A twist filled thriller exploring the dark side of solo female travel in a stunningly perilous landscape.

Best for: anyone who has ever romanticized solo travel and wants to be reminded why that’s risky

· · ·

🌲 Lost in the Woods

Something in the dark between the trees has been watching you the whole time.

⭐ The Staircase in the Woods – Chuck Wendig

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Horror | Vibe: a staircase to nowhere, a friend who never came back down, twenty years of unfinished business

Twenty years ago, five friends found a mysterious staircase to nowhere in the forest. One walked up and never came back down. Now the staircase has reappeared, and the survivors must return to find out what lies beyond it.

Best for: readers who want their horror genuinely strange and unresolved

⭐ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter – Stephen Graham Jones

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Historical Horror | Vibe: a 1912 diary, a vampire seeking justice, the aftermath of the Marias Massacre

A Lutheran pastor’s 1912 diary reveals transcribed interviews with Good Stab, a Blackfeet man who shares the story of a vampire haunting the fields of the reservation seeking justice. A chilling historical horror novella rooted in the aftermath of the Marias Massacre, from one of the new masters of horror writing.

Best for: anyone who wants horror that carries real historical weight

The Twisted Ones – T. Kingfisher

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Horror | Vibe: a hoarder’s rural home, a step-grandfather’s terrifying journal, Blair Witch energy in the South

Mouse is cleaning out her hoarder grandmother’s rural North Carolina home when she discovers her step grandfather’s journal, full of rants about terrifying things in the woods that turn out to be horrifyingly real. A slow burn creature horror that reads like The Blair Witch Project set in the American South.

Best for: slow burn horror fans who want dread that builds for chapters

The Cabin at the End of the World – Paul Tremblay

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Horror | Vibe: a remote New Hampshire cabin, four strangers with an impossible demand, unbearable tension

Seven year old Wen and her two dads are vacationing at a remote New Hampshire cabin when four strangers arrive with unidentifiable weapons, claiming they must make an impossible choice to stop the apocalypse. A Bram Stoker Award winning novel of unbearable psychological tension that never quite lets you breathe.

Best for: readers who want a single setting and an unrelenting clock

⭐ Ring Shout – P. Djeli Clark

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Dark Fantasy | Vibe: 1915 America, the KKK as literal demons, resistance fighters with real power

It’s 1915 and the KKK is riding across America, but resistance fighters Maryse Boudreaux and her crew know the truth: beneath the white hoods are actual demons summoned by The Birth of a Nation. A sharp, viscerally satisfying dark fantasy novella that draws power from real historical horror.

Best for: anyone who wants their dark fantasy to actually mean something

In the Woods – Tana French

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Mystery | Vibe: a Dublin detective’s buried childhood trauma, blood-filled shoes, a twenty-year-old mystery resurfacing

Dublin detective Rob Ryan has a secret. As a child he was the only one found alive in the woods where his two friends vanished, wearing blood filled shoes, with no memory of what happened. When a murdered girl is discovered in those same woods twenty years later, his past and present collide in devastating fashion.

Best for: Tana French fans and anyone who wants a mystery that’s really about memory

· · ·

👻 Haunted Houses

The house is the villain. It always has been. And somehow you walked in anyway.

⭐ We Used to Live Here – Marcus Kliewer

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Horror | Vibe: a house flip gone wrong, previous owners who won’t leave, mounting dread in the mundane

Young couple Charlie and Eve are flipping a charming old house when the previous owners stop by for a visit, and simply won’t leave, as uncanny and inexplicable things begin to multiply. A Reddit born horror debut that delivers mounting dread through the mundane and the deeply unsettling.

Best for: readers who want their horror to start small and never stop building

⭐ The Hacienda – Isabel Cañas

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Gothic Horror | Vibe: post-revolutionary Mexico, a remote hacienda, Rebecca-style suspense

In post revolutionary Mexico, Beatriz marries a handsome stranger to secure her future, but his remote hacienda is plagued by visions, voices, and a malevolent presence that invades her sleep. A Gothic, atmosphere drenched debut that fuses Rebecca style suspense with genuine supernatural terror.

Best for: anyone who wants their gothic atmosphere thick enough to chew

⭐ Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Gothic Horror | Vibe: a decaying English family’s Mexican estate, hauntings, colonialism, fungal dread

Glamorous socialite Noemi Taboada travels to a decaying English family’s remote Mexican estate to rescue her cousin, and finds herself ensnared in a nightmare of hauntings, dark history, and something monstrous within the walls. A lush, beautifully written Gothic horror steeped in colonialism and fungal dread.

