There is a dark secret about which books get attention—and which stories get told.

We've done deep dives on serial killers, cults, alien encounters, and government conspiracies that go all the way to the top. But the scariest stories are the ones that nobody wants to talk about out loud.

Here's what the corporations don't want you to know:

90% of books published will sell fewer than 2,000 copies over their lifetime.

All of the weirdest books, the most brilliant ones, the most ambitious ones, the ones that will scare you to death and blow your mind open might never be read by more than a handful of people. They might never be published at all.

So we started a publishing imprint with Bindery. It's called Last Press on the Left. And we’ve found our first book.

Traditional publishing has no audience. They have gatekeepers. They have a strong bias toward whatever kind of book sold well for them last year, which means they spotlight the same kinds of stories, and the same kinds of voices, over and over again. Covers, titles, and pitches all start to blur together. You’ve probably noticed it: books with titles like The Midwife's Secret, The Missing Girl in the Plane Window, Letters from Grandpa. Copy, paste, repeat. Debut authors get a contract and a prayer. Marginalized voices often get passed over for safer bets. And the books that need a champion the most might never find their readers.

You know we love books. We read everything. And we believe reading is one of the most powerful weapons we have against evil, against fascism, against the slow death of critical thinking. Because knowledge is power, and reading fiction builds empathy. And a society that doesn't read is easier to control.

We've spent years building something that most publishers could never dream of, and it’s our secret weapon: YOU.

Our community. The people who deep dive with us. Who listen to our crazy stories and indulge our theories. Who care about research and storytelling and have genuinely great taste. We started asking ourselves: why don't we use these powers for good?

And before you ask: no, this is not us slapping our name on someone else's work and calling it a day. This is us sifting through the submissions pile, reading unpublished manuscripts, finding the writers who deserve to be heard—and making sure they actually get heard, with the full weight of this whole community behind them.

Every book we publish is a lead title. No author gets lost at the bottom of a list. No voice gets passed over because it doesn't fit a mold. And the people who help us do it (that’s you, reading this, right now) get to be part of it from day one.

When we started looking for our first book, we didn't expect to immediately. strike gold.

Saint's Hotel by M.I. Minaeva is The Shining meets House of Leaves meets Silent Hill and we know you're going to be obsessed with it, because we could not stop thinking about it. It's about a depressed, burnt-out architect named Ernest who has been having recurring dreams about a Gothic French town since he was a child. He doesn't know whether it's real or not. His parents deny it ever existed. And then one day, he just stumbles upon it. But once he's there, the town of Sainte Verlise won't let him go.

Like House of Leaves or Marcus Kliewer's We Used to Live Here, it's told in a collage style: traditional narration is mixed in with found footage, newspaper articles, footnotes, internet archives, artifacts, and static. It is atmospheric and creepy and totally undeniable. Days after M.I. signed with us, we received a massive offer for the audio rights. Hollywood is already circling. This is life-changing stuff for a debut author, and it’s one of the coolest projects we’ve been a part of. It’s basically a dream come true for everyone involved.

We didn't go looking for a safe book. We looked for the best one.

This is where you come in.

Reader (that's everyone following us here, for free) will watch this whole journey unfold in real time—cover reveals, editorial decisions, the entire process of taking a remarkable story from raw manuscript to a real book on bookstore shelves that you can hold in your hands.

Last Reader ($5/month) get early digital copies of every book we publish, plus first access to cover reveals, author Q&As, and other behind-the-scenes publishing content.

Cult Reader ($12/month) get everything above, plus early exclusive physical copies of every book we publish. You'll get to vote on publishing and design decisions, and your name will be printed in the acknowledgments of every book. You're not just reading these books. You helped make them exist. We want the world to know it.

All of our membership earnings go to Reading Is Fundamental, fighting the literacy crisis. And every dollar that flows through Bindery goes right back into the imprint, helping to make phenomenal books that will last forever, creating a legacy of great fiction, and changing authors' lives.

We are building a community that fights brain rot, supports authors, and reads good books. And you helped build it. It doesn't exist without you.

The literacy crisis is real. The death of critical thinking is real. And the best weapon we have against both of them is a weird, fantastic, impossible-to-put-down story.

Saint's Hotel comes out Fall 2027.

Read a book. Prevent the apocalypse.

—LPOTL

MINI POD! Prolific Mexican-Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia is Renee’s favorite, and she’s counting down her top 10. Which is your favorite? Join the discussion on our Discord!

 Listen on Apple Podcasts // Spotify // Deezer // Pocket Casts

Books Mentioned: 

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Support and follow our host! 

Follow Renee: Instagram // The StoryGraph

Become a Feminist Book Club member here.

This episode was edited and produced by Renee Powers on the ancestral land of the Dakota people.

Original music by Amarissa

HAPPY NATIONAL LATINA* DAY!!!

*While the title of this celebration today is gendered, I'm referencing all my Latina/e/x friends as well--this is a gender neutral celebration in my eyes.

Better than a federal holiday, this is a day to celebrate us BY us FOR us. In a time where our joy and community IS resistance, today I am celebrating louder than ever.

HAPPY NATIONAL LATINA DAY!!!

But this celebration is simultaneously mired in the grief I feel for my community. They are trying to disappear us. Book banners are trying to erase our stories from shelves. Will ANY publishers even celebrate Latinx Heritage Month? I don't know, but I DO know I'll always be here loudly cheering on and supporting my Latine community.

SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITY

Before I tell you how you can support your favorite Latina creator, I want to remind you all that our Latinx community is being targeted by masked ICE thugs at a dangerously high rate--stolen off the street, many violently, put in concentration camps without adequate food and water. This includes Children! Mothers! Fathers! Our brothers and sisters.

We need to take good care of our community, especially our immigrant communities, now more than ever. I keep a list of national organizations to support in my Linktree and I would love if you could amplify one of them today or share in the comments an organization you know and trust for others to see.

SUPPORT YOUR FAVORITE LATINA CREATOR

Our work also includes supporting our favorite Latinx creators. Some of my favorite Bindery communities you can support:

@Marines Alvarez

@Gabrielle Womack

On Bookstagram, you can support:

Carla

Ashley

Our very own Angie and Nani

Sharon

Adri

I'll be bosting more accounts as I can in my IG stories today, as well.

Let this be your reminder to boost your favorite Latina today--repost their social content, send them a Venmo, buy them a Ko-fi, subscribe to their newsletter, discover a new account to follow...maybe become a paid member of their Bindery ahead of Latinx Heritage Month??

Uplift your favorite Latina/e today and every single day. Happy National Latina Day to you all!

Con mucho, mucho amor,

Carmen

PS--Today's OOTD is very heavily influenced by celebration today

Hey folks!

here is the link for Sundays chat with Shauna Lawless herself. We will also announce the winner of the giveaway!

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81233461994?pwd=t7QSbMpVc9W5gQXweMhvkOUhvwBTtS.1

Make sure you have a few questions ready!

WHO WILL BE JOINING?!

Truth and Courage

Ed and Will

Welcome to a new series I'm venturing into called Read This If You Like That! In this weekly series, I'll take a book I loved and give you a book that matches its vibes. They will make a great pair!

If you liked...

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, you should read Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine.

Why? Both books tackle racism and African American history. They both have beautiful writing that will suck you straight in and make you fall in love with the characters. The ghosts aren't the true villian in either of these books...the people are.

We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer, you should read The Residents of Honeysuckle Cottage by Elizabeth Davidson

Why? Both books feature a sapphic couple that are renovating homes. They both feature psychological horror that will make you question what is truly going on...

Into The Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, you should read Going To The Six by A. C. Hessenauer

Why? Both deal with documentary crews aboard ships. Grant's book deals with killer mermaids, while Hessenauer's book deals with red algae that affects the mind...

Hi friends!

I'm thrilled to share my interview with Grace Morrow, author of We Become Darkness. We Become Darkness is Grace's immersive and sweeping marriage-of-convenience romantic fantasy debut, in which a human and a vampyr forge an unsteady alliance.

Grace is an author of magic, mayhem and mischief. Raised on the West Coast,
she lives with her husband and two unruly cats. When she isn't writing you can
find her binge watching the latest trash reality tv show, deepening her love for
art history, or trying to keep alive her many, many, succulents. She is repped
by Emily Forney at BookEnds Literary Agency.

Q: Where did the initial kernel of inspiration come from?

A: I’ve always loved the idea of “the villain” getting the girl in the end and also this idea of lovers-to-enemies. We see so many enemies-to-lovers books (which I am a sucker for) but I wondered what it would look like to write a book where lovers became enemies and the reader is plopped right into the middle of them having to work together and battle through this internal conflict of deep rooted betrayal.

I was also rewatching The Vampire Diaries and Stefan as “the Ripper” has always been really intriguing and dare I say…insanely attractive to me. I thought “what would happen if Ripper Stefan was the LI in a book and also had Klaus tendencies?” Which then developed into exploring the conflict between Caroline x Klaus and the “allure of darkness.”

Q: We Become Darkness delivers an irresistible childhood friends-to-lovers-to-enemies romance. How did you approach writing the romance between Cassius and Thalia, especially considering their history?

A: This was such a tough one! There is so much shared history between them, especially because they grew up together. I really wanted to have that familiarity between them. They both know each other so well, and explore the idea that “okay, it's been four years since they’ve seen each other, but what are the intrinsic parts that neither will forget?” and approaching it that way. There's moments when Cassius talks about some of Thalia's favorite things, or flashbacks to certain parts of their past, so really delving into who they were vs. who they’ve now become. At the same time, they're both different people now so areas of their relationship will automatically feel new as they explore the new facets of each other which was fun to write!

Q: We Become Darkness features Vampyrs, who are older, more terrifying, more difficult to kill, and have a different origin story than traditional vampires. How did you approach developing your Vampyrs?

A: When I was playing around with the idea of vampires, I really wanted to be different. I wanted something truly terrifying as opposed to “this is the skin of a killer, Bella.” Not that there's anything wrong with that! But I wanted to really sink into the horror aspect. I started looking at the different origin stories of vampires in literature and how different cultures had different spellings and associations.

I looked into those older Slavic stories and started developing from there. One of the ways is the spelling of “Vampyr,” which was deliberate to make them feel a bit older and more gothic. We usually think of Vampires as these beautiful/ethereal creatures, but I really wanted to delve into the “horrific” elements in which they can appear as we see in earlier literature. I also really loved the idea that my Vampyrs were created to be elite soldiers which makes them already more deadly.

I also think that leaning into some of the more “eldritch” elements with different creatures and a sentient forest sets it apart from a typical “gothic vampire novel.” I think that the dynamic of the Vampyr courts is a bit different from that of a normal vampire book. There’s a dynastic quality about the courts (also called Houses) that lends to a more politically rife book than just having one simple monarch.

Q: You are an art historian, and you mentioned in your bio that your goal is to integrate the “same feelings one might associate when looking at a particular piece of art” into your books. Would you share your process for writing an evocative, immersive fantasy that captures those feelings?

