I don’t like lists.

And yet, here’s a list!

Every month, people are making lists: the best albums in the universe, the best movies that make you forget you’re at home at not the actual theater, the best rocks found on an inspirational year-long walking journey through neighborhoods on the moon, the best books that prove no one has to write ever again.

Lists feel…fraught. Especially when you are a writer. When you are this writer. You never really know if readers connect with your work. One reader certainly did—the editor who bought the piece—and some folks think that’s all that really matters. Your work sold! You are a champion! But writers want—well, this writer wants to find readers who connect with the work (and put it on a list! If you liked it then you shoulda put it on a list…)

According to Goodreads, I’ve read 53 books in 2021, as of December 14. My main read this month is Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon (Outlander #9), and it’s 900 pages in length, so the chances of me finishing that this year are very slim indeed. I’m a little over 100 pages in—it’s so large, it’s hard to hold, which makes me want to make another list:

Paper Books That Are Too Hecking Big to Hold as You Read Them:

1. Outlander #9
2. Expanse #9

Huh, what is it with books numbered nine in a series… And the Expanse book is 400 pages shorter than the Outlander, and still so huge! Ebooks, Elise! Yeah yeah, I like them fine, but I am still devoted to paper books. Here are a few paper books I connected with over the past year, that you may also want to check out, if you haven’t already.

A Desolation of Peace by Arkady Martine is swell. It is a follow up to her debut, A Memory Called Empire. I did not expect to like Empire, so when it grabbed me right away, I was astonished. I typically find political novels boring. Diplomats and blah blah blah, but Martine’s worlds and characters are easy to slip right into. The sequel is everything I wanted and more; I actually had trouble putting it down to do other stuff. Other stuff did not exist. “Bodies die, or suffer, or are imprisoned. Memory lasts.” In my world, memory doesn’t last, so maybe this is why these books hit me so hard in the heart-meat.

One book that also falls into “diplomats and blah blah blah” is undoubtedly The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin. I re-read the book this year, because I didn’t remember much. It has a very slow start for me, but once Our Hero gets kidnapped and imprisoned, I was utterly captivated. I’ve got plans to try Earthsea again—I had trouble connecting with the first book, and want to give it another go. I feel like I’ve got important gaps in my genre reading knowledge. (I tried The Dispossessed after Left Hand, and bounced straight off of it. I’m really hit or miss with Le Guin.)

Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna is an interesting blended work, half biography, half memoir. Lynch is one of my favorite creatives, so getting this behind the scenes look at his work was a real treat. “Keep your eye on the donut not the hole.” Yeah. “Your mind is going on what you’re doing today. There’s this ravine and you’ve got to build a bridge to the other side,” Yeah. “Man has control of action alone, never the fruit of that action.” YEAH.

A.C. Wise’s debut novel, Wendy, Darling, arrived this year, and if you have been longing for the darker, more adult side of the Peter Pan story, this is a good place to begin. Unlike Peter, Wendy doesn’t remain a child, so what becomes of her after adventures in Neverland? Wise also had a short story collection out this year, The Ghost Sequences, and it too is a wonderful escape from…everything. Other collections I spent time with this year are Six Dreams About the Train and Other Stories by Maria Haskins, and Fantastic Americana, by Josh Rountree. Such distinct voices in all of these books. We are spoiled.

One of the neatest things I read this year was published in 1838: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe. I love Poe, this you know, but when I read Moby Dick for the first time a few years back, this book was noted to be an inspiration to Melville, so I knew I had to get here eventually. You can absolutely see the skeleton of Moby Dick in this book—but wrought in Poe’s own terrific prose. If you also liked Moby (or like the idea but find the idea of that book too intimidating), you should check out this one asap. I bet your library has it.

This fall, I got to read an advance copy of The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield. It is extraordinary. I didn’t know how deeply I needed a story about sisters Charlotte and Antoine (later Marie Antoinette) and their complicated, courtly, beautiful, magical world. History and magic and beauty and terror and just…it feels like this is the way magic should work.

I’m going to mention two final books, because they kind of go hand in hand: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, and The Actual Star by Monica Byrne. Both books span centuries, three (or more) time frames folded together to tell one complete story. I loved both of them deeply, despite being disappointed in the end of Cloud Cuckoo Land (the end of The Actual Star was, quite simply, perfect). I haven’t read Doerr’s previous offering—you know, he won a Pulitzer, so maybe he knows a thing or four about words. I’m lucky to be a patron on Byrne’s Patreon, so watched The Actual Star come together across nine years—which is very in keeping with the story told there, too.

