Graveyards & ARCs & skating, oh my!
An update from my writing desk
Hello dear reader,
How are we travelling? Very well, I hope. I am, in fact, about to travel an awfully long way – back home to Australia from Europe. I shall write this quickly in order to have one last aperitivo in Italy. Sob.
What’s in this issue:
I met some lovely London booksellers and took photos of real life slashed beauties
Slashed Beauties is about to go to print and a sneak peek at my next book(s)
My top recommendations for TV, movies and books this month
A skating update
Slashed Beauties advanced copies are out and reader feedback has been amazing!
AUTHOR UPDATE
I’ve just spent almost a month on the road – a mix of work and pleasure. My first stop was in London, where I was lucky enough to meet the lovely team at VERVE Books, the UK publisher of Slashed Beauties, soon to be released in September 2025. We had the most perfect breakfast and then my fabulous editor and I jumped on the Tube and headed out to visit six bookshops and hand out some advanced copies. All the booksellers were very excited to talk everything feminist body horror (booksellers really are the best) and I came away with several titles that I can’t wait to read myself.
The next stop was for pleasure – a lovely small-ship cruise in Croatia where I ate almost nothing but octopus for seven nights (yes, I am ashamed of myself, because I loved Remarkably Bright Creatures). Our daily swim stops were amazing, as were all the little towns we visited. Highly recommend. After this it was on to Italy where I was lucky enough to spend some time with two amazing Anatomical Venuses – the real slashed beauties. One in Bologna and one in the small town of Pavia. They really were incredibly beautiful and I’m sure everyone else in both of the museums wondered why on earth I took 5824 photos of them.
WORK-IN-PROGRESS UPDATE
Slashed Beauties will shortly go to print (yay) and I’m eagerly awaiting the day that I’ll hold real copies in my hands with all the different covers. This will be the culmination of a lot of work. I’m very excited to have a worldwide simultaneous release (the UK, Australia and the US will publish at the same time, as well as other territories), but it has been a brutal workload as I’ve written the second book in my contract at the same time as we work on publishing Slashed Beauties.
The second book is tentatively titled All Her Beautiful Deaths and has a focus on Victorian death photography. A lot of it is set in Highgate in London, at the very edge of Highgate Cemetery. As with Slashed Beauties, it has a dual narrative with two heroines – one in the past and one in the present. The characters in this manuscript are honestly some of the worst behaved characters I’ve ever dealt with.
I’m a massive plotter, but these characters simply wouldn’t be told. Even ruder, when I went to visit the London house my hero from the present-day narrative lives in – he wasn’t there! It’s been a joy to write, however. Everyone in this tale is desperately in love with one another and everyone gets a happy ending (I don’t think that’s a spoiler). I think it was the book I needed to write after being SO MEAN to all the characters in Slashed Beauties.
Other than this, I’m also in the middle of writing my next children’s Middle Grade manuscript. Which involves London Bridge (I visited a diorama of Old London Bridge when I was in London). And a troll. Also, a dormouse. It’s so sweet and every time I get stuck into writing it again, I just adore it.
WHAT I’M READING/WATCHING
I’m looking forward to watching movie after movie on the two long plane trips home. I watched Small Things Like These on the way over, which I adored. So subtle and so beautiful. It really was something and I’ve thought about it a lot, just as I did after I’d read the book. I’m hoping I’ll get to see Materialists on the way home. As for what I’m reading, I just finished and enjoyed Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time. I saw Kaliane at breakfast at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, but wasn’t lucky enough to hear her speak as I had events on at the same time! Next up is Emma Grey’s Pictures of You, which I’m really looking forward to. And after that is Emma Cowing’s The Show Woman (it’s all Emmas all the time here).
SKATING UPDATE
I do feel very odd giving a skating update, but now I’ve started talking about skating, I find I get asked about it constantly! (ICYMI I’m part of an adult synchronised ice skating team. We formed our team last year and began competing and were surprised to find we made it all the way to compete nationally. We have the most fun ever – it really is an absolute joy and such a fun mix of people. Some of us started ice skating as adults, but many of us – like me – have come back to ice skating after competing in our younger years). So what’s going on at the moment? Apparently (I will need to catch up when I get back) we almost have a full routine now, which we’ll start learning for the first competition of the season. We’re skating to a medley of Uptown Funk, Ice Ice Baby and something I can’t remember (yes, I will definitely need to catch up).
MEDIA UPDATE
It’s so exciting to see all the Slashed Beauties advanced copies being received and all the book influencers posting and reviewing etc.. Honestly, when I first started writing this tale, I truly believed it might never see the light of day. It really is a bit … odd. I’m thrilled that the world is full of other odd people like me who are keen to read about murderous, revengeful anatomical wax models! I’ve seen the most amazing advanced copy unboxings (HQ, my Australian publisher sent some advanced copies out in decorated birdcages, which really was next level), happy dances from bookstagrammers and reviews that stated the reader learnt “a shit ton of actual historical info from this book”. It doesn’t get better than that! If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, please do. It makes a huge difference!
If you’re on Goodreads, keep an eye out for giveaways, which will come thick and fast now that we’re closing in on publication. I’ll also make sure to flag these on Insta and Facebook as well as well as any others that are happening.
Until next time!
AR