It was like telling everyone “I’m engaged!” and adding bride 2026💍 to my bio

& then getting dumped by my fiancé

On my ToHave&HaveMore tour last year I was instructed by the publisher to tease my 2nd book (Does This Make Me Look Rich?) and within a month of that directive, they collapsed in a heap of shame/disgrace/incompetence. And I felt like a moron for telling everyone about book2 and then having to backtrack (what a loser!) and clarify that I did not, in fact, have a second book coming out. Uh, no. That fell through. I just have the one ... self-published book. My hand to god [Christopher Moltisanti voice] I wouldn't even have a book1 if Tal didn't become an entire publisher unto himself and jaws-of-life th&hm from the raging inferno of how tf did this happen. (Long live srg press.)

So back to losing face.

All of my shame-based asian upbringing kicked in full force bc disappointment (I want to say 'devastation' but that sounds melodramatic and then I have to check my privilege and be like, "well I'm very lucky that this is the worst thing happening in my life" blah blah blah) was compounded by embarrassment ------ even though all of this wreckage was out of my control!!! (I'm still paying for their fuck-ups in this new deal but I have to save that story for later.)

My second book is official (again)

As of 2/12 I have a new deal for Does This Make Me Look Rich? -- and status symbol of status symbols, it's with a Big 5 press. If that doesn't mean anything to you let me put it this way: it's an ivy league publisher. No more no-name, tEcH-aDjAcEnT, move-fast-and-self-implode BS for this bestselling author (never forget that I'm a bestselling author). I'm chockfull of hubris today- watch this 2nd deal self-destruct also🥰

This big5 deal is the pure uncut external validation that I was jonesing for. I can't afford a designer bag so the next best thing to sate my status-seeking is a book deal with a namebrand publisher.

I'm eking every drop of vanity out of this milestone because it's an impersonal pat on the back from the institutions that be but I know--I'm wiser now--that this does not in any way indicate career progress. Big5 books get released every day to crickets. Pretty much every book flops and every author is dismayed.

My koan of the day: Career progress only comes from TikTok followers and reels going viral (I'm like 30% joking).

Here's what I learned from my first rodeo- trust no publisher. Not bc they're malicious but bc they're deeply&truly indifferent even if they claim to love LoVe yOuR bOoK. Authors aren't cogs in a machine - because cogs are considered important and valued for their function. We are more like cattle--expendable and replaceable and if they could find a way to do it without us (AI will make this possible), they would in a heartbeat. Unless you're compensated generously for your art, don't believe that they care about it. Money is the only love language in publishing and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is scheming to exploit you.

If it sounds like I'm not exactly thrilled- excellent reading comprehension. I had to fight tooth&nail to just get back to where I was two years ago: with a second book lined up. Let's revisit the dumped-by-fiancé metaphor: he dumped me but now he's saying, actually, he does want to get married. Thank you? The amount of time and energy I've spent to stay in one place -- I could be a doctor 3 times over by now (and rich to boot). Instead, I'm writing this post to announce "a book that was supposed to be a done deal is now shunted to a second publisher" with the intention of short-form-content-ifying this post into a carousel for IG because the only way I can have a career that resembles author is if I assiduously content-create.

My new agent and my new editor found me on socials. Book2 is a lovechild of TikTok and my mini mic.

You can bet I am worshipping at the altar of my on-camera persona every night. I am making HUGE donations to Meta daily in the valuable, valuable currency of hours of my one-wild-and-precious life. The only reason book2 survived is thanks to my brainrot output so the only logical response is to keep making it🤪 [I looked up 'deranged emoji' but apparently this expression is 'goofy'.]

Hey loves!

We are starting a series called Flaunt It Friday. A day where I shout out and spotlight author and upcoming releases that I am looking forward to!

We are starting out with one of my FAVORITE authors, Kimberly Lemming.

If you found yourself on Booktok around 2021 like I did, you were also served an influx of books and genres, probably ones that you have never encountered before. While monster romance was not out of my comfort zone, I had only dipped my toes into vampire and shifter romances, aka romances where it was centered around the more human attributes and the fact that they were a monster was second nature. I also never saw books that were unabashedly black female center within Monster romances and romance as a whole. When I was served one fine morning a video of a content creator who was talking about this book (that would soon become my whole personality) I did not know that my life would change.

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved A Demon.

What in the world was this title? The art was also cartoonish in a way that felt fun and lighthearted, and the promise of spice, all of those factors had me saving that video to add it to my TBR pile. Then one book became two. Two became getting an arc for the third, and it all culminated into me crafting a space that is just Kimberly Lemming dedicated.