A: Absolutely! When I'm getting inspiration for my worlds, I often look at paintings, architecture, sculpture, etc., to get a feel for how that world will look. For WE BECOME DARKNESS, I pulled a lot of inspiration for the setting and architecture from the Italian Gothic. When you think of the Italian Gothic, or really anything from the 12th century, you think of these grand cathedral and sharp spires like the cathedral in Milan. In addition, I love looking at politics that we can find in art history. The Vampyr courts were inspired by the Italian city-states during the Italian Renaissance where powerful families ruled different parts of Italy. Each of the courts (or Houses) have latin-rooted names and lend to a very elegant and renaissance-esque aspects like their manners and attire.

Q: What has been one of your favorite moments as a debut author?

A: Seeing where my book has ended up! It's so incredibly surreal to see my book pop-up all over the world! I’ve been tagged by readers in Europe, across the USA, even places like Australia! I also absolutely loved going on a book tour and meeting such incredible fellow authors and readers! It’s so insane that my silly Vampyr book has resonated with so many readers.

Q: After readers finish We Become Darkness, what books do you recommend they read?

A: If you're looking for marriage of convenience I recommend The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L Jensen, it's one of my favorites! For spicy romantasy I’d recommend Throne of the Fallen by Kerri Maniscalco. And if you're looking for more gothic, One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig or Belladonna by Adalyn Grace!

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

A: Keep writing! WE BECOME DARKNESS wasn't the first book I've written, and it also wasn't even the book that landed me my agent. It took me two and a half years to find my first agent, another year to write this book before it sold. It might take some time, but your words and stories matter! Keep at it!

Q: What’s up next?

A: I can't say anything for sure, but I have some exciting books in the pipeline! If you like art, more enemies-to-lovers, and maybe some betrayal, stay tuned! You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, or X @authorgmorrow, or check out my website: www.authorgracemorrow.com for updates!

Thank you so much to Grace for joining me in discussing her spectacular debut (both here on Bindery and in-person at The Ripped Bodice in April)! 🫶

You can find links to the mentioned articles below, as well as the poll for September's book of the month pick. Please vote!

Bindery website

Rep Angie Nixon's victory

Rosco's Pizza

The time has come to vote for our September book of the month! Our September theme, Back to Our Roots, brought numerous suggestions from all of you, and we're incredibly excited about these options!

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey 

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories ― she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.

Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?

There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes. 

The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit

In this sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark, Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility; it is an inevitability.

The changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value. But because the transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized.

While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world.

Daughter in Exile by Bisi Adjapon

Lola is twenty-one, and her life in Senegal couldn’t be better. An aspiring writer and university graduate, she has a great job, a nice apartment, a vibrant social life, and a future filled with possibility. But fate disrupts her world when she falls for Armand, an American Marine stationed at the U.S. Embassy. Her mother, a high court judge in Ghana, disapproves of her choice, but nothing will stop Lola from boarding a plane for Armand and America.

That fateful flight is only the beginning of an extraordinary journey; she has traded her carefree existence in Senegal for the perilous position of an undocumented immigrant in 1990s America.

Lola encounters adversity that would crush a less-determined woman. Her fate hangs on whether or not she’ll grow in courage to forge a different life from one she’d imagined, whether she’ll succeed in putting herself and family together again. Daughter in Exile is a hope-filled story about mother love, resilience, and unyielding strength.

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo

Anna grew up in England with her white mother and knowing very little about her West African father. In middle age, after separating from her husband and with her daughter all grown up, she finds herself alone and wondering who she really is. Her mother's death leads her to find her father's student diaries, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. She discovers that he eventually became the president - some would say the dictator - of Bamana in West Africa. And he is still alive.

She decides to track him down and so begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children. 

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. 

Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today. 

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.

All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir by Emilee Hackney

Born and raised deep in the hollers of the Appalachian Mountains, Emilee Hackney knew little beyond the ridgelines and coalfields of southwest Virginia. As an eighth-generation Appalachian, her childhood was steeped in the stories of her grandparents—tales of the coal mines’ brutal grip and the way the land, both beautiful and unforgiving, never quite let anyone go. At fourteen, Emilee meets Sam, a senior at her high school, who offers her a glimpse at a promising future together. But as they begin attending services at Deliverance Christian Church as a couple, Emilee is thrust into the radical realm of Pentecostalism. In a culture where marriage at nineteen isn’t uncommon, Emilee is engaged to Sam. Eager to make her relationship work, she embraces the extremist doctrines of the religion, submitting herself fully to God, to Sam, and to a life of repentance. But what she doesn’t yet know is the man she plans to marry is not who he claims to be.

Years later, Emilee finds herself isolated from friends, family, and her own sense of truth. Wracked with shame and self-doubt, she reaches a breaking point. On the verge of spiraling out of control, in a stunning act of defiance and hope, she applies to Harvard; against all odds, she is accepted. From the magisterial mountains of Tazewell to the storied halls of Cambridge, Emilee begins the arduous process of reinventing herself and her relationships with her home, faith, and values against the backdrop of the divisive 2016 election. All That’s Unseen is Emilee Hackney’s fiercely honest memoir about spiritual entrapment, hard-won liberation, and the courage to reclaim her voice after she had been taught to stay silent. 

The Dream Builders by Oindrila Mukherjee

Creative writing professor Maneka Roy has not returned to India in years, and when she arrives in her home country to mourn the loss of her mother, she finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur where her father now lives is nothing like the historic neighborhood where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing—and no one—in Hrishipur is as it appears. 