What did you love this year?

Amusingly (depressingly?) the last post I made in this blog was about…2020’s eligibility. So here we are, rolling straight into 2021’s eligibility. It doesn’t matter, but here we are. Always showing up. That’s half of the work—just show up. Isn’t it?

2021, much like 2020, has been a year of challenges and changes. But the more things change…the more they stay the same. Did you come for the platitudes? Hmm, no. You came to see what I published in 2021! Didn’t you? I showed up and you showed up and here we are, so let’s do it.

The biggest change in 2021 was that I signed with a literary agent. Jennie Goloboy of the Donald Maass Literary Agency has taken excessively good care of me already, so I’m pleased with the pairing. She’s already shopping a novel for me, so cross those fingers and eyes that someone will see its utter brilliance and publish it. It’s pretty good, for a book written in isolation during a pandemic.

Let’s flashback to spring of this year, when PodCastle published a reprint of my lesbian noir, “Blush Response.” I’ve written two stories in this universe and I think about writing a novel about these ladies, but haven’t quite gotten there yet. It’s a world where things are literally black and white—until a certain magic (read: curse) unlocks the color.

Also in the spring, Prisms published from PS Publishing. My story, “Rivergrace” concerns a strange woman at the edge of a river and a monster that devours the world. Prisms was the first time I got to sign signature sheets for a limited number of special editions, so that was fun and harrowing—I had to practice signing my name a LOT.

Summer brought my post-apoc leprechaun climate change story to Apex. Yeah—you didn’t know you needed such a story, but thankfully I wrote “Without Wishes to Bind You.” It’s a strange world, where window blinds can see, where billboards are alive, and a leprechaun has chosen a human for a travelling companion—or have they been chosen by something else entirely?

Summer also brought one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, a climate change novella, The Necessity of Stars, wherein our heroine is an old woman in the early stages of dementia. It is also one of the hardest things I’ve ever written. Elise, you may say, you aren’t an old woman in the early stages of dementia. No, but I am a caregiver for my mom who is, so my experiences with her color this entire story, even if she hasn’t met an alien in the garden (I don’t think she has…maybe I should check). For better or worse. Working with Neon Hemlock on this project was a joy; they are a first-class joint the entire way, organizing a Kickstarter, with great rewards that included enamel pins made for each novella. Getting to share the experience with Premee, Shingai, and Wendy was also a blessing. What a great group of humans to be among.

2021 also gave us the beginning of Mermaid’s Monthly, a project I was happy to talk with founder and editor Julia Rios about. I had no plans to submit anything, but then there was this story, “A Nereid’s Guide to the Underworld” and I thought “what the heck!” and it turns out they wanted it for their August issue.

Lightspeed expanded a little this year, adding flash fiction to their lineup. “Those Who Went” was included in their October issue. This is my third appearance in Lightspeed, each more unexpected than the last!

A new-to-me publication is Bourbon Penn. I found them when two favorite authors had stories in their pages. On an actual whim, I sent them a circus story I’d had trouble placing, and they loved it. “The Truth Each Carried” (issue #25) is a standalone sequel to my 2015 circus novelette “Blow the Moon Out.” It’s about age, and love, and how we each have a truth buried inside us that only certain people have access to.

This year also saw the arrival of The Deadlands, a project I am delighted to be involved with. The Deadlands is a new magazine that publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry relating to death. When Sean asked me to edit the fiction, I absolutely said yes in about one (1) second. We have had a tremendous first seven issues, publishing works from authors such as: C.S.E. Cooney, Alexis Gunderson, Vajra Chandrasekera, Anita Brienza, Suzan Palumbo, Mike Allen, G.V. Anderson, R.B. Lemberg, Jelena Dunato, Premee Mohamed, Kate Lechler, Jordan Taylor, Alexandra Seidel, and so many more (and we’ve got such sights to show you this winter, ahhh!). I don’t know how it is possible to be more excited for every issue we produce, but I am. I hope you will visit the site and take a gander (I’m being told we’re sold out of ganders, sorry), and grab a subscription for yourself or to gift this holiday season. Subscriptions are what will keep us publishing!