Kimberly has a way of bringing characters to life that feel so real. Like I could walk down the road and encounter Brie or Cinn and hang out. They are relatable in a way that feeds to the soft/badass black girl experience, one that seems to be lacking in the publishing world. All crafted in a world that, while purely fantasy, the humor and the romance certainly feel real.

So, I hope I can persuade you to read any and all the books by Kimberly Lemming. I for one am also excited for the next release in her Cosmic Chaos series "I Punched an Alien and Now We're in Couples Therapy" set to be release in August of this year! By the title alone, I think this one is also going right to the Kimberly shrine.

I adore these titles so much!

What a beautiful Anthology, filled with collections of stories from Palestinians that have been experiencing Genocide and sharing their experience. It is stories that will break your heart. It shows how different people are experiencing the same Genocide, how varied their experiences are. It shows Palestinians resilience against the oppression and how some of them are holding on to the things that they love, like Coffee.

In the very beginning, Susan Abulhawa writes an introduction of each of the writers, what she encountered of their will and what made them write their story. I enjoyed reading the introduction to every author before starting their story in English and Arabic.

This Anthology is bilingual, with both Arabic and the translated version in English included and I enjoyed reading both of them, comparing the language and the way it was translated. It was interesting to see the choices of the words, how the message conveyed can be achieved in so many different ways.

I think this is a story that everyone should read, hear the words from different people who experienced the genocide first handed and how it changed their lives. Thank you to Susan Abulhawa and the entire team that made this anthology possible. Thank you for carrying the words and stories of Palestinians in the ground, for sharing their words with us and thank you for letting me read an eArc through Netgalley.

As part of my Reading the World project, I'm going to start dedicating a post to every single country (and some territories) in the world in order to share book recommendations with you from that place. This way you can easily diversify your reading and travel the world.

I'm going to go in alphabetical order, so my first country is: Afghanistan (which is very fitting because The Kite Runner is what opened my eyes to global literature when I was a teenager).

Here are some book recommendations, by genre for Afghanistan:

Non-fiction

• "The Finest Hotel in Kabul" by Lyse Doucet (currently on the longlist for the Women's Prize in Non-fiction!)
  Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan.

• "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll
  The news-breaking book that has sent shockwaves through the Bush White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeda's evolution. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.

• "The Snow Leopard Project" by Alex Dehgan
  The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlife-and a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.

• "The Naked Don't Fear the Water" by Matthieu Aikins
  An acclaimed young war reporter chronicles a dangerous journey on the smuggler's road to Europe, accompanying his friend, an Afghan refugee, in search of a better future.

• "To Lose a War" by Jon Lee Anderson
  Essential reporting from Afghanistan from before 9/11 to the return of the Taliban to power in 2021

Essays

• "The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold" by Tariq Ali

  The occupation of Afghanistan is over, and a balance sheet can be drawn. These essays on war and peace in the region reveal Tariq Ali at his sharpest and most prescient.

Fiction

• "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
  1970s Afghanistan: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what would happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives.

• "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
  A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

• "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell" by Nadia Hashimi

  In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age.
  
  
  🗺️If you want to see more book recommendations from all the countries in the world, check out my Reading the World Spreadsheet.
  
  And if you want to support this project, consider becoming a paid member of my Bindery!
  
  
  
  

"I've always seen you in my future. That every time I imagine what's to come, it's you I see. If soulmates are real, you must be mine."

GENRE: Romance
RATING: 4.75/5
FORMAT: eBook Arc
Tropes: Childhood Best Friends to Lovers, Fake Wedding, Everyone knows but them

Overall Impression: There is something about friends to lovers that always gets my heart and this was no exception🥺

Review:
The Score was filled with yearning, one that has built over the years between Pen and Bear. It focuses on this push between wanting to preserve the friendship or taking the risks and discovering their feelings and entering a relationship. I was rooting for both Pen and Bear, who both had my heart from the start of the book to the end of it.

