Welcome to the Ink & Ether September '26 Dispatch

What's been on my mind

I don't know about you but I am so ready for the -Ber months! This time of year is like the Super Bowl for booksellers. There's just something about the Fall and Winter season that feel like you should always be curled up with a good book. Maybe books and hibernation just go together.

I've been reading ARC's like nobodies business and there's a lot. So buckle up because the book releases over the next few months are a marathon, not a sprint.

Sidenote* it's my birthday month! That's right, Virgo crew where you at! So get it together and don't skim, read all the way through, preferably while taking notes.

What's new on the shelves

The hot Summer months brought a bit of a slow down for business so I'm sure there are plenty of new titles you haven't seen yet.

Flowers For The Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn - A Shirley Jackson Award winning novella. Set on a ship of survivors after the world has flooded, one woman carries a pregnancy that might not be entirely human, along with a rage that's been building long before the water rose. Gothic, visceral, and reads in a single sitting.

Buy from Ink & Ether | Buy from Bookshop.org

Assistant and The Villain Series by Hannah Nicole Maehrer - Evie takes a job as assistant to a genuinely evil villain, expecting paperwork and mayhem — she gets both, plus an entirely unplanned romance. Think Once Upon a Time meets The Office. Four books deep now with Adversary to the Villain, the newest installment, and it only gets more chaotic from here.

Buy it From Ink & Ether | Buy it From Bookshop.org

Verity Guild by Mai Corland - A Rome-inspired slow burn where a priestess hiding a dangerous secret and the investigator sworn to expose her end up snowed in with an actual murderer. Political, tense, and ends on a cliffhanger that will have you counting down to book two.

Buy it From Ink & Ether | Buy it From Bookshop.org

The Library at Hellebore by - A school for the dangerously magical, where graduation day doubles as feeding time. Dark academia if dark academia meant the faculty might actually eat you. Gory, sharp, and not for the faint of heart.

Buy it From Ink & Ether | Buy it From Bookshop.org

Witch Season by Julia Bianco - Magic that costs blood and pain to wield, an enforcer bound to the very coven she's sworn to police, and a rival determined to make her life so much harder. Dark, tense, and deeply atmospheric.

Buy it From Ink & Ether | Buy it From Bookshop.org

From the grimoire

Well you won't believe the card I pulled this month but I 100% did, I promise. This month's card pull is Death. Hand to heart, the Death card came up so let's get to it.

The Death card is probably the most misunderstood but that's what makes it fun. I see Death to represent the inevitable end of a cycle. That cycle might be easy or it might be messy, but be assured it will come to an end one way or another. There is no escaping death. But with the end of the old, comes the birth of something new. So we can read this as a transformation and letting go of an old version to make way for new possibilities.

Two titles that come to mind for this reading examine Death in different ways.

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

A girl who assumes the identity of her deceased brother and, in doing so, has to let every version of herself that came before quietly die. This is Death in its purest and most devastating form, not interrupted, not resisted, just fully accepted, because the fate on the other side of it is too enormous to turn away from.

Buy it From Ink & Ether | Buy it From Bookshop.org

She's a Doll by Barbara Truelove, out September 8th. Lucy McQuinn is murdered and refuses to accept it. She pours what's left of herself into an antique porcelain doll and goes looking for the man who killed her. This is Death interrupted. A transformation that was supposed to happen quietly instead gets redirected into rage, revenge, and eighteen inches of lacy, furious porcelain. Campy, sharp, and a genuinely fun read if you want your Death card with a little bite.

Buy it From Bookshop.org

There you go! Two very different takes on Death. One girl who refuses to let go. Another who let's go of everything.

The card poses the same question to you: what do you need to end so something new can begin?

Find Ink & Ether this month

Sep. 20th - Silent Reading Group at Communitea Coffee

Sep. 26th - Pop up at Rekindle Coffee

Oct. 2nd - Halloween Night Market at Communitea Coffee

Oct. 7th - Silent Reading Group at Communitea Coffee

Oct. 10-11 - Dragons and Dreams at Autry Museum

The Letter Corner

The Letter Corner is a hit! Thank you to everyone who has already stopped by and left a letter. We've seen letters come in from Singapore, England, and The Netherlands. We are definitely hoping for more Intro Letters to come in. Here's a quick recap of how things work:

1. Visit The Sunday Letter Project website and pick a shop participating in the Letter Keepers network.

2. Write your Introduction Letter and post it to the shop of your choosing. Be sure to include Ink & Ether in the return address.

