a pause to take it all in

updates, news, and an opportunity to win an ARC of Behind the Crimson Curtain!

May 18, 2024

Read to the end for a chance to snag an early copy of Behind the Crimson Curtain 👀

Lately, I have felt so profoundly present and unmoored at the same time. There’s something about first-drafting that feels viscerally immediate (one word after another) and very akin to my current season of parenting (one routine after another). I’m so in the moment—obsessing about a scene, a paragraph, a sentence; feeding, changing, playing with my daughter—that when I take a step back, I’m shocked.

Somehow, I’m at 45k in the draft of my sequel.

Somehow, B is already trying to crawl.

Somehow, it’s almost summer.

Somehow, I haven’t sent an author newsletter in months… 😂

In the last few years I’ve tried to shift my point-of-view from a lens of scarcity to one of abundance. I try to be present and intentional about how I spend my time because I don’t want to constantly look back and saying ‘where did time go’. But there’s something about raising a child that feels impossibly scarce. No matter how present I try to be, no matter how tightly I hold on to time, it still passes too fast.

There’s probably a lesson in here somewhere about priorities, reflection, etc. etc. but I’m too sleepy from waking at 4am yesterday to baby cries, and then staying up past my bedtime to see a live production of Chicago, to be philosophical this morning so I’ll let you take what you will.

For now, I’d love to use this newsletter as a way to step back and take it the big picture. Here’s all exciting news I’ve been squirreling away for weeks (months?)!

xo, E

Behind the Crimson curtain is complete

She’s done. After four years and countless revisions, this book is done. No more edits. No more passes. I’ve seen the final cover, the final maps, the final interior—all of it. She’s really, truly out of my hands—and she’ll be in yours on September 1st. If you haven’t preordered yet, you can do so here.

My audiobook is in production!

Getting early snippets of Behind the Crimson Curtain’s audiobook may have been my favorite moment in the WHOLE publishing process. I’m super picky about audiobooks. I need the right narrators or I struggle to get into the story. But the actors who are voicing Firin and Bregan are ones I have admired for years. They’ve voiced some of my favorite books of all time. When I heard them reading my book, I completely lost my mind. I cannot believe I’m so lucky. This audiobook is going to be an incredible experience.

If you haven’t preordered it yet, you can do so on Audible here. My plan for release day is to listen to as much of it as I can.

I can’t wait. I can’t wait. I can’t wait.

The first draft of the sequel is coming along

I’m an outliner and a rewriter. I thrive in the early stages of thinking through a book, and in the latter stages of rewriting, revising, and editing. First drafts are really hard for me, and I’ve never had to draft one on deadline before. This process has tested me as a writer in more ways than one, but the sequel to Behind the Crimson Curtain is coming out faster than I believed possible—which is a huge relief (and probably a sign that I need to give myself more credit for what I’m capable of). I’ve had to wade through persistent perfectionist voices to get to the page, but so far it’s working and I’m about 1/3rd of the way through my first draft. This sequel is going to be even more twisty, wild, and emotional than the first and even though the draft is rough, I can start to see the jewels buried beneath the stone. I just have to keep chipping away at it one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time.

If you’re interested in learning more about my day to day writing process, I’ve been sharing a lot of updates and insights over on Instagram. You can find me @ebgoldenbooks.

Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) came this week

It’s not the final cover design of Behind the Crimson Curtain, but it’s still so gorgeous. Holding words I wrote, in official book form, for the first time was such a wild experience. Years and years of learning, practicing, and revising and finally this dream is real. It’s honestly hard to process. I can’t thank my agent, Laura Dail, or my team at 47North enough for helping me bring this story to life. Peek at the next section if you want to try and get your hands on one!

Want to win an ARC of Behind the Crimson Curtain?

Since you’re all this book’s first and biggest fans, I want to thank you for being on this email list by offering you the opportunity to snag a physical ARC of Behind the Crimson Curtain. This particular giveaway is JUST for newsletter subscribers.

What’s Behind the Crimson Curtain about?