From handsome young photographer Ashok, who charms Maneka one night at a party, to her immaculately groomed friend Ramona, who dreams of a perfect future in a new apartment complex even as she struggles with her marriage in the present, and the bitter but determined electrician Gopal, whose furtive plan for the complex just might undermine everything Ramona—and everyone else in support of its construction—has hoped for, it’s clear that everyone in Hrishipur is hiding secrets. And as the summer temperatures soar to record highs, the longings and resentments of the community members simmer until they come to a shocking boil. Ultimately, it will take a tragic event that no one saw coming for Maneka and the others to finally understand just how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations.

In smart, propulsive prose, written from the perspectives of ten different characters, Oindrila Mukherjee’s incisive debut novel explores class divisions, gender roles, and stories of survival within a society that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly Americanized. Her story of Hrishipur is not only the story of India today, but the story of people impacted by globalization everywhere: a tale of ambition, longing, love, and bitter loss that asks what it really costs to try and build a dream.

Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler

Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex or design. He fears no one until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss and savage anyone who threatens her. She fears no one until she meets Doro. Together they weave a pattern of destiny (from Africa to the New World) unimaginable to mortals.

Hi folks!

Thanks for being here on my Bindery journey. I’ve had a big think and I’ve decided to change up some things. I started Bindery as a book reviewer, but in the past six months I’ve transitioned into more of an author (who still hypes up books that I love).

Given that switch, Bindery is no longer the best place for me to be spending my energy. These days my writing time is taken up more with writing books, leaving less energy for written reviews and recommendations.

So here’s what I’ve decided to do:

1. I’ve removed the Disco Dancer paid tier, so now all of my Bindery is free

2. I’m keeping the free tier for Bindery, but the updates will be less regular, as and when I have something I just have to shout about

3. Bindery subscribers will be added to my author newsletter, which is run through my website: discobarrington.carrd.co. If you don’t want to continue with that, you can easily unsubscribe!

4. I’m keeping the Discotopia Discord, I love our little community there, come say hi!

That’s it! Do let me know if you have any concerns or questions.

There’s a lot of exciting author stuff on the horizon. My book This is How the World Ends is coming out on 16th September, available to preorder from Amazon and Kobo, and you can now order in to bookshops.

I’ve also written a novel and a novella this year! The novel is currently on submission (wish me luck) and the novella is in the editing phase.

I feel so lucky to be in this position, and really grateful for all the support I’ve received. Special thanks to my Disco Dancers for supporting me, I hope you enjoyed the reviews and recs and found some new favourites.

All I have ever wanted is to champion diverse books and authors, and I’m really happy I’m still doing that in some fashion while I’m writing my own diverse books.

Anyways, much love, you’re all awesome.

Disco x

Summary

Africa Is Not A Country is a bright portrait of modern Africa that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story.

Review

Wish I was still teaching world literature so I could use this book in a classroom. Super accessible, engaging, and informative.

What I learned

• Unilever started as a private company called the United African Company that was used by Britian to invade and take control over local empires in Africa. The British eventually bought these territorities and formed Nigeria.

• In 1984, Ethiopia took money from NGOs to help with famine, but a portion of the money was also used to systemically force innocent people to relocate. 100,000 Ethiopians died as a result of a policy that was partially funded by aid agencies.

• Somalia was a strategic ally to the U.S. during the Cold War and the Reagan administration offered Somalia $120 million in annual miliatary, econcomic, and refugee aid. The administration used this money to fund an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Isaaq ethnic group. An estimated 200,000 Somali civilians were killed.

• Muammar Gaddafi had a weird obsession with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. After his death, an entire photo album that featured only photos of her was found in his home.

• There were giant walls in the Kingdom of Benin that are believed to have been four times the length of the Great Wall of China.

"The lack of precision and the laziness of thought, language and solutions regarding depotism in Africa stops us from getting to the various root causes and coming up with sustainable fizes to ensure that the dynamics that maintain them are removed as nations continue to establish themselves."

• In the early 1900s, Germany conducted the first genocide of the century in Namibia, a country that didn't gain independence until 1990. Due to land theft and cultural destruction as a result of colonisation, the Herero and Nama people in Namibia revolted in order to reclaim their land. As a result, 80% of the Herero population and 50% of the Nama people were murdered by the German army. The estimated death toll is at around 100,000.

  • This is also when Germany first tested out the concept of a concentraion camp where they sent prisoners to die from starvation, slave labor, and racist scientific experiments that was later used to foster the Nazi ideology of race purity.

  • 4,000 skeletons of the victims of this genocide were sent to the American Museum of Natural History where they still remain.

  
  

Hello and welcome girls, gays & theys of the Sapph-Lit Literary Salon! I am so grateful that you've decided to join us on this new exciting venture.

You've signed up for a quarterly subscription box, curated by Sapph-Lit authors, and all the exclusive content, meetings, and opportunities that comes with it. Let's break down what that means and what you can expect to come to your doorstep and your inbox.

Your first box containing MOSTLY DEAD THINGS by Kristen Arnett (chosen by Kim Narby, author of Sapph-Lit's SATURN RETURNING) will ship in November, and we will have our discussion with Kristen and Kim on January 9th at 1pm EST. I know that's so far away, but mark your calendars now!!

I will be sharing additional Zoom information in our private Literary Salon Discord channel, so make sure your Discord is connected to your Bindery settings so you can access that.

Your second book box, curated by Annabel Paulsen & Lydia Wang (authors of Sapph-Lit's CREATIVE DIFFERENCES), will ship in February. I can't wait to tell you what book they chose!!

