Hey! May was a pretty exciting month. I mean, generally, all of my months are pretty exciting. I’m lucky. But as we roll closer and closer to The Wild Fall’s release, the excitement builds and builds. And June… June is going to be a HELL of a month. Read on to know more….

Review copies of The Wild Dark and The Wild Fall have been making their ways around to various lovely people throughout the US (and beyond!). I’ve received some lovely early reviews for TWF and a lot of love for TWD. It’s awesome to see something I spent blood, sweat, and (so, so many) tears on finally getting the reach that I’d hoped for.

In May, I started up a “street team” for The Wild Oblivion series for two reasons. One: I wanted a place where fans of the books could go to meet up and chat about the things they really enjoyed from them and two: so that anyone who wanted to help out with promoting future books in the series could give me a hand! A lot of the reason that horror books become successful is through word of mouth and it becomes so important when you recognize your readers and reviewers for the incredible power they have. (I also happen to have some wonderful readers and friends (again, I’m lucky).

If you have any interest in joining the Street Team, pop over here and apply to join! Not only will we talk about the books, we’ll talk about cats, coffee, horror books, films, video games, etc. Come hang out!

I received some lovely advanced praise from author, Zach Rosenberg which had me pretty stupefied. Zach is an incredibly talented author and friend. His debut novel, Hungers As Old As This Land, came out this past month. (If you love horror westerns, it may be up your alley.)

I had an incredible reading month and actually finished THREE books. Those of you who know me know that I’m slow when I read. Sometimes it can take me months to finish something (mostly because of trying to find time to relax). May gifted me some gorgeous reads: The Lies We Weave by Grace R. Reynolds, A Blackness Absolute by Caitlin Marceau, and Devil’s Creek by Todd Keisling. Each one is linked to its respective Goodreads page if you’re interested in checking them out for yourselves (and seeing my review of each).

With May also came the unexpected death of a friend, a friend whom I worked with for a long time at my day job. Paul was always supportive of my love of writing as he had also been a writer and a lover of literature. He looked out for me when I started at my day job just out of high school and was, in essence, a secondary father-figure in my life for the longest time.

Shortly after his death, I felt inspired to work on a sequel to my novella, HALLOWED OBLIVION, that would entreat readers to more of Hank and Castle and be a fitting end to their story prior to THE WILD DARK. Dedicated to Paul’s memory, LOST OBLIVION will hopefully be done in time for HALLOWED OBLIVION’s and THE WILD DARK’s book-aversary on October 12th.

For those who pre-ordered The Wild Dark Special Edition Hardcover, June is an extremely special month. I’m finalizing the interior of the book and should hopefully have pre-ordered copies in hand in a few weeks. This edition comes with a gorgeous new jacketed cover with a new design, a new layout inside, the additional short story sequel, ORCHARDS, cocktail recipes, playlists, and deleted scenes. I’m so excited to see these when they are finally printed.

If you missed the chance to pre-order but still want one, you can still order via my website (though the price has increased). Find them here.

I mentioned cocktails above. I’ve been mixing and taking photos for each cocktail over the last week and my goodness, are they tasty. Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll find in the Middlehitch cocktail. If you’re an amateur mixologist yourself (and a fan of horror), consider picking up a limited edition hardcover…

We’re rocketing toward the finale of recording THE WILD DARK audiobook. Lisa Roumain, my producer and narrator, has done such a phenomenal job with this beast of a book. I was in tears a couple weeks ago listening to her narration of chapter 22. I absolutely can’t wait for people to listen to her when this comes out (in July!). I’ve got chapters 27 and 28 to listen to today and I cannot tell you how excited I am.

I’ll be putting together more paid exclusive content for my Substack, including a new Cooking Adventure, more Inspiration Through Music posts, and some handy tips about owning and operating a small press. I’ll also hopefully be recording my first podcast episode all about being inspired to write horror by non-horror things. Episode one will likely be free because I like giving people a sneak peek at the material they’ll see before they invest in a paid subscription. If you’re interested in seeing Inspiration Through Music or Cooking Adventures, I already have those first two posts up on my Substack free to view.

Free subscribers will continue to see all of my update posts, notes, sale reminders, and reviews.

THE WILD FALL is currently up for pre-order! If you pre-order before July, you’ll get an extra short story told from Astor’s POV. Send proof of purchase to [email protected]!

For those of you who have read THE WILD DARK, you know Astor is someone with a checkered past who may not be one to mess with. What does he have to do with The Wild Fall? Wouldn’t you like to know!?

I’ll be recording with the Inebriart Podcast and with Voices From The Mausoleum this month and I’m super excited about both of those! Keep an eye on my socials for when those air.

That’s all I have for news at the moment. Thanks for tuning in and following the adventures. Hope to update you all soon with more surprises and fun things!

~Kat