As you are reading and nominating for the coming award season, I’m thankful for your consideration of my work. I keep showing up, and I’m not done yet. (Hopefully my next post won’t be so long in coming—but if you’ve missed me and my chatter, you can sign up for my (free) newsletter, over at TinyLetter. There’s lots of chatter there, plus giveaways, and it comes right to your email.)

Eligibility is a ridiculous word.

In any case, it’s that time of the year–somehow–where we tally up everything we have published and say oh my god please find this worthy and put this on a ballot so I will be remembered and not forgotten in the long dark stretch of years to come. And well, it’s 2020, so. You know.

In June, Apex Book Company published my first collection, a collection of stories from my circus universe. The Grand Tour collects (hey, Elise, is it a collection??) nine stories and takes you on a whirlwind tour (hey) of space and time and love and heartbreak and you know, stuff. I am unreasonably attached to the whole thing, and can’t quite believe I’ve got a collection (hm) out in the world. I’ve wanted one for so long. It’s also a beautiful book; Apex spoiled me. Each story has a beautiful illustration.

Also in June, Three-Lobed Burning Eye published my story, “True In His Fashion.” Gay vampires but make it FASHION. Immortal men make clothing throughout the ages, searching for a thing that is missing, but never entirely lost. I love this story, and it took many, many years for it to find its proper home. I sat and cried when Andrew told me he was buying it.

Inside all was dark, the inside of an egg, perfectly sealed. The woman held me firm, by arm and throat both, and while I glimpsed her eyes in the darkness—crimson the way a summer berry may be—it was the froth of fabric around her throat which took my breath and rendered me unable to struggle.

The figure-eight folds of lace were flawlessly white; no dye, no colored starch. At each crest, a ruby gleamed. In each valley, seed pearls pooled. The pearls seemed to hover above her still chest, while the rubies drew in just enough of the day’s light to illuminate her jaw with a faint blush her own body would never manufacture.

In July, The Great Isolation: Colorado Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic contained my short story, “This Is Not a Love Song.” The story won second place in a contest from Western University. Colorado residents could submit work for said contest, to focus on isolation in the time of…the pandemic, hmm. I wrote this when I was broken-hearted, which you could say about almost all of my work.

You, recurring image.

You skitter across and through everything I love, everything I do. Though you have gone, you remain, and I remain, and so I watch (waiting is weakness, they say, and they are wrong). I stare at the sunlit shadows moving across the walls and you–and you.

You in shadow and you in sun. Barefoot and long-shadowed in summer. So tall you brought me bouquets of clouds–altocumulus stratiformis duplicatus, noctilucent, stratospheric nacreous. Wrapped tight and hunched in winter–

In Octobler (that’s right), Vernacular Books published the Evil in Technicolor anthology, which includes my story, “Blue Hole, Red Sea.” It is a terrifying deep dive into a hole in the floor of the ocean, opening into treasures and horrors untold.

The new sea was warmer, saltier. The water was like silk across her skin—bare skin, her wetsuit stripped away as if it had never existed. The salt water buoyed her up and up, as if she were in a balloon, and when she surfaced, it was an unfamiliar landscape that greeted her. She knew she was beneath the Mediterranean, safely wrapped in diving gear, and yet her eyes told her otherwise, for the land rose and fell in sandy, caramel hues everywhere. The sea around her was perfectly still, not shot through with fish. Before her in the sea spread a great darkness, a hole that bored into the water itself and vanished. And beneath the water, a whisper. A word she could not quite make out.

When editor Joe M. McDermott invited me to the project, I was wishy-washy. I was in a bad spot. Writing, was that a thing I even did any more? The anthology was also meant to help out writers who were struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic–was that me? Well, my day job is absolutely still on hold, so yes. I remain grateful for the invitation, because this story was a lot of fun to write. Even if editors have told me I don’t write horror.

The last thing I will probably see published this year is “The Witch and the Werewolf,” which is utterly contrary to everything I usually write. It’s an absolutely sweet Christmas romance between a witch and a werewolf (you don’t say). She’s Riz, he’s Bean, and together, they solve mysteries! Who doesn’t love some rice and beans. Happy Howlidays is an anthology from Paramour Ink, containing stories set in the same small Vermont town. Come to Bones Hollow this holiday season! My thanks to Lex Hunter for inviting me.