For our first book box, I'll be sharing posts on Bindery as I read the book, starting in November! I'll share a full length review of the book from my POV, my annotations, questions I want to ask Kristen during our conversation, and anything else that inspires me while reading ahead of our conversation! If there's any specific content you'd like to see for the book we read as a Salon, comment below :)

This tier also includes discounts on Sapph-Lit Bindery titles and merch, physical ARCs of our upcoming novels published by Sapph-Lit, free tickets to Sapph-Lit events in New York City, and priority access to any future benefits Sapph-Lit and Bindery cook up.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out! xoxo Nina

Icarus continues. Just mass posting a bunch of chapters because I did a ton of work on this. As always, any comments or demands for changes or notes are beyond welcome so feel free to hurt my feelings. I'm very tough to rattle.

Chapter 3

The horses were the first to sense the wrongness of the thatched farmhouse. They whinnied and hesitated, attempting to turn back on their own. Icarus coaxed his with gentle clucks and whispered words of affirmation. Maren stroked the neck of her mare until she calmed enough to be tethered at the hitching post. They observed the house first -- windows shuttered, one left open for light revealed empty panes where glass should be. 

No animals bellowed in the field. No chickens clucking content or sheep bleating with impatience. It was eerily quiet. Groaning wood pulled their heightened attention to the door. A man -- mid forties, gray at the temples, impressive mustache obscuring his mouth -- stood wild-eyed and exhausted. He beckoned them to the house and disappeared back inside. 

The two priests exchanged a look and Icarus took the lead. Mud gave under his boots unpleasantly. He wiped his feet on the woven straw doormat and paused at the threshold. From his pocket he withdrew a rosary, polish long since worried away. He wrapped it around his hand and stepped inside. Behind him, Maren reached into one of her pouches and withdrew a handful of salt mixed with dried thyme and yarrow. She poured it from her hand like a funnel in a perfect, practiced line along the doorway before stepping over it into the large living room. It glowed faint ivory in the dark. 

The man wiped his hands on a towel, too tired to study them or be concerned about what they were, “Thank you for coming on short notice, Father… ah…”

“Ulrich. Icarus, if you like,” he supplied and gestured, “and Father Maren Fowler. You must be Argus.”

Argus eyed the line of salt with a weary nod, “Aye. A salt magician. Been a long time since one has been ‘round these hills.”

Maren inclined her head before taking in the room. When she spotted the two terrified faces huddled on the straw-filled sofa, she tilted her head in greeting, “Dia dhuit. Hello.”

The girls were younger than he had expected, probably twelve and fifteen. Margaret’s file had her at nineteen, but it did not register exactly how young that was until then. Much too young for whatever was happening to her. They scrambled to the corner of the mattress and huddled together. It seemed they still had the energy to bend to ignorance about what they were. 

“I’ll take you to her,” Argus offered with a note of apology he would never speak aloud, “Connor has been keeping vigil by the door.”

They climbed the creaking stairs and caught the whispering prayers in the breeze that crossed the paneless windows. Margaret’s husband sat propped against a sealed door papered with pages of the Pale Doctrine likely set by Father Simon during his first attempt. At the sight of the two priests, he scrambled to his feet and thumbed his rosary. 

“Dia dhuit,” he nodded, dark hair falling across his forehead he attempted to flick away, “thank you, Fathers. Thank you for coming. My wife…”

“Tell us how it started,” Icarus scanned the pages and read the prayers and spells, giving Connor something to do while he did.

The trembling young man nodded, “Yes. Well. She said she was going to the field to pick wild thyme and rosemary. She was always vigilant about those things, always keeping the doorways protected. Anyway, she was late coming back. Very late. We were getting ready to search the fields when we saw her.”

“Walking up the road like she was sleeping,” Argus interjected. “She didn’t react until I shook her, then she screamed like I’d woken her from a nightmare.”

“She slept for two days,” Connor continued, “and barely ate. She was paranoid, far away. I caught her talking to herself in the middle of the night, standing in a corner of the room. Then… then she started… knowing things.”

“Things she should not,” the two men spoke like a call and response, filling in the beats for each other when it was too much, “about me, Connor, her sisters. Her mother. When she broke the chickens’ necks, we called for Father Franklin to come sit with her a while. After that, she terrorized her sisters. Hiding under their beds, dragging them into closets. She stabbed Molly in the leg with a fork and we couldn’t let her roam around anymore so we… shackled her. Made sure she stayed put.”

Connor was nodding along, tears shining at the rim of his eyes. Icarus took a step back from the door, “Franklin said she… skitters. Can you explain that?”

The men exchanged alarmed looks. Neither of them moved to speak and he did not offer an alternative to the question. Behind the door, he heard something shuffling. Slow at first, then faster. Wary. Unsure. It sensed him on the other side. 

“When she moves,” Argus swallowed hard, “she crouches low, like she’s walking on her finger and toenails. It makes this scratching sound on the wood. When she’s in a fury, her hands burn the floorboards.”

“She hides under the bed?” Maren probed and moved to stand beside Icarus in the cramped hallway. They were both listening, gauging their unseen opponent before the battle had begun.

“Y-yes,” Connor affirmed, “but she shouldn’t be able to. It’s too small. Her… her limbs… they don’t move right. None of her does. Her eyes are too big. She bends… wrong.”

Neither priest asked more questions. A gesture from Icarus and Argus handed him the key to the door. When it was apparent they were not needed, both men backed to the far end of the hall unwilling to fully retreat to the perceived safety of the living room. Icarus slid the key in the lock and paused. He wrapped his rosary around his hand and raised two fingers to make the sign of the cross. 

