Everina Maxwell Updates

Updates on books by Everina Maxwell. If you're after my normal blog you may want my main tumblr (avoliot).

[everina-maxwell-updates]

Cover is UP! The stunning art is by @eliotbaum.

Call Me Traitor is the story of a living weapon fighting her way towards personhood and the awful lesbian she's doing it with. I keep calling it 'the sapphic Winter Soldier wizards' book despite being told we can't put that in the blurb.

STORY:

En is a weapon. Battle spells are carved into her skin, she’s trained to work through pain, and she’s magically compelled with loyalty to the archmagi. When she's sent on a mission to retrieve a group of infamous traitors from exile in a land of unpredictable and deadly magic, she's forced to team up with a common soldier to have any chance of success, or survival.

Tamol is a disaster. En isn’t fooled by the soldier’s silver tongue and good looks. Tamol is flighty, cowardly and the worst soldier En has ever met. But she’s also brilliant at magic and kinder than En has any right to expect. When she saves En’s life, it takes everything En has not to start falling for her. That is, until En discovers Tamol is one of the very traitors she seeks.

The empire never forgets. Years ago, the exiled traitors were just normal students with a vision for a better kingdom. They put their lives on the line fighting for it and lost. So they were exiled to the Far Peninsula to die. But now, the empire discovers the traitors may yet live, and they’ve unearthed something in the wilderness that the archmagi will pay any price to get.

But the might of an unforgiving empire isn’t the greatest force in all the land. Something monstrous is living in the Far Peninsula that does not discriminate between soldiers, traitors, and kings.

Out October! Preorders (every one of them highly treasured for obscure publishing industry reasons) are up here!

[avoliot]

Hi! I’m absolutely in love with your books, and I just heard about winter’s orbit 1.5 which sounds like literally all my dreams come true. Unfortunately, I missed the preorder, is there any other way I can get the book? Thanks in advance!

Hello! I’m guessing this is about A Short Holiday, which is an epistolary short story I wrote about Kiem and Jainan on holiday! The publisher has a waiting period for that kind of preorder stuff which actually expires in a few weeks, so at that point I’ll release it for free (probably via a newsletter? I need to make a newsletter anyway). I’ll announce here and on Instagram/Twitter when it’s available, and on @everina-maxwell-updates as well. Kiem is super normal about holidays. Looking forward to sending it out!

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Just got a note on this which reminded me: for anyone who missed it, this short story and the OE epilogue are both available via my free newsletter at https://everinamaxwell.com/newsletter

[everina-maxwell-updates]

In a rare instance of getting myself organized enough to do an interview, the Plot Trysts podcast invited me to guest on their miniseries about the Vorkosigan Saga and I triumphed over several other potential guests in a cage match in order to was delighted to coincidentally get the episode that discusses Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Meg and Alexandra have beautiful podcast voices, great opinions, and wonderful skills at shaping a discussion. I, for some reason, have the exact energy of someone who has arrived on In Our Time to enthusiastically recap an obscure controversy in 19th-century ethnography for the benefit of Melvyn Bragg. No, I don't know why I sound like that either. We had a super interesting discussion on one of my very favorite books and, it will not surprise many people to hear, I have so many thoughts and feelings about Miles and Ekaterin.

I am not actually sure how to link to a podcast, so if this sounds like your thing I suggest putting in "My Word As Vorkosigan Komarr" in whatever podcast app you use! (I also got some weird blank space at the start but the talking starts at about 00:30.)

[everina-maxwell-updates]

So I am officially allowed to talk about my fantasy sapphic Winter Soldier book!* Feat: brainwashed assassins, awful lesbians, some terrible decisions made at magic college that have haunted everyone for several years, and being hopelessly in love with the worst person you could be in love with.

(*not actually Stucky, please do not expect the characters, it's just 'Winter Soldier' is my best shorthand for 'brainwashed superassassin who regular has their memory wiped and doesn't remember their complicated past' and one thing I've learned is that pitching vs setting expectations is hard)

It doesn't have a pub date yet - updates to follow on @everina-maxwell-updates when I have things like a cover and dates!

[avoliot]

Ocean's Echo Paperback & Epilogue

The Ocean's Echo paperback is out! If anyone in the US or Canada was waiting for it to drop in price, now is the time.