Best for: readers who want lush prose with their dread

⭐ Japanese Gothic – Kylie Lee Baker

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Gothic Horror | Vibe: present-day and imperial Japan, a sword-wielding woman, a door between timelines

In 2026, Lee Turner flees to his father’s house in Japan after an act of violence he can’t remember, but the house is wrong, and a sword wielding woman appears in the yard at night. In 1877, young samurai Sen hides in the same house, separated from Lee by only a door in time.

Best for: anyone who wants their horror to feel like a fever dream

⭐ Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey

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Gothic Thriller | Vibe: a serial killer’s childhood home, a mother dying, handwriting that shouldn’t exist

Vera returns to her childhood home, the infamous Crowder House, where her serial killer father buried his victims, to care for her dying mother, only to find an artist living in the guest house and notes in her father’s handwriting appearing throughout the rooms. A darkly gothic thriller about the terrible things that live in foundations.

Best for: readers who want their gothic thriller to feel inherited, not just haunted

⭐ Model Home – Rivers Solomon

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Literary Horror | Vibe: a gated Texas enclave, the only Black family on the block, inexplicable horror since day one

The three adult Maxwell siblings return to the Texas gated enclave where they grew up as the only Black family, the house where terrifying, inexplicable things happened from the very first day, after learning their parents have died. A haunting, urgent novel that uses the horror of the house to explore race, belonging, and the violence of aspiration.

Best for: anyone who wants their haunted house novel to carry real social weight

· · ·

🎡 Amusement Parks

Something Wicked This Way Comes is the blueprint. Everything else is following its footsteps.

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury

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Horror, Classic | Vibe: a traveling carnival, forbidden wishes, the price of youth regained

Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show rolls into Green Town, Illinois just before Halloween, offering dreams and youth regained, and two young boys discover the terrible price behind the carnival’s mirrors and mazes. A lyrical, deeply American horror novel about the seduction of forbidden wishes and the weight of growing up.

Best for: anyone building a foundational Summerween shelf

Joyland – Stephen King

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Crime, Literary Fiction | Vibe: a 1973 small-town amusement park, a carny summer job, a ghost story underneath

In the summer of 1973, college student Devin Jones takes a job as a carny at a small town North Carolina amusement park and finds himself drawn into the mystery of a girl murdered in the horror house. A melancholy, beautifully written crime novel with a ghost story beating at its heart.

Best for: readers who want King at his most tender, not his most terrifying

The Cotton Candy Massacre – Christopher Robertson

Horror | Vibe: a 1989 amusement park reopening, documentary-style horror, theme park kitsch turned dread

On one summer day in 1989, the reopening of Bonkin’s Bonanza amusement park became infamous when something went terribly, violently wrong, and this is that account. A clever, documentary style horror novel that mines nostalgia and theme park kitsch for genuine dread.

Best for: anyone who loves found-footage style storytelling

FantasticLand – Mike Bockoven

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Horror | Vibe: a hurricane-isolated theme park, stranded employees, Lord of the Flies energy

After a hurricane cuts off FantasticLand theme park from the outside world, investigators arrive a month later to find evidence of grisly murders among the young employees left stranded. Told through interviews, this Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale thriller asks what happens when social structures disappear.

Best for: readers who want to watch a social order collapse in real time

Clown in a Cornfield – Adam Cesare

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YA Slasher | Vibe: a dying small town, a homicidal mascot clown, generational tension boiling over

New girl Quinn Maybrook arrives in dying small town Kettle Springs just as generational tensions boil over, and Frendo, the beloved factory mascot clown, starts going homicidal. A gleefully scary YA slasher that’s also a sharply observed story about the ugliness of nostalgia.

Best for: anyone who wants their killer clown book to also have something to say

The October Country – Ray Bradbury

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Short Stories, Horror Classic | Vibe: nineteen disquieting tales, drowned cities, forgotten villages

Nineteen dark and disquieting tales take readers into the October Country, that land of perpetual dusk where drowned cities, frantic carnivals, and forgotten villages hide monstrous truths. Essential Bradbury at his most gothic, a foundational text for anyone who loves atmospheric horror.

Best for: readers who want short, potent doses of dread

· · ·

✈️ Vacations Gone Wrong

The Airbnb had five stars. Somehow that made it worse.

The Ruins – Scott Smith

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Horror | Vibe: a Mexican jungle, ancient ruins, a presence that won’t let anyone leave

Two American couples on a Mexican vacation follow a local friend into the jungle to find ancient ruins, and the terrifying presence that lurks there refuses to let them leave. A relentlessly tense, visceral novel that dismantles vacation ease page by stomach churning page.