And I think that’s all she wrote. Sorry. I had to. It’s 2020.

P.S. Someone said I should mention that I drafted a new novel this year. I did, it’s not wrong. It was the first book I’ve written since Folley/Mallory, so it took some brain power. Now, the agent search begins. Again. Fingers crossed. Again.

So you’ve acquired a steam train! Congratulations! They can be finicky and unpredictable, but this guide should help you with the most critical points of concern. We appreciate your time and attention and should you have any further concerns with your new acquisition, you can forward your questions to the engine, where they’ll fuel the onward journey into the unknown!

Don’t feed your train after midnight.

Everything has an appetite. It’s best to learn and respect that from the outset. You may think “okay, it’s a steam train, it needs coal,” but your new vehicle is going to require something a little more than that. Exactly what that is, we cannot say—every train is unique, and yours especially so. The more you travel together, the more you will know exactly what it (what she) needs. But not after midnight. Never after midnight. Just don’t.

Don’t worry about that extra car (or four)!

Sometimes you need more space—and we’re not talking legroom! Your new steam train is happy to accommodate you and your needs! She knows when your new passengers need more storage space, broader polar landscapes, or even an extra giant redwood or two to climb into. Whatever you need, the train can provide. You’ll quickly learn that some passengers need their own space, separate from other passengers. Really, really, really separate. Your train can handle it! Don’t worry!

Regularly clean the cow catcher.

Cleanliness is next to godliness, especially during these strange times (as if times are ever not strange, oh friend). The speeds this train reaches may be excessive at times and you never know exactly what’s on the tracks. Your cow catcher is one of your most important Train Features™, and keeping it clean and in working order is of vital importance. You never know when you’ll find an alien in it.

Only explore the caboose in daylight hours.

The caboose is filled with wonders, but none of these should be seen when the sun isn’t in the sky. When the sun goes down, we cannot be responsible for what happens within the confines of the caboose. You might trip over something and break a jar, and what then? These aren’t normal jars, my friend—you have no idea what might spill out. Supernumerary rainbows, a fully formed bat-girl, or maybe the month of February in the year 1164. But where in the world? That’s the right question. You won’t know in the dark of night.

There’s a disembodied hand in the engine car—and that’s perfectly normal!

Every train has a spirit, and some spirits are more unusual than others. Your train carries a disembodied hand. The hand carries a gold necklace, which in turn carries a gold cross. Don’t even consider pawning the necklace—you won’t like what happens when it is parted from the train. Leave the hand exactly where is it, with its cross. It won’t bother you, if you don’t bother it. You might imagine the hand was removed from its body with great upset and trauma, and you’d be right! You might imagine that the spirit of the person who owned that hand has now haunted the train. You’d be right again—but we like to call it “infused.” Your train is infused with the spirit of a nineteenth-century nun, who also may be an aspect of Fate. This is perfectly normal, considering where you’re headed.

Safe journeys, new train owner! Keep those limbs inside the windows at all times. You never know where your next stop will be.

(If, by chance, you haven’t yet acquired your steam train, it’s never too late to do so! It will be delivered straight to your mailbox for unpacking and exploration!)

In 2005, I sold the first of my circus stories, “Vanishing Act,” to SciFiction, edited by Ellen Datlow. It was a dream come true in many ways. It was the most money I’d ever been paid for fiction, and selling to Ellen was absolutely a bucket list item.

Now, in 2020, a bundle of circus stories are being published as a collection. It’s my first collection of any kind! I’ve been publishing for twenty years, and my fiction has never been collected before, it’s true. But this June, The Grand Tour arrives from Apex Book Company!

The Grand Tour takes you on just that, a tour across time and the world, because my traveling circus isn’t ordinary in any way. Naturally they travel through time! On a train! Of course! In this collection, you’ll get to meet Jackson, the strange man who leads the circus, and you’ll get to meet the train, which is sometimes also a lady. You will cross paths with the Weird Sisters, with conjoined twins, and also arrive at the end of the world. There’s also a dog or two or three, because who doesn’t love a pupper?

The Grand Tour is up for preorder everywhere! I hope you’ll grab a copy or two, because running away to the circus is the best thing you can do right now. From the safety of your own home. #StayHome

Apex | Kindle | Nook | Kobo | Play | Trade Paperback @Amazon (soon!)