A magical con artist and an actor turned revolutionary fight for freedom in an atmospheric fantasy debut where layered secrets and daring love clash on a stage of war.

You can read the full book description here.

How to enter the giveaway:

All you have to do is enter your email into this form (Use the one you’re subscribed to this email newsletter with!).
I’ll choose a winner randomly on Friday, May 24th and reach out to them privately to get mailing information.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an Advanced Reader Copy. That means it is the copy edited but un-proofed version. The story as a whole is the same as the final but you’ll encounter a few errors and incomplete package design.

I’ll also be offering additional ARC giveaway opportunities soon on my Instagram, so if you don’t yet follow me @ebgoldenbooks, definitely do that now!

The Story Magic podcast came off hiatus

This spring life threw me and my editing business partner, Rachel May, a series of curveballs one after another. In an effort to live the anti-hustle principles we teach to our writing community and clients, we made an impromptu decision to pause production of our podcast Story Magic indefinitely—but this week the podcast came back online! The newest episode, Return from hiatus, is up and in it we talk about what we’ve been up to, why we went on hiatus, my drafting process, and Rachel’s recent release of her debut Blood in the Water.

If you haven’t checked Story Magic out, I not-so-humbly ask what have you been doing!? This podcast is gold. It’s so much fun to record and Rachel and I love getting deep and nerdy with each other and our guests about books, writing craft, and life as artists. You can listen on Apple podcasts here.

How I’ve been filling the well…

At the end of April my family moved out of our home and into an AirBnB while our kitchen gets rebuilt. Finally! The terrible, awful leak happened in November. The rental house is gorgeous, our kitchen is coming along great, and a few weeks into it we’re comfortable but definitely eager to be home. While at the AirBnB I decided to take a month off watching TV, so far I’ve achieved my goal—but Bridgerton just released, and I’d completely forgotten about it… so stay tuned to find out if I cheat! Drafting is consuming a lot of my time and energy, but I’ve still found pockets of time to refill my creativity.

I started trail running again. For the first time since September 2022 (since injury, pregnancy, and postpartum) I’ve gotten back into my trail running shoes for more than a periodic run. I’m not training for a race, but I’ve been training to get back into shape, showing up 5 days a week. It honestly feels a lot like writing a first draft: one day, I’m on top of the world, the next I’m collapsing… but like my slowly rising word count, I’ve seen my body start to incrementally adjust and improve. It’s hard. It’s slow. It’s humbling. It’s incredible. I feel so lucky my body is allowing me to do it at all.
I went to a play for the first time in months! Our local theater put on Chicago this week and I went to see it with a girlfriend and her daughter. It was an absolute blast—full of art, laughter, and connection—and reminded me why theater is such an important part of Behind the Crimson Curtain.
I binge read Chloe Gong’s duology These Violent Delights. I know, I know, I’m years behind with this one—but gosh I gobbled it right up. Roma and Juliette’s tumultuous love reminded me so much of Firin and Bregan, and the world of 1920s Shanghai was so, so fresh and fun. 10000% would recommend.
I drank up Rachel May’s Blood in the Water. I’ve never read a mafia romance, and I’m only a periodic reader of Why Choose romance, but this book delivered on every front. The mafia world is magnificent, the plotting is heart stopping, Leona is fierce, and her men are all so individual and well crafted. I cannot wait for book two. If you’re a Why Choose fan, definitely check this one out.
Getting out of the house. Hah, this might sound ridiculous, but my husband and I have always been pretty big homebodies when we’re not camping. These days though, there’s only so much time we can handle sitting on the floor playing blocks with Bailey (not that I don’t love her, or blocks, but whew!). Having her—and finally some nice weather—has pushed us to get out to little parks and festivals, on walks, over to our house to play with the cats, and out to local breweries. It’s so fun to see the world through her eyes, even the small things. Especially the small things.

That’s all for now.

Thanks for being here. Maybe next newsletter I’ll share another snippet from Behind the Crimson Curtain… we’ll have to see!