I love friends to lovers, whether it starts as adults or it's a childhood friendship to lovers and I think The Score brought a lot of depth into this trope by exploring the fear and how shifting from one to the other will change their relationship. This is done throughout the story in the best of ways and in a way that just makes both Pen and Bear think about themselves and allows them to grow (as a person and together, as they start to accept their feelings for each other)

AND THE YEARNING!!! The way Bear just yearned, oh my god. Like you could tell this is very much "everyone knows but them" because it is so obviously Bear yearns for Pen and Pen loves Bear but doesn't let herself show it AND YOU JUST WANT TO YELL AT THEM TO GET TOGETHER (in the nicest of ways obviously)

Essentially, this is a story of accepting risks and embracing who you are so that you can accept what you deserve. Pen struggles with this because she had a lot of bad experience that caused her to give up on love and honestly? I see why and I'm just glad she had Bear to help and support her. The entire story of getting to meet her family, seeing them accept Bear and going through the journey of Pen's dad and his health scare was emotional and wholesome. It showed that Pen and Bear had their own community and family (in Bear's case, it's Pen's family that are were always there as well)

I am so excited to read more of Leonor Soliz's work and I cant wait to read about the friend groups we met in this book as I just started here with The Score and I definitely cannot wait for more!

Thank you to the Author and Netgalley for the Arc copy! 

Ever wonder if your favorite authors were secretly in a group chat? While they didn’t have Slack, the history of literature is full of strange coincidences, unexpected friendships, and bets that changed the course of books forever.

Here are five hidden literary connections that will make you look like the smartest person at your next book club.

1. Dr. Seuss and the 50-Word Bet

We all know Green Eggs and Ham, but it wasn’t born out of a simple burst of creativity. It was the result of a high-stakes dare. Bennett Cerf, the founder of Random House, bet Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) $50 that he couldn't write a book using 50 or fewer distinct words.

Seuss won the bet, using exactly 50 words to create a masterpiece. Interestingly, Cerf never actually paid up, but the book went on to sell millions, so Seuss got the last laugh.

2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vacation

In the summer of 1816 the "Year Without a Summer", a group of literary icons stayed at Villa Diodati in Switzerland. The guest list was wild: Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Because the weather was too gloomy to go outside, Byron proposed a ghost story contest. This single rainy vacation gave birth to:

• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the first true sci-fi novel.

• John Polidori’s The Vampyre which influenced Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

3. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Tree

The creators of Narnia and Middle-earth weren’t just contemporaries; they were best friends. They were part of an informal writing group at Oxford called The Inklings.

Tolkien actually credits Lewis with being the only reason The Lord of the Rings was ever finished. Lewis was his first audience and constantly pushed him to keep writing when Tolkien got bogged down in elvish linguistics. Without Lewis's nagging, we might never have left the Shire.

4. The James Bond / Roald Dahl Link

You know Roald Dahl for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but did you know he was a spy? During WWII, Dahl worked for the British Intelligence service alongside Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond.

Dahl’s life was so much like a Bond film that he eventually wrote the screenplay for the Bond movie You Only Live Twice. He even invented the child-snatching Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the book for which was also written by Fleming.

5. Alice in Wonderland’s Medical Legacy

Lewis Carroll, Charles Dodgson suffered from severe migraines that caused him to see objects as much larger or smaller than they actually were. This neurological phenomenon is now officially known in the medical world as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome AIWS.

Scholars believe Carroll used his own terrifying sensory distortions as the inspiration for Alice growing and shrinking in the Rabbit Hole.

❓️Which of these facts surprised you the most? Let me know in the comments if you knew about the Dahl/Bond connection that one always blows my mind!

Our first seasonal readathon of 2026 will be next weekend! If you’re new, I implemented weekend seasonal readathons back in October 2025 and will continue into 2026. This is a four day readathon meant to foster community and read! 

Join us in Discord, we'll be in the channel #seasonal-readathons chatting about our TBRs/hopefuls, reading progress, and sharing our reading fuel (snacks & beverages) throughout the weekend.

When? Friday, February 20th to Monday, February 24th (In your time zone: Starts at midnight, ends 11:59pm on Monday, Feb 24th)

Just a reminder: This is a laid-back readathon. Read as much or as little as you want. Reading one book means "completing" the readathon. Feel free to use the bingo card I’ve created or mood read. My only rule is that you’re reading books with queer rep 🏳️‍🌈 or by BIPOC authors throughout the weekend.

If you need some motivation, I’ll be hosting LIVE reading sprints for free and paid members on Saturday, February 21st 2026. These will also act as our monthly book club sprints. You can read your book club pick OR any book you’re reading for the readathon. (LINK TO COME)

In Discord, you can RSVP at the top of the server under “Events.”

I can’t wait to read with everyone! 📚

CLICK HERE to access the bingo card. 

CLICK HERE to access the reading tracker via Canva. 