3. Alternative option, you can find an Introduction Letter at Communitea Coffee to write to.

4. Take a picture of the letter and address, then go home and write.

Leaving the Intro Letters at the Letter Corner allows friends to find multiple penpals. The more the merrier right!

Need a writing suggestion? Why don't you share the best vacation you went on. Or share about something fun you did over the summer.

Before you go

If you made it this far, you have my gratitude! Hope Virgo season treats you well.

Friends,

I have been dying dying DYING to share this news with you!

Who is ready to get cozy?

Well, let me tell you about the book we just signed!!!

This information isn’t public yet, so please keep it here:

Meihan Boey's The Matchmaker of Club Street, a whimsigothic novel set in 1895 Singapore: an illustrious Chinese matchmaker has three days to find a new match for a British official's daughter to escape a betrothal to the wrong (very wrong) man, pitched as Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by way of T. Kingfisher, to Boozhoo Books at Bindery Books, by Amy Bishop-Wycisk at Trellis, for publication in spring 2028.

I fell in love with this genre-bending book that is filled with such a memorable cast of characters. It’s a little historical, fantasy, mystery, horror and even a hint of romance. It is the perfect book to cozy up with a nice cup of hot chocolate or tea. It’s delightful and a teensy gory and somehow it really works!

i cannot wait for you all to read this!!!

Hello my friends, and happy Trans Joy Thursday!

I started the day off grocery shopping, but in the midst of that, I had to pause for my weekly grief therapy session and my therapist said something that made me stop and re-collect myself: "Your relationship with your Memaw hasn't ended, it's just changed." And I thought that was just beautifully poetic, and absolutely true. I have struggled finding a balance of my emotions and how to honor her while not completely being destroyed on the inside by my sadness, and that one sentence just kind of made me have a lightbulb moment. Therapy may not be for everyone, but it is for me, and I appreciated that greatly, and wanted to share with all of you.

This week is also my short week of work, meaning I only work 3 days this week, with a 3 day weekend quickly approaching. (Can I get an "Amen"?!) Lots of meetings, though, lol. I say that because my short weeks mean date weekends with Alisha, and I look forward to those immensely. They're also days where I can rest, read, catch up on chores, yes, but do things at a much more leisurely pace.

Can we also discuss that while it may be 80+ degrees outside still, fall decor is EVERYWHERE, and I love it! Football just started back last night, and while I'm still finding my joy in my hobbies again and rediscovering what that looks like for me, I am so geeked as this is my favorite season. (Go Pack Go!)

In addition to these wonderful things, Aiden Thomas' Cemetery Boys: Espiritu released Tuesday, and I am very (im)patiently waiting for my signed/personalized copy to arrive like any time now. I ordered from Always Here Books in Portland, Oregon.

I'm also still chugging away at our Quarter 4 Bookclub pick, Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.

Speaking of books, our Beyond The Rainbow chat with Anita Kelly is TOMORROW Friday, September 11, form 6-7pm CST. I'll drop the zoom information at the end of this newsletter. You can also find it on our Discord server (free to join, always) in the appropriate channel and an event is created as a reminder, as well.

The biggest thing I'm thankful for right now? It's definitely space to grow and become. I think we, as a society as a whole, think once we become an adult, that's it.. we're done growing and maturing and learning.. and I don't think that's the case at all. I am super grateful to have been able to explore my gender identity and transness, name change, pronouns, gender affirming-care, all in my mid 30s. And we should never stop learning - I'm just thankful for that. That I have surrounded myself with likeminded people that also never stop learning and evolving - it's truly a beautiful thing!

I also wanted to shout out YOU. Thank YOU for being here, for being in community, and being part of my launch of Not A Phase Books. I hope to one day be an imprint of Bindery to publish even more beautiful trans stories we so desperately need and deserve. And I couldn't do that without you all here with me. So, thank you.

As a reminder, here is the graphic for tomorrow's Beyond The Rainbow chat with Anita Kelly:

I hopefully will see you all tomorrow night with Anita! (I will do my best to record the chat for those of you that cannot attend live for playback.) The zoom information will be posted below!

With all my trans joy,

Sawyer Cole

Sawyer Cole (They/Them) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Beyond The Rainbow with Anita Kelly
Time: Sep 11, 2026 06:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87806115120

Meeting chat link
https://us06web.zoom.us/launch/jc/87806115120

Meeting ID: 878 0611 5120

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