When you buy at Apex, you’ve got the opportunity to bundle The Grand Tour with The Kraken Sea. The Kraken Sea tells Jackson’s origin story, and got a star from Publisher’s Weekly!

Now that I have officially lost a World Fantasy Award, it appears time to post eligibility information for next year’s awards, and–

It really is an endless circle, isn’t it? Didn’t we just do this?

2019 has been an interesting year. It has been the least successful in my “career” when it comes to sales. It has been the most successful year in terms of previous work landing on ballots. Basically, never try to figure out publishing, because nothing makes sense.

Here’s what I did in 2019:

“Kill the Darlings (Silicone Sister Remix)” appeared in Do Not Go Quietly, edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner.

They say Nany Mars is a cunt, and they’re not wrong, but her hands are steady as she severs the last bit of flesh binding the three women together. Nany Mars makes careful stitches, sewing them back into their skins, their solitary skins, where once men had made them into one joined vessel for their pleasures.

It is hard, slow work, and when Nany finishes, she’s dripping sweat down her body, clothes soaked with it, and she sinks against the compound wall, staring up at the slice of sky that’s visible through the broken skylight. She ought to get that fixed, she thinks, but she’ll be gone come morning, and she only came to fix the women. There are so many women to fix.

The Ebon Jackal, from Apokrupha, concluded my Folley & Mallory series of novels. It has two (2) reviews.

Eleanor Folley walked slowly, yet with purpose, through the city market, still not having adjusted to the idea that its glory existed, that she could, and did, walk through its treasures. Everywhere she looked, Waset overflowed with life and activity, though in her mind she could still envision what the city had been in her own time, Luxor and a shadow of its former self. Crumbling into dust, rather than standing firm and sure.
 
Every morning when she woke, she expected to find herself back in her proper place, nineteenth century Paris, under crisp covers with coffee soon to percolate, but through the windows came the sounds of a different city entirely. Of a different time. Every morning it was not Paris that woke her, but New Kingdom Thebes as it would be called, flourishing under the rule of Queen Hatshepsut. It was Homer’s Thebes of the Hundred Gates, only Homer had yet to be born.

And that’s literally all she wrote! A reworked essay of mine appears in The Writer’s Book of Doubt, edited by Aidan Doyle, so maybe you’d also like to consider that as you make your year-end tallies.

Of course, we’ve a month and a half of quality work ahead of us, so don’t forget those stories and creators either.

When we got the news in April, Beth and I didn’t quite believe it. Shimmer was a Hugo finalist — and after thirteen years, that was a hell of a thing.

But in accordance with prophecy, Uncanny Magazine won for the fourth time, and Shimmer came in last. Those voting numbers will really fuck with your head, no lie. The prophecy also said that the late Gardner Dozois would win the short-form editor category, and he did. I came in last there, too.

One of the hardest things is that everyone suggests you write a speech, in case the impossible happens, in case you win. You spend weeks wondering how you can condense everything that happened in thirteen years into a few moments, because this is it — this is the end for Shimmer, there are no more chances, and how can you convey everything. You cannot.

Here’s the speech I wrote for my short-form editor nomination, in case you wondered how I tried. I started with Audrey Hepburn’s Oscar’s acceptance speech, as one must.

I want to thank everybody who, in these past months and years, have helped, guided, and given me and Shimmer so much. First thank yous to Beth Wodzinski, who took me on as a slush reader thirteen years ago, and then offered me an opportunity to edit. I would not be here without her. The #AHugoForElise hashtag was filled with such kindness and love—my thanks to everyone who was involved, especially Wren Wallis and Maria Haskins—we do so much of our work alone, and it was remarkable to hear how Shimmer impacted readers and our writerly community.

Thank you to my fellow finalists: Neil Clarke, Gardner Dozois, Lee Harris, Julia Rios, Lynne Thomas, and Michael Damien Thomas. You are all changing our community for the better, every day with every story. Thank you, too, to Matt Dovey and Alex Acks for going above and beyond, and being in Dublin to accept the award when I could not be.

Thank you all.

Today is hard, but we pick up and go on. It’s what badgers have done for thirteen years, and I’ve still got a World Fantasy Award to lose!