Bingo Card Prompts

Read a book you borrowed 

Read a book with snow on the cover

Read a book that features a winter sport

Read a book that starts with “W” 

Attend reading sprints

Read a book in your favorite genre 

Read a book published in February

Read a book by a Black author 

Read a book under 200 pgs

Read a new release 

Read a graphic novel, manga, or comic

Read a romance book 

Drink a hot beverage 

Read a cozy book 

Have a seasonal treat 

Write a book review 

Until the Clock Strikes Midnight was the perfect cozy book to read for some much-needed escapism.

Darling is a talented fairy who yearns to help humans find their happily ever after as a Guardian. She gets a chance to win a Mortal Outcome Council mentorship, but it turns out that she has competition.

Calamity aka Calam is a talented Misfortune, an immortal who saves humans from unhappily ever after by guiding them into contentedness. This mentorship is his ticket to getting away from his father who has never been a loving presence in his life. Darling and Calam must choose to compete or collaborate in order to help Lucy, a young bookshop owner, turn away from her projected unhappily ever after.

My short (spoiler free) review

There are so many things I loved about this story! Lucy was a sweetheart and her struggles with her mental illness (bipolar disorder) felt very relatable. Despite that, she seeks joy through connection and recognizes that lasting change requires stability in the community in order to positively affect the people within it. I also loved her chemistry with Calam and his willingness to open up.

This story is a testament to radical empathy! I really enjoyed this story and hope more people pick it up.

My full review (spoilers included)

As with other books I've read by Alechia Dow, the world-building and organic conversations make it easy to melt into Until the Clock Strikes Midnight.

Despite the escapism, there were many painful moments throughout this book that made me feel seen. Darling is an outsider, or feels like one, in every space she occupies. Her community in Whimsia can't understand why she'd want to leave and become a guardian alongside celestials. Celestials think fairies like Darling are unhinged, frivolous, and not to be taken seriously. She's been told that she's "too much" and that paired with other negative self-talk drags her down from time to time, but she refuses to stop sparkling. Now, unknowingly set up to fail by the celestials, Darling is tasked with saving Lucy from an unhappily ever after in the Kingdom of Lumina, a place unknown to her. They all thought she would crumble but she built foundations, instead.

She's been told that she's "too much" and that paired with other negative self-talk drags her down from time to time, but she refuses to stop sparkling.

I'm not a fairy, but I have struggled with similar issues all my life. Growing up, I revealed my true giggly, loving, and intensely nerdy self to folks and realized that many people judged me for that. I closed myself off when I went to college in a new state, but my severe anxiety and moderate depression convinced me that everything I said or did was "too much" or embarrassing and the people around me were just being nice to me because they felt sorry for me. I recognized Darling's spiraling thoughts as my own and, as I read, the compassion I felt for Darling started to hit me. She deserved compassion and love and so do I.

A part of me wants to follow my dreams, dress is bright colors, and break out in song every time the urge hits me while another part of me doesn't want "to be perceived."

Calam also felt relatable to the part of me that craves the comfort I feel from organization, control, and predictability. A part of me wants to follow my dreams, dress is bright colors, and break out in song every time the urge hits me while another part of me doesn't want "to be perceived." That part of me argues for having a stable job, not rocking the boat too much, and accepting my circumstances. Like Calam comes to realize throughout the book, some things are worth taking a risk for and boat-rocking is sometimes needed in order to make real and lasting change.

It seems like a lot of people are under the assumption that teen/young adult books aren't valuable to adults in the same way that novels and non-fiction aimed for our demographic is. Obviously, I strongly disagree. Until the Clock Strikes Midnight, and many other books like it, give us the opportunity to heal our inner child and find comfort in an increasingly hostile world. I felt a warm appreciation for my body, my hair, and style thanks to Dow's descriptions of Darling and her confidence. Reading about people loving on us, can be life-saving.

Until the Clock Strikes Midnight, and many other books like it, give us the opportunity to heal our inner child and find comfort in an increasingly hostile world.

The ways that Darling positively affected everyone around her and emphasized the importance of hope for the community in Lumina was inspiring. She tried her hardest to find connections between everyone and still knew that making life worth living required an even playing field with supports in place.

Yes, this is a Fantasy book inspired by Fairytales, but it is also book for inspiring radical empathy, organizing, love, and so much more. It's queer normative and inclusive. It's sweet and thoughtful.

I hope you'll pick it up at your local library or bookstore.

If you'd like me to get a monetary benefit from your purchase, click here: https://bookshop.org/lists/books-that-make-me-feel-loved

This playlist I found on Spotify has been on repeat as I've been working on Project Crownless! It fits the vibe of this story perfectly.