Onward and upward

What I’m writing (and reading) in 2025

Happy leftovers-eating and unwanted-presents-returning day to all who celebrate! Hope you’re getting some rest during that weird liminal time in which no one can remember what day it is. Given the added existential dread of this particular approaching new year, I’m setting intentions and clearing away some of the old shit that wasn’t working for me.

So, I’ve shelved Book 3.

I’ve shelved books before, though usually not when they were as far along as this one was. I’d finished a first draft, outlined a second, and was 40-50% into the re-drafting and editing process. Yet when I stepped back and took a really critical look, I could see it wasn’t working, on a structural or thematic level. There was too much backstory, placed too close to the beginning of the book (yet I hesitated to axe it because it was necessary to get a visceral sense of character motivations, and anyway I kind of loved it). My external stakes and subplots were half-baked, my climax was nebulous, and my resolution unsatisfying. Importantly, I hadn’t decided what I wanted to say: the election results made me want to write something that was either completely escapist or vibrating with feminine rage, and this project was neither. Crucially, I’d lost interest in doing the amount of work it would take to get the project into shape. For the last couple of months, I’d kind of been slogging through edits. Since it wasn’t under contract, I decided, Fuck it. It doesn’t spark joy. And I set the book aside.

At some point I might pick it back up – or strip it for parts – since there’s a lot about it that I really love. But for now I’m moving on. I think it’s important as a creative to acknowledge that voice in your head that tells you when something is off, that you either need to spend more time and effort than you thought it would take to fix your current project, or let it go. The second option isn’t always possible, especially for authors who make their living with their writing and are working under multiple deadlines. But if there’s a silver lining in not being under contract, it’s that you can write whatever the hell you feel like.

I am currently working on something completely different, in genre and sensibility, than anything I’ve published before. I don’t want to talk too much about it because it’s in that fragile early stage where it’s perfect and I’m in love with it and haven’t broken it yet. I know it needs more structure to really hang together as a story, but right now I’m having the best time dreaming about my characters and excavating their backstories and motivations and writing scenes as they occur to me. I will say it features a protagonist who’s a mother, which is something I haven’t really done before and I’m a little apprehensive about. Though one nice thing: it really clarifies the personal stakes to write a character who is fighting to save her child.

I am more than a little apprehensive about whether there’s a market for this book, since it goes against the grain of its genre in several respects. But if I’ve learned anything during five years of being involved in publishing, it’s that it’s not always easy to predict what will hit. This book is demanding to be written, so much so that I’m already thinking about the story-inspired tattoo I’ll get when I finish a draft. So I’m hoping that when it’s done, someone will love it who can open the door for more people to love it. But either way it will exist, and the act of its creation is already making me stretch and grow in new directions as a writer and human.

Reading in 2025

This might sound strange for an author, but I never feel like I have to read books right when they come out. It’s not the same kind of pressure as wanting to watch a show while it’s still fresh and you can join in the fan discourse or at least know what people are talking about. Most books don’t generate the intense and widespread discussion that TV does.

There’s also the big ol’ elephant of my professional insecurity. People say to develop a thick skin if you want to publish your writing, and that’s good advice. At the same time, if you don’t want to shut down your access to the emotions you need to draw on to write, some self-protection is necessary. There’s a limit to how much reader criticism I can imbibe, even of someone else’s book, without it taking a toll on my own work. It’s a balance because I truly enjoy seeing different perspectives on a book I liked, and researching what readers resonate with and what sets off eye-rolls. However, once I start to internalize criticism and apply it to my own writing (“They thought that central female character was whiny? Wait ‘til they meet mine…”) I know it’s time to put Goodreads down and back away.

All that to say I don’t feel much FOMO around books, so I read a fair number of backlist titles I might have missed or been in the wrong mood for when they came out, even if their Discourse Era has passed. THAT SAID, here are some 2025 releases I’m especially looking forward to:

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen, January 14

I was lucky enough to read a very early draft of this thriller about a woman who returns to her ancestral home in Iceland to dig up the real dirt on an old family tragedy, and I can’t wait to see how it’s evolved since.

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett, February 11

An inventive premise, meticulous worldbuilding and the relationship between prickly Emily Wilde and charming Wendell Bambleby make the first two books of this series compelling, and book three promises to raise the stakes even higher.

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, April 15

Murata’s Convenience Store Woman was a revelation for me: relatively low-stakes but urgent, a novel that leaned into its strangeness and attention to detail to create an indelible main character. Vanishing World looks like it will offer a similarly skewed look at an alternate yet recognizable society.

Death in the Cards by Mia P. Manansala, May 13

This is the YA debut from Manansala, who has made a name writing culinary cozy mysteries that feature mouthwatering descriptions of Filipino food (alongside the dead bodies). The premise – teenaged Tarot reader gets in over her head after a client goes missing following a troubling reading – has me mashing that preorder button on behalf of my 14 year old…and I’ll definitely be borrowing the book to read myself.

Meet Me at the Crossroads by Megan Giddings, June 3

Giddings writes about the Midwest and she knows how to put down a vibe, two things that pretty much guarantee I will like an author’s work. Lakewood had me thinking about it for months and I can’t wait for this novel following twin sisters amid the opening of doors to a possibly-dangerous alternate world.

Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson, June 10

While reading With Love, From Cold World I really hoped Thompson was putting down what I was picking up when she introduced John, a lovelorn formerly famous guitarist. It turns out she was! This is John’s book and it has some of my favorite things: a focus on music, a themed cruise, and second chance romance.

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, July 15

I’m still working my way through Moreno-Garcia’s backlist but I will read literally anything she writes.

August Lane by Regina Black, July 29

I cannot wait to be torn apart emotionally by this book. August Lane delves into the Black country music scene, following a washed-up former star who must return to his hometown and deal with a painful past…and in the process, face the woman from whom he stole the lyrics to his one and only hit.

Princess of Blood by Sarah Hawley, September 30

Based on her Glimmer Falls magical rom-coms, I predict Hawley’s romantasy series (begun with Servant of Earth) will have me in a chokehold.

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Currently reading/watching/listening

• Nisha J. Tuli’s Artefacts of Ouranos series, with which I am having a great time

• Klaus, because it is our family tradition to watch this movie on Christmas Eve and it makes me sob every goddamn time

• The Soft Moon, an industrial/darkwave/postpunk solo project from the late LA musician Luis Vasquez

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If you enjoy my ramblings, you might like my books!

The Other Me, which PopSugar called a “Black Mirror-esque rabbit hole,” is an inventive page-turner about the choices we make and the ones made for us.

When I’m Her asks the question: How far would you go to get even with the woman who ruined your life?