He turned the key and the lock clicked, the door opened at the lightest press of his fingers. He crossed into the room and stopped when he was just inside. Thyme and yarrow filled the air when Maren laid a crisp line of luminous salt at the door. She kissed her rosary beads nestled against her knuckles and signed the cross before stepping over the threshold. 

The air flexed. Too warm, too weighed down by something that had no name. He was already sweating under his cassock. This part rarely bothered him anymore, they all tried the same things. One trick ponies, the lot of them. He hesitated at the door and let his eyes adjust to the abnormal dark. He spotted the faint shine of eyes in the corner. Often mistaken for a trick of the light, the eyes always glowed a little when they were occupied by a second presence. 

He walked slowly, keeping a wide berth, “Well, look at you. Why don’t you come here and let me see you?”

The laugh was preternatural, clearly not the voice of the slight woman it set up shop in, “Why don’t you come here and let me touch you, priest?”

It tracked him as he moved from the door to the opposite wall of the room. They sized each other up. Icarus kept his movement calm and deliberate. He unzipped the Dopp kit and withdrew his copy of the Pale Doctrine, placing the pouch on the windowsill. It crouched on all fours, tucking itself farther back into the corner. 

He kept its attention on him, let it ignore Maren. The other priest opened her rites kit and withdrew an old brass bowl pressed with sigils, scorched on the inside from overuse. She filled it with dried mugwort and thyme, then set it ablaze. The smoke drifted through the air and its attention snapped to her. She froze -- waiting, watching. 

“Why don’t you save us the trouble and give me your name, demon?” Icarus’s voice stayed level, almost bored. The subtly off-human face turned back to him. He could feel its annoyance building.

It laughed, low and dark, “The last priest said the same thing. Look how that turned out for him. How’s the leg, by the way?”

Maren moved cautiously. Her hand slipped into the bag of salt and she began to pour. The two priests moved in a slow arc, opposite directions. Icarus kept it on him while she worked. These things always fixated on whoever was the loudest, they could not split their attention the way a human could. 

“If you won’t give me your name,” he smirked his challenge in the dark, “then I’ll take it.”

He touched the first page of the Pale Doctrine and the paper turned incandescent, off-white and gentle. No need to jump right to the blue-tinged blood magic. Test it first, see if it was just weak Calderism and typical Church failure. He tore the page free and cast it in front of the creature. 

“Saint Lazriel the avenging angel, sword at the gate, wielder of holy fire,” Icarus watched the shifting light behind the eyes, “I call thee down into this vessel to cast your light upon this darkness.”

The page went rigid and melded into the floor. The creature stepped towards him, curious, and leaned over it. It snickered and ran a nail over the paper, tearing it at the corner.

“Wield me as your blade and avenge the Lord our Pale God’s sacred creation,” another torn page, another rigid paper. He tore and spoke, his tone deep and rising. Each one forming a slow, deliberate half-circle around the figure, “Strike this creature from untainted flesh and banish this abomination under your burning gaze back to the monstrous realm from which it comes!”

The chain slithered and clanked when it pulled tight. Margaret’s body lunged across the room for him. A roar in its throat snagged against the shackle around its neck. It stopped short of reaching him. Claws raked the air. Its face contorted. Icarus examined it. The eyes bulged, too big for the head and pupils too blown into the sclera to be natural. Its mouth split almost to the ear, teeth doubled in its jaws. Finger joints were over-long, talons instead of nails, dark with splintered wood and blood. 

He tore another page, “Reveal yourself and be unmade in the eyes of the Lord.”

Unbothered by its effort to reach him, he pressed the luminous paper to its forehead and it snarled. Body rigid, cramping, curling in on itself like a dying spider. Icarus knew better. He rolled his eyes and tore another free, layering it over the last.

“I said reveal yourself and be unmade in the eyes of the Lord!” He shouted and tore, layering, repeating, demanding. The body jerked and flailed with each new sheet over its skin. It sank and thrashed and wailed. 

The pale light flickered and failed. Gospel fluttered from its face to the bedroom floor. A low, bitter laugh filled all corners of the room. Walls bowed and tilted, “Your Pale God has no power here, Father.”

Spit sizzled at his feet. Icarus frowned and sighed, “Show yourself, whatever you are.”

“You’re not even trying,” it chuckled and eased disjointedly to its too-long feet. “At least make this interesting!”

“I didn’t need to try,” he smiled. A menacing thing stretched across his haggard face, “I needed to buy time.”

The creature faltered and stepped back, looking around in a rising panic. Just in time to see Maren completing her wide circle of salt. It rushed her and shrieked. Too late. The salt ring gleamed, illuminating the bedroom, and pulled them back into reality. She was unmoved by its violence, patient on the other side of the ring.

“Not a demon,” she tilted her head. “Why don’t you show us what you are?”

It snapped its jaws futilely at her, raking and lunging. Every effort it made to reach across the barrier blocked by a wall it could not overtake. Each strike made the magic in the salt flare. 

“You bitch!” It frothed and stalked the ring, looking for weak points. Maren never left weak points.

Icarus pulled the stole from his shoulders and rolled up his sleeves. He plucked the silver knife from its hidden place in the knotted fabric around his waist and tossed it into the air with cocky flourish. With a practiced hand, he caught it by the handle. The creature stopped moving and stared. Something behind its warped expression adjusted. It recalculated according to the mathematics written on his arms. When he raised the knife to his palm, it tried to recoil. The salt flared when its back hit the invisible wall. 