Best for: readers with a strong stomach and a love of relentless tension

Diavola – Jennifer Thorne

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Gothic Horror, Satire | Vibe: a remote Italian villa, family vacation drama, dark history underneath

Anna has been enduring her difficult family’s annual vacations her whole life, but this year’s stunning, remote Italian villa turns out to have a dark and violent past that makes family drama seem quaint. Equal parts Gothic horror and biting family satire, it builds to a genuinely terrifying climax.

Best for: anyone whose family vacations already feel like low-grade horror

One Perfect Couple – Ruth Ware

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Thriller | Vibe: a remote tropical island, a reality TV competition, a storm cutting off communication

Lyla and her actor boyfriend Nico end up on a remote tropical island for a reality TV show, but when a storm hits and communication fails, the competition turns deadly. An Agatha Christie inspired thriller of breathless, escalating tension.

Best for: fans of classic locked-setting mysteries with a modern reality-TV twist

⭐ Our Last Resort – Clemence Michallon

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Psychological Thriller | Vibe: a Utah desert hotel, a cult survivor’s fresh start, a brother under suspicion

Cult survivor Frida and her brother Gabriel arrive at a stunning desert hotel in Utah seeking a fresh start, but when a murder investigation begins, her brother becomes the prime suspect, and it isn’t the first time. A tightly wound psychological thriller about the long shadow of a controlling past.

Best for: anyone who wants their thriller to dig into what a controlling past actually costs

⭐ Tourist Season – Brynne Weaver

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Dark Romance, Thriller | Vibe: a small coastal town, a gardener composting tourists, two killers who may have met their match

In darkly charming Cape Carnage, gardener Harper Starling protects her home by composting troublesome tourists under her flowerbeds, until she meets Nolan Rhodes, who has his own reasons for tracking her down. A wickedly fun dark romance thriller with two killers who may have finally met their match.

Best for: readers who want romance and murder in equal, gleeful measure

The Villa – Rachel Hawkins

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Thriller | Vibe: an Italian villa girls’ trip, a 1974 murder, a horror novel born from the same summer

Emily and her best friend Chess rent an Italian villa for a girls’ trip, the same villa where, in 1974, a musician was brutally murdered and a famous horror novel was born. As Emily digs into the villa’s history, she begins to suspect the official story of what happened that summer is very, very wrong.

Best for: anyone who wants a dual-timeline thriller with real atmosphere

· · ·

That’s 48 books. Eight categories. One very specific seasonal mood.

If you’re new to Summerween: welcome. You belong here. The vibe is orange creamsicle in one hand and a book about something going terribly wrong at a lake house in the other. We do not wait for the leaves to change.

Drop your favorite Summerween read in the comments. I’m always looking to add to the pile.

Save this for when you’re staring down a long summer weekend and need a push. And if you share it anywhere, tag me. I want to see what you’re reading.

My daughter was home with a fever for a day this week, which is terrible and also, privately, a gift. We had slow days together, made food, lay on the couch, and I got to tend to her in that specific way that sick days require. There’s a tenderness to being needed like that, and I find myself holding onto it even when I’m also tired. This coming week is stacked: Juneteenth, our eleventh anniversary, Father’s Day. A lot to celebrate. A lot to tend to.

(Affiliate links are sprinkled throughout, as always. Thank you for using them.)

· · ·

T — Thinking

what if collecting is the hobby

I’ve been sitting with a question that is either very obvious or a little embarrassing depending on who’s asking: what if the hobby isn’t journaling, or tarot, or video games, or skincare? What if the hobby is the collecting and organizing of the supplies for those things?

Because when I take an honest look at my life, the through line is not any one interest. It’s the acquisition, the sorting, the finding-the-right-home-for-a-thing. My journal stack. My tarot and oracle decks. My skincare inventory. The silly knick-knacks that do nothing and make me deeply happy every time I look at them. What unites all of it is that I love to have them, organize them, know exactly where they are, and rotate them with intention.

The OCD has always made me this way. I’ve spent a lot of years treating that as a footnote to apologize for. Lately I’ve been considering that it might be the whole origin story. I don’t just want to do the thing. I want to understand the thing, research the tools, find the right container for the tools, label the container, and then, finally, do the thing with a very satisfying sense of having prepared correctly.

There is a version of this that tips into avoidance and I know it well. (Years of therapy, we’ve discussed it.) But there’s also a version that is just genuine love for the material world. For objects that carry meaning. For the pleasure of a system that actually works and that you built yourself.

