I love seeing stores and cafes that display and sell shitty local art. Everybody on the planet should be making shitty local art. Everyone in the community should get to see what shitty local art everyone else is making. Eventually you will find something and be like hold on. This weirdly speaks to me. I've never seen anything quite like this, whether because of this person's idiosyncratic style or strange choice of subject matter or what. And suddenly your favorite piece of art is a collage painting done by a woman who waits tables during the day and does roller derby at night and uses the excess flyers and paper menus from both places of work to make amateur art on the weekends and you realize this is such a bizarre combination of circumstances that has produced something so striking to you, how lucky you are to live in a world where this got to exist and you got to see it
Hello Tumblr, delighted to share with you (and simultaneously doxx myself with) the breathtaking UK and Commonwealth cover of my debut novel, Mirrorwoven, out July 2 2026 from Harper Fire! (North Americans, news coming soon 👀)
Art by the incredible @eliotbaum.
Mirrorwoven is a sapphic young adult fantasy in a Renaissance Venice-inspired setting, pitched as The Priory of the Orange Tree meets Gossip Girl. The blurb and further info below the cut:
You are cordially invited to the Dragon Masquerade…
Del has two rules. One: stay away from royalty. Two: don’t fall in love.
The first – because Del is secretly a runaway princess. After the death of her sister at the hand of her boyfriend, Del flees her family, home and all the responsibilities that come with being the queendom’s new heir. With a magically constructed mirrorwoven face, Del is now unrecognisable, and disappears to the faraway opaline lagoon-city of Salato.
The second rule – because the enchantment hiding Del’s identity can only be unravelled by true love’s kiss. But that’s just fine. Del’s had enough of love anyway.
When Del breaks Rule One and becomes court bard to the newly widowed First of Salato, she is resolved to keep her head down. But Clara is naïve and trusts too easily, and soon Del finds herself having to guide Clara through the shoals of court life, somehow without revealing her own secret.
As Del grows closer to both Clara and Nasca, Clara’s brilliant, dangerous sister-in-law, it will only take a push to bring Del’s house of cards tumbling down.
Like, for example, breaking Rule Two.
You can expect:
✨ A Renaissance Venice-inspired setting
✨ A sapphic love triangle
✨ A protagonist who is very good at music and very bad at everything else
✨ Court intrigue
✨ Mirror magic
✨ True love's kiss breaks the spell
✨ ...which must be avoided at all costs
✨ Angst, angst and more angst
✨ Two (2) good jokes
✨ One hundred and fifty-seven (157) bad ones
✨ That clip of Marie Kondo saying 'I love mess'; that's it, that's the whole book
Preorders are live for the UK and Europe from your preferred retailer; North America and ANZ watch this space. If you're interested in the book I would be extremely grateful if you preordered a copy or asked your library to buy it - preorders are really important for debut authors in particular as they signal to a publisher that readers are excited for the book, which can matter a lot for how the publisher chooses to allocate resources. (Waterstones and B&N both have preorder sales a few times a year with very nice discounts.) Alternatively you can add the book on Goodreads if you like, or follow me on Instagram @/sorrynotbori for book updates and cat pictures.
Those of you who were following along with my writing may remember that I initially reworked my fic A Fistful of Stars and tried for publication with it - this is obviously not that (it had structural issues that made it unsuitable for tradpub, which I do one day intend to see if I can fix) but a completely new story that's wholly mine from the ground up.*
I'm so excited to announce this book here. Fandom communities were my very first writing communities, and the encouragement and enthusiasm I received on my early ventures into writing via fanfiction are a big part of what gave me the confidence to pursue traditional publishing. Thank you so much to anyone reading this who ever left me a comment or a kudos or just silently read and enjoyed my fics - this book exists in large part because of you.
- B xx 🐸🌈✨
* eagle eyed TES readers however may spot the influence of a character or two 😏
man i also wishhhh beyond anything i still had my old blog so i could peruse all the stranger things posts there would have been on there. justice for barb!! this show was huge to me at 16 and still looms large in my heart at 26
personally i thought it so unlikely the duffer brothers were ever gonna stick the landing w/ stranger things, but lucky for me each individual season stands on its own, as its own discrete thing thing i can watch and enjoy and preserve through my viewing at that precise moment any time i wish. and even though i have many gripes with the writing this season, i would also be lying if i said i wasn’t emotionally affected by that ending. touched by both the inevitability and the singular weight of a bittersweet coming of age narrative. you too can have this power!
missed u. fun fact you once posted a photo in red lingerie and i think you redefined my sexuality forever. hope you're doing well!
hmm fairly sure i have never posted any photos in lingerie/you must be thinking of someone else, but thank you anyway lol. i am actually not doing very well at all but i’m trying to find a few interests and things to keep my mind off it as best i can, hence the return to tumblr
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