He opened the skin, so accustomed to the bite he no longer felt it. Maren drew hers across the meat of her forearm. Mirrors of each other, two priests sinking their teeth into magic they should not be able to taste. Blood splattered along the floor and began to steam. Electricity crackled across the beams, crawling down skin and settling deep into bone. He let his head fall back and sighed into the feeling, the power. It coursed through him, pumping into his veins with every beat of his rotting heart. 

Maren’s hands moved swiftly in the air. A trail of blue-white light followed the patterns she sketched. He kept her movement at the edges of his vision when he came back to the present moment. His hands flexed and he felt heat gather in his palms. Thin blue flames lapped painlessly at his fingers, eager for his command. 

He stepped over the salt. Sound muffled. 

The creature lunged. 

He sidestepped and struck his fist into its shoulder. It reared back and doubled down. He met the vicious blows with precise strikes, the fire sizzled against its exposed skin. Forearm met the space between thumb and forefinger. Flesh scorched. It withdrew screaming. The thing dropped to the ground and skittered towards the edge of the arena -- because that was what this had become. The place where the ritual of combat was performed. 

“Corrupted priest,” it hissed through gritted teeth. “Tainted. Rotten. Obscured from the eyes of your worthless God.”

He rolled out his shoulders and moved along the ring, “I sacrifice my immortal soul as an instrument of the Lord. I will be greeted in Heaven by archangels. You, on the other hand, will simply turn to dust.”

It scrambled low, gouging floorboards in its haste to strike his leg. He kicked it in the face. It tumbled onto its back and he closed the gap. When it drew up on its knees, he saw the sigil shuddering to life under Maren’s practiced coil of her hands. She cast her fingers forward as if throwing a lifeline. What was etched in the air seared into the ground under the creature. Whatever curse it uttered died on its tongue. 

The sigil writhed. Spirals lashed its wrists and held the monster on its knees. Another forced its head back and exposed its throat. Icarus loomed over the trapped thing and shouted. The timbre of his voice split into two tones layered endlessly over each other, “If you will not be unmade by the Lord, you will be unmade by me!”

He gripped its face under his palm. It screamed against the burning magic in his hands. He jerked its head back as if trying to shake something loose. One brutal thrust of his hand. Another. Then another. Something broke free from the woman’s body. 

The dark silhouette lay motionless, but time was limited. He undid the shackle at Margaret’s neck, cupping her face in his palms. She stared at him, her face very human and very frightened. Wild-eyed, her terror rose and she twisted to see what had been thrown from her. He kept her fixed on him.

“Margaret, I need you to get up and get out of here,” he murmured quickly, “and do not break the salt. Do you understand?” She nodded, but he could see in her face she was not hearing him. He released her and snapped his fingers when she began to scramble, “Do not break the salt!” 

She slowed, another nod more lucid than the first, “Y-yes. Yes.”

Her movements were shaken and careful. She hiked the hem of her nightdress and put all her focus on stepping over the line as deliberately as she could. When she was over it, she ran. Maren touched her shoulder intending to assure her, but the panicked woman was unaware of anything except leaving that room. They listened for the cries of reunion in the hall, the hurried thunder of steps down into the living room, out the front door. 

The two priests redoubled their attention to the black, wicked shape that had begun to rise. At first the shadow was unfocused, then its edges began to sharpen. Joints popped, limbs forced back into place. It was disoriented, shaking its bulbous head to clear the fog. Maren began to twist her fingers again. She wove the pastel blue light like threads on a loom, embroidering complex patterns into empty space. Icarus reached back for the hilt of his sword and drew. The moment the blue fire in his hands touched the metal, neatly etched sigils flared to life along the flat of the blade made by Maren’s own hands. 

The thing focused on him now. Its too-wide jaws hung open, thick drool making a wet repetitive plop as it coursed over jagged teeth. Oblong limbs like bone under skin the color of muddy water stretched too tight. Its oversized eyes slit like a serpent’s, yellow-green and curious. Its toothy grin went wide with pleasant surprise. 

“Faefire,” its tone was a raspy, graveled sound. “A manhuman wielding faefire! Rarity, rarity!”

The glee gave Icarus pause. He narrowed his eyes and rolled the sword in his wrist before leveling it in an offensive stance. They never commented on the way his Netherism manifested before. The newness made him uneasy. 

It was different for all Netherists, tapping into faerie magic was unpredictable. Some were necromancers, some alchemists, others sigilists like Maren, but the creature was right -- Icarus had never met another Netherist who manifested faefire. He ignored the buoyancy in the thing’s attitude and took in its stretched out shape, the malformed head. Clearly not a bánánach. 

“A bodach,” he muttered and the creature took several too-fast tottering steps towards him. 

He swung the blade in a wide arc. It swerved away. He rode the momentum into a backhanded crescent. It hit home and carved into a leathery shoulder. Blue fire trailed every swing of the blade as if its echo was delayed. Dark ichor seeped from the wound, swallowed by the faefire channeled through steel. A high-pitched squeal tore from the creature and it lashed out at his leg. Talon caught fabric and ripped into his thigh. He growled against the flare of pain and danced backwards, mindful of the perimeter. 

He shook the ichor from his sword and waited. It studied him and dropped low again, elbows and knees bent backwards. These were fast monsters, contorting themselves to pass through reality faster than a human. The shell created by the ring protected their fragile pocket in time and kept the creature from warping its movement. Icarus slashed downward and nicked its bent-in elbow, parrying the low strike of its leg to draw a wound in what would be its calf. 