I’m still figuring out which version I’m living in on any given week. Both are probably always a little bit true.

· · ·

R — Reading

a lot of books walked into my week

Five books this week. I have no explanation and I’m not going to offer one.

Nothing Ever Happens Here by Seraphona Nova Glass was decent and forgettable in equal measure. I’m sorry to the book. It did nothing wrong.

Made You Look by Tanya Grant was another thriller that slid through my brain without leaving a mark. Sometimes that’s just what happens.

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino was the exact opposite of both of those. Unhinged and completely fantastic. The most chaotic, propulsive lady-fun I’ve had since Julie Chan is Dead or Bunny. This is a press-it-into-people’s-hands situation. I finished it in an embarrassingly short amount of time and felt good about every minute of it.

Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly was brilliant. A serious and thoroughly researched book about feminine rage: how it forms, how it gets used against us, how women are conditioned to swallow it. I kept putting it down to sit with what I’d just read. That’s always the sign something is actually working on you.

And then there’s Kin by Tayari Jones, which might be my favorite book of the year. I usually don’t reach for historical fiction. The prose stopped me cold multiple times. I cried twice, which I was not prepared for at all. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to be a better writer just from having been inside it.

· · ·

O — Organizing

the house bag era has officially arrived

I have been a tote bag person my entire life and I will continue to be a tote bag person. But I finally admitted something I’ve known for a while: a tote without organization inside it is just a portable chaos container. A soft bag of mystery. A place where things go and are never found again.

So I moved everything into my Soolla Studio bag as a dedicated house bag and I want you to know that this has changed my life. I’m not being dramatic. This is the right amount of dramatic for what has happened.

Inside it right now: my Hobonichi Cousin for memory keeping, three Hobonichi Weeks for everyday carry, hobbies, and health, three five-year journals (one for me, one for each kid), and my morning pages notebook. A Delfonics pouch with the daily essentials: ruler, tape, scissors, Penco clamps, tweezers, P.E.T. tape, washi samples. Two sticker books. The pens currently in rotation. Hand lotion, lip balm, hair clips, phone charger, and a fidget cube.

Everything lives somewhere. When I want to sit down and write, I don’t spend ten minutes hunting for my pen or remembering which notebook I left on the counter. The bag is there and it’s ready.

I’ve spent a lot of years apologizing for how many supplies I own. But there’s something about a system that genuinely works that makes me feel like the supplies were never the problem. They just needed a better home.

· · ·

M — Making

the house as a place you want to be in

I’ve been slowly making the house into somewhere that feels good to exist in. This is a summer project. Not a renovation. More like: a cleared surface here, a candle there, moving something that wasn’t working to somewhere it actually does. The ongoing work of making a space feel like yours.

What I want, specifically, is to be the house where people come over unannounced and I just wave them in. That’s the goal. That’s the version of summer I’m building toward.

Tavi being home sick this week was actually a good reminder of what that can feel like. We slowed all the way down. We made food and watched things and stayed on the couch. I got to tend to her in that very specific way that sick days require, and even in the worry there was something I didn’t want to let go of. Summer, I think, is just more of that. More days that feel like being exactly where you’re supposed to be.

· · ·

P — Playing

the meditation is actually sticking this time

I’ve started and stopped a meditation practice more times than I can count. With great enthusiasm, then a long gap, then quietly picking it back up like nothing happened. This is how I do most wellness things.

But lately it’s actually sticking. I’ve been using the soundscapes on my Hatch to meditate before bed and something about doing it right at the end of the day makes it finally click. I’m not carving out a whole production. I’m just lying there anyway. The transition is frictionless. The sleep is better.

It’s not a transformation. It’s a small thing that helps. Which is, honestly, the only kind of wellness practice I have ever actually trusted.

· · ·

This week’s mantra: the supplies were never the problem.

· · ·

Big week ahead. Juneteenth. Eleven years. Father’s Day. There is a lot to celebrate and I intend to celebrate all of it loudly.

Tell me what you’re thinking, reading, organizing, making, and playing. I always want to know.

With love,

Nicole

P.S. Kin by Tayari Jones. Please. Go get it now.

I want to start with a quote I ran into in last week’s reading, because it has been living rent-free in my brain ever since, the kind of sentence that burrows in and refuses to leave, and I think it deserves a moment of collective silence before we do anything else.

“Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-groomed, and unaggressive.”

That’s Leslie M. McIntyre, quoted in The Artist’s Way, and I have read it approximately forty times since I first encountered it, which is maybe a little obsessive but feels proportionate to what it does. Because I read it the first time and put the book down and just stared at the ceiling for a while, the way you do when someone says something so accurate and so devastating that your whole body needs a second to catch up.