Near as I can tell, I wrote two things in 2018, which is an all-time low for me. I wrote “Kill Your Darlings (Silicone Sister Remix)” (out now in Do Not Go Quietly) and The Ebon Jackal, the last Folley & Mallory book (also out now).

Last week, I finished a novella. I wrote it without a market in mind; I wrote it just to write it, and that was liberating, as it let me noodle with an idea and see where it went. (It didn’t go where I intended? Where I thought?) But.

I wrote it just to write it.

I had the good damn luck to meet Sara Saab this summer — too briefly, but pancakes were involved — and we had time to talk about writing, and how so often we don’t write just to write. We write with an aim to publish, or we write for an audience. We don’t write for the sake of writing or we don’t write just for ourselves.

And that felt like a heck of a thing. To write something for yourself, because you want to. To take an idea out for a walk and see where it goes.

I don’t know that I will sell this novella, and that’s okay. It would be a nice bonus, I see a couple places it could go, but ultimately, writing the thing — and finishing it — were the goals.

Getting my writer brain back after Shimmer closed has been a heck of a thing, too. Shimmer closed to submissions a year ago (a year ago yesterday!), and I wrapped up my work on it in Januaryish 2019. And after that, I just wanted to lie on the floor.

I’ve spent a lot of that time thinking about writing, and talking about writing. I’ve spent a lot that time editing things that are not Shimmer. There is definitely a learning curve to the entire thing — regaining my creative brain.

Reading drafts from fellow authors I admire has also been vital to this process; seeing how a work comes together, seeing how a person begins. And you’re thinking “Elise! You’ve been publishing for nineteen years! How do you not know how to begin.”

And that’s when I’d just laaaaauuugh because sure, I know how to begin, but also I had to relearn it.

Here’s what I learned: it’s okay to not publish for a while (forever). It’s okay to write something for yourself. It’s okay to write for the sake of writing.

In fact, perhaps it’s necessary. Go finish the thing you haven’t finished. Even if only for yourself.

The last book in my Folley & Mallory series drops today, and perhaps I am having feelings about that, but god forbid we explore those, because it’s all too hard to contemplate; this seems to be my year of endings.

Dramatic! But, many things have come to an end, so it feels apt.

There are quite a few hundred quotes about endings on Goodreads. By dudes. White dudes who wrote things. What if, instead we think about creation for a breath.

Week of 6/9 in Leo: A very certain type of creation. Is it really ok to just sleep. What if there is only that. Then be ready for it.— Astro Poets (@poetastrologers) June 10, 2019

A very certain type of creation.

A writer who has written a thing, and has closed the chapters on that thing, and is now… Writing the next thing. Writing the next thing in the wake of having read a thing that has convinced me I cannot write the very thing I hope to.

We are always trying to write the next thing.

Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we sleep.

What if there is only that.

My first idea for the F&M books was that they were set in the future — they were Way More Science-Fiction, people from the future heading to the past by Techno Means, to salvage the world they wanted to live in from the dust of a centuries.

That didn’t work out.

My second idea for the F&M books was that they were set in the past — and also the ancient past. That they were about daughters and mothers, and the impossible tangle of Stuff between them. That they were about broken families, and chosen families, and how we can be deceived by the very thing we love so much.

What if there is only that.

These books didn’t achieve all I hoped they would. I will write the next thing. I will begin the agent hunt anew. I will submit the thing, and submit it again. I will write the next thing. I will begin the agent hunt anew. I will submit the thing, and submit it again. Maybe I’m not a novelist. My morning pages wondered if I was done with writing as a whole. But I don’t make such decisions in the wake of disappointment.

I will write the next thing.

We end a thing. We start a thing.

We end. We start again.

What if there is only that.

Then be ready for it.

Ready for adventures in ancient Egypt? Maybe you’ll give my books a peek! Archaeologist Eleanor Folley has searched for the truth about her mother’s disappearance her whole life — but the truth is stranger and weirder than she ever knew. Agent Virgil Mallory seeks answers of his own, but was never quite prepared for those he unexpectedly found in Miss Folley. Dean Smith-Richard claims it’s “Miss Fisher meets Indiana Jones,” and I cannot disagree, so I hope you’ll join Folley and Mallory on their adventures in early-20th century Paris, and ancient Egypt!

The Ebon Jackal: Amazon

The Series: IndieBound | Amazon | B&N