“Mare,” he warned, “help would be just lovely right about now!”

“Coming,” she grumbled. Sweat formed on her brow. Fragile threads of light wove into each other and she flicked her wrist, inverting a letter older than stone, “Bodach is different.”

The bodach squealed and bounded across the circle. He ducked. It slammed into the barrier and rolled with the force of it. Icarus cut vertically, blasting power through his hands so hard each sigil pulsed cobalt. The expulsion rocked the air and sent the bodach tumbling backwards. He sprinted across the circle and stabbed down hard. It moved away barely a breath ahead of him and he caught its ribs instead. Bone exposed through torn skin, the pale slate of fae skeleton bright against the ugly dark skin. 

It rolled back towards him and curved its other arm down, talons pinched together in a spear. He turned and braced, sword angled over his shoulder to block the coming blow. Its fingers split apart. He turned the handle, edge slicing between them. The monster screamed. It pushed, splitting the web of its hand even more. It was cutting its own arm in half to get to him. The sound made his stomach flip. Wet and crackling and full of rage. A creature willing to break itself into pieces to destroy him.

“Mare!” He shouted. His heart was pounding. He tried to divide his attention to its legs, catching movement by his feet. It was pressing him back. If he moved farther, he would break the salt and it would escape.

She grunted and the floor beneath him turned to embers, her pattern branded the boards and reached for the creature’s limbs. It fought the black tendrils that snared it. Each charcoal tentacle immobilized a limb, torso, neck. The bodach was spread wide and vulnerable, ruined hand flopping uselessly. Icarus exhaled and let his shoulders drop. She doubled over against her thighs, shoulders heaving in her battle for breath.

The bodach stared at him, an eerie calm juxtaposed against its desperate thrashing a moment before. He rolled the blade in his wrist and trained the point at its heart. 

It smiled. 

He hesitated. It strained against the binding to lean forwards—he hated that uncanny smile. With a spike of effort through his shoulders, faefire flashed up the metal. He drove the point home. 

It gasped. Worse -- it started to laugh. Its appendages began to smolder, the silver-black cinders gleaming as they worked quickly up its limbs like parchment to a candle. Before it was well and truly alight, while it still had the faculty to speak, amusement danced in its eyes. 

“Daedalus sends his regards.”

Cold shot through him. Eyes wide, limbs frozen, unable to move. Icarus stared slack jawed at the burning creature’s corpse. When the blue wispy light of its Eidolon appeared, his body would not obey. 

Maren stepped in and snared it in a vial before it vanished. She tucked the glass back into the slot on her belt and watched the ash disintegrate. After a long time in the trailing silence, she looked back at him. Sword pointed uselessly to the ground, face blank, Icarus could do nothing but stare. Her brows knit, mouth curved in a worried frown—a shift in her expression so rare he could count on two hands. She moved to stand in front of him, her hand fell heavy on his shoulder. All he could manage were two words barely above a whisper.

“My father.”

Hey Rebels! Next week I'm interviewing Shirlene Obuobi about her instant USA Today best-selling paranormal romance Die for Me. She is also the author of Between Friends and Lovers and On Rotation. Plus she's a cardiologist and a big deal on social media!

What are you dying to know about her career and her craft?

Submit your questions in the comments by Sunday morning (8/23) and I might ask her during the next episode of Rebel Ever After.

You can purchase Die For Me in the Rebel Ever After affiliate bookstore here. I was gobsmacked by how good it is. Trust me on this one. (Content warning for gun violence, paranormal antics, miscarriage, emotional abuse.)

Good Morning Friends!

I sent out an email last night to everyone who has signed up for the Shadowborne tier direct from my Shadowsmutjen@gmail email account. It contained a little questionnaire about dates and times for our zoom book club meeting. Please check your spam folder incase your email thinks I am spam. There won't be enough time to read a book and get together before the end of the month, but maybe we can at least do a meet and greet at the end of the month! That way I can work out any zoom kinks before our actual book club meeting for the end of September.

Please try and reply within the week so I can get some dates and times together for us.

Also, has everyone signed up for the discord? Bindery does not make it easy for me to know who in discord is in the Shadowborne tier, but I have separate chats for us. Please also reply with your discord username. Or do you guys hate discord? lol Let me know your thoughts! I like it but don't want to be the only one haha.

Talk soon!

Jen

Sorry, I have not been as active on here as I would love to be. But you may have seen the announcement that I will have a short story collection coming fall of next year, centering on urban legends. I've been doing a lot of writing behind the scenes!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Db1-8rHOQ8g/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I can't wait to share this collection with all of you!

I've also dropped an author website that you can reach me at anytime! It will be updated with all my story collections and further works. There's also a mailing listing you can sign up for as well!

https://ashleygravesauthor.com/

Now, let's see what I've been reading and plan to read this week.

I just finished Take A Breath: An Anthology of Claustrophobic Horror. It was a great collection that explored many different types of claustrophobia.

I've also flown through The Sea Hides It's Dead by Megan Bontrager which is a horror following a group of academics who get trapped in an underwater cave. They must face their darkest sins to survive.

I've also started The Night Pool by Lauren Lee Smith and can already tell it will be a five star read. It follows three women during the Californian gold rush in the 1800s.

I plan to start the audiobook of The Calamaities by Chuck Wendig as well. This book is CHUNKY and I was unable to get to it in time as an arc. But life happens and there's only so much time in a day!

If you’d like a signed and personalised copy of CHILDREN OF GODS AND FIGHTING MEN sent by Shauna Lawless herself, comment below!