Because yes. Yes. That is the entire trap in one neat little sentence: you can have your ambitions and your art and your professional life, as long as you have also maintained every single other expectation placed on you simultaneously, and without complaint, and while looking nice about it.

As I mentioned on instagram and notes, I also just read Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, which is probably coloring my view of that quote.

I am a Black woman, which means the version of that quote I have lived with my whole life comes with an extra layer baked in: not just be good and competent and contained, but do it all without ever, ever appearing angry, because anger is the one thing they will use against you, the thing that collapses everything you’ve carefully built into a single convenient shorthand. I have spent so much of my life carefully managing how I take up space, not because I am ashamed of taking it but because I know exactly how much it costs to take too much, and the math has never stopped running in the background even when I’m not paying attention to it. The virtue trap isn’t abstract for me. It’s the specific, exhausting, daily work of being palatable, of shrinking yourself just enough that you’re safe, just enough that you can keep going.

Week 5 of The Artist’s Way cracked something open in that direction. Week 6 is asking me to look at what I’ve been protecting myself from with a different shield: money.

• • •

oh no. it’s the money chapter.

My first reaction when I saw that Week 6 was titled “Recovering a Sense of Abundance” was something like: oh no. oh no, absolutely not. Because “abundance” in the spiritual-creative context has a way of meaning something very specific, and that specific thing is: do you believe the universe will provide? And honestly? The universe and I have a complicated relationship, one that involves a fair amount of me side-eyeing it and it remaining stubbornly silent on the subject of my financial anxieties. For me, money is scary. And I wasn’t sure how vulnerable I wanted to be with myself (and the internet!) about my relationship to and with money. So like most posts in this series, the most vulnerable parts of the exercises and my feelings are behind a paywall.

There was an uptick in the amount of God-talk in this chapter, which I’ll be upfront about the way I always am: I find my way through it by swapping in “the source” or “the work” or just “something bigger than my own fear,” and that translation tends to hold well enough. But it is hard to separate the idea of abundance from God in such a religious-forward book (God’s abundance and all that). So the money framing is harder to soft-pedal, because Cameron’s premise is that blocked creatives often have a deeply tangled relationship with money, that we use financial anxiety as a reason to stay small, to not try, to defer the real work to some future, more solvent self who has it figured out in ways the current self has not yet managed.

I read that and I thought: well. She’s not wrong, and I wish she were.

The chapter introduces this idea of “luxury” as a way of tending your inner artist, the quiet, specific indulgences that aren’t frivolous but are actually acts of creative maintenance, the thing you do that fills you back up after the work has taken something out of you. And I kept thinking about my Tombows, my stickers, the particular pleasure of opening a fresh Hobonichi and choosing exactly which pen I’m going to use to write the date on the first page. That little ceremony of beginning that I do every single time without even realizing it’s a ritual until someone points at it and calls it one.

Cameron calls these “fills” rather than expenses, and I think I’ve been unconsciously practicing this for years without having a name for it, doing the thing she’s describing while simultaneously feeling a little guilty about it, like I was getting away with something. Having a name for it feels a little like permission. Like: this was never indulgence. This was maintenance. You were doing it right.

Morning Pages: skipped entirely this week, and I’m choosing not to make a whole thing of it because the week needed something else from me and I’m practicing trusting that.

Artist Date: playing in my journal, again, again, still. I am choosing to count it, and I will keep choosing it until it stops feeling like I need to justify it.

This week’s chapter asked me to do a lot of the kind of work I usually do quietly and then put away. Below the fold I’m getting into all of it:

• Money Madness (the sentence-completion exercise, and the one answer that hit hardest)

• The spending log (started late, became illuminating, possibly becoming a recurring thing here)

• Rocks, flowers, a color walk, and an attempted baking project (the abundance tasks)

• Favorites (which turned into a small excavation of what I actually love)

Come in.

Read more

I read the entire Crescent City series in May … and then 10 additional books. I started reading and then I just kept going. That’s the only way I can explain the month: I just kept going. Plus I had to figure out who I was as a person when I wasn’t reading about Bryce Quinlan. The answer: someone who reads gothic horror, quiet essays about serviceberry trees, and finally finishes a deeply unsettling novel about tradwives. Which, honestly, tracks.

Thirteen books. 5,386 pages. An average rating of 4.28 (no ratings for nonfiction!). Four rereads and a whole lot of crying.

Here’s how May went. And as always, assume audiobooks unless otherwise noted.