There is a new epilogue out with it! It is a fluffy romantic missing-scene type chapter set a few days after the end of the book. I very much wanted this to be available to everyone who already has a copy as well as international readers, so you can get access to this for free at my newsletter here. You can also get it if you haven't read the book, though once again, why.

Hope you enjoy!

[oblivionsdream]

I am super excited to share my redesigned covers of both Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell!

These are both going to be available in @//dazzlingbookishshop on Insta! 😉

[vxlinart]

“Your Grace?” “Your Highness.”

Redraw of this post for my annual reading of Winter’s Orbit because I can never get enough of Kiem and Jainan

[avoliot]

ones that were rejected for this graphic:

"you memorized army regulations and then followed them so hard you ended up at 'technically treason and a danger to the military' and i thought that was very sexy of you"

"i have never had the slightest idea what you're going to do next and god help me you've now started two mutinies and i shouldn't find that attractive"

"space jellyfish"

[everina-maxwell-updates]

Ocean's Echo audiobook:

Quick note to anyone who preordered or bought the Ocean's Echo audiobook on the first day of launch. There was an Audible distribution issue and the last few chapters were missing. This is now fixed, so if you delete the file from your device and redownload it you should get the correct one. It shouldn't affect anyone buying it after the fix was put in. I'm so sorry about this, it's deeply frustrating to have launch messed up by a technical glitch, but I hope you can get the new file painlessly if yours was affected!

[avoliot]

Ocean's Echo is a queer space opera in which Tennal, a disaster socialite with mindreading powers, gets conscripted into the space military and ordered to soulbond with his fellow soldier Surit - an earnest and well-intentioned type who follows his own personal ethical compass with the single-minded devotion of a bull in a china shop.

It's what you would get if you took Lois McMaster Bujold's body of work and decided to make it revolve around queer soulbonding. It somehow made Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year list. It's in the same universe as Winter's Orbit, but you don't need to have read that - it stands completely alone.

If you like awful main characters who fall into disasters and proceed to make them everyone else's problem, love interests who have memorized the ENTIRE rule book, and a deep commitment to space mindreading powers on the author's part, then *waves hands*. And it has an incredible cover, which I had nothing to do with at all, so feel free to buy one just to rip it off and stick on your wall.

[everina-maxwell-updates]

Out today in the US and Canada! And Nov 3rd in the UK and worldwide!

[annleckie]

Read an Excerpt From Everina Maxwell’s Ocean’s Echo

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds.

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All I want in a pairing is for both halves to be absolutely convinced that they are the only sensible one in this relationship and the other one is a loose spanner in God's machine

and they're both totally wrong, but only about the sensible part.

[avoliot]

hit right in the solar plexus with the fact I accidentally wrote a 140k captain carrot/moist von lipwig fic

[avoliot]

for avoidance of confusion, this is Ocean's Echo

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to be clear this was an ACCIDENT and this is NOT TECHNICALLY DISCWORLD FIC, that said one look at my pterry collection and this won't come as a surprise

[garden-and-chaos]

@avoliot’s winter’s orbit for rainbow crate bookbox! this book was so cute kiem and jainan my beloveds, i’m so glad you found each other

[everina-maxwell-updates]

“I’m one hundred percent aware of how much I need you,” Tennal said, low and focused. “So will you just suspend your scruples for once and let me give you something to lie for.”

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read people, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified “architects,” he can impose his will onto others, and he’s under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.

Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. They can both let themselves be arrested and court-martialed--or they can lie.

How long they can keep faking a mental bond is another matter.

Ocean's Echo is out 1 November 2022, if it sounds like your thing and you felt like preordering that would be awesome; preorders are up at most retailers!

[everina-maxwell-updates]

courseofhonourupdates -> everina-maxwell-updates

Anyone who was following courseofhonourupdates, this is now everina-maxwell-updates for what are probably obvious reasons. Thought it would be a good time to explain the split so you can pick the blog that suits you:

everina-maxwell-updates: 'official' blog, strictly book stuff. Follow this if you want infrequent updates just about the books, occasional fanart.

avoliot: reblogs, gardens, other people's unrelated art, small book fandoms I will never let die, Winter's Orbit-universe fan stuff because it's still my blog and nobody can stop me. These two blogs will probably reblog each other a little bit for announcements but I'll try and keep that limited.

That's all, thank you for your attention, enjoy the rest of your dash!

[avoliot]

The space princes never looked so good.

(Edges artist is kathys_sprayed_